minoanmiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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agonyaunt2019-12-12 02:04 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2019-12-12 02:04 pm
Dear Prudence: Nanny Share Language Battle
: My best friend’s child care arrangements fell through a few months ago. We live in an area where it can be very hard to get child care, even if you can afford to pay a lot. My oldest child has now entered school and is only with our nanny for two hours before I get home. My friend has been dropping off her daughter at my house, and we have been doing a nanny-share until she finds other arrangements. My friend pays a small premium to my nanny, but she does not defray any costs my husband or I are paying for our live-in help. Our nanny has been instructed to only speak her native Spanish language to our children. My first language was Spanish, and it is very important to me that my children be fluent in the language. My friend, despite her best efforts, has not found suitable arrangements for her daughter yet after three months. She also just found out that her daughter is slightly behind where she should be verbally. She thinks this might be because she is being spoken to in a foreign language during the day and has asked if we could allow our nanny to speak English until she has found alternate arrangements. I said no, and she is really angry. Part of it seems pointless anyway because my husband says our nanny’s English is poor to begin with (I always speak to her in Spanish so I don’t know). I understand my friend is struggling, but I am not sure I want to compromise. I pay my nanny well above minimum wage in addition to providing free accommodation and meals. I want the service I am paying for and that is the language immersion for my children. I also don’t want to burden my nanny with a language that is unfamiliar to her—she does such a great job helping our family and raising my children. My friend says I am being heartless to her child’s needs. Am I?
A: I don’t think you are being heartless, and I don’t think there are any children who are suffering or not getting their needs met in this arrangement. Many young children are “slightly behind” in their verbal development; it’s no reason to panic, and it’s certainly not the result of hearing Spanish a few hours a day. This little girl presumably hears English at home and from most of the other people in her life. I think your friend is experiencing a great deal of stress and ambiguity due to her inability to secure child care and is overreacting to a very slight developmental bump in the road. There’s very little she feels like she can control at present, so she wants to dictate what language your nanny speaks, which is unreasonable. If it were just a matter of “getting the service [you are] paying for,” however, I might advise you to compromise in the short-term; however, since this nanny is fluent in Spanish, the language she was hired to speak to your children, and struggles with English, I think it would be unfair of you to suddenly change the terms of her employment. Your friend’s daughter is not in any danger. Hearing Spanish on a daily basis is not causing her developmental delay, and you were clear about the nature of your child care arrangements when you offered to share them with your friend three months ago; you should not ask your nanny to start speaking English now.
A: I don’t think you are being heartless, and I don’t think there are any children who are suffering or not getting their needs met in this arrangement. Many young children are “slightly behind” in their verbal development; it’s no reason to panic, and it’s certainly not the result of hearing Spanish a few hours a day. This little girl presumably hears English at home and from most of the other people in her life. I think your friend is experiencing a great deal of stress and ambiguity due to her inability to secure child care and is overreacting to a very slight developmental bump in the road. There’s very little she feels like she can control at present, so she wants to dictate what language your nanny speaks, which is unreasonable. If it were just a matter of “getting the service [you are] paying for,” however, I might advise you to compromise in the short-term; however, since this nanny is fluent in Spanish, the language she was hired to speak to your children, and struggles with English, I think it would be unfair of you to suddenly change the terms of her employment. Your friend’s daughter is not in any danger. Hearing Spanish on a daily basis is not causing her developmental delay, and you were clear about the nature of your child care arrangements when you offered to share them with your friend three months ago; you should not ask your nanny to start speaking English now.
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