NANNY 411:
Make The Right Call
Jean Chatzky Monday, July 23rd 2007 © NY Daily News All Rights Reserved

Relationships are always complicated, but the one between parents and a nanny can be stickier than most.

With reality shows like "Nanny 911" and "Supernanny" on TV, "Mary Poppins" on Broadway and "The Nanny Diaries" movie due out this fall, nannies have never been more in the spotlight.

In the real world, the profession is getting a push from the fact that so many parents need to work or want to work after having kids. Nannies aren't just for the well-to-do.

"This is increasingly a middle-class choice, because so many women are in families that require two incomes," said Lucy Kaylin, author of the new book, "The Perfect Stranger: The Truth About Mothers and Nannies."

"For many people, this is simply a more reasonable solution than day care," Kaylin said. As a working mother myself, I know first-hand how hard it is to leave your kids in the hands of a veritable stranger. The list of qualities you want in a nanny is already a mile long, and when you add in feelings of jealousy and guilt it's hard not to succumb to all-out nitpicking.

But the truth is this:
Julie Andrews is not going to show up at your door.

Here's what you should keep in mind when hiring a nanny:

Set your priorities
Before you start the interview process, you have to know what you're looking for. List the duties of the job, the hours and how much you can afford to pay (the norm is $10 to $15 an hour). Keep in mind that their first responsibility is your child, so you don't want to distract them with other chores. Next, take some time to jot down qualities you'd like to see in a candidate to narrow the pool. Experience, flexibility and a calm demeanor all come to mind.

Ask around
The best way to find top-notch service, whether it's a nanny or a dentist, is word of mouth. Try co-workers. Some will be able to recommend one or, at the least, a referral service, said Pat Cascio of the International Nanny Association. If you use a service, check it out it with the Better Business Bureau. A good one will supply references, a background check and employment history.

The interviews
A couple of tips from Cascio: Have candidates name several different activities they'd suggest for your child, and ask how they feel about your parenting philosophies. A good nanny's answers will be age specific where applicable, and will indicate a desire to follow your guidelines. Instinct will tell you when you've found the right one. A good plan is to hire on a trial basis for the first few weeks.

Lose the guilt
It may take a bit of time to adjust, but eventually you've got to come to terms with your decision to return to work. If you let it get to you, you'll be miserable, and you'll probably make the nanny and your kids unhappy, too. "At a certain point, you have to accept that you're not there and you've hired someone else to be there. That's when you can move forward," Kaylin said.

Don't micromanage
If you look for mistakes by your new nanny, you'll find them. As a parent, you might even make the same ones. I'm not a fan of nanny cams or other snooping devices. Instead, drop by from time to time.

If you've chosen well, you shouldn't have to leave a million lists or require a daily log of every feeding and diaper change. ---

With Arielle McGowen
Jean Chatzky is the author of the best-selling book, "Make Money, Not Excuses." She hosts a daily show on "Oprah & Friends" on XM Radio and writes columns at oprah.com/jean. She also is the financial editor of NBC's "Today" show.'

THE CARE & FEEDING OF YOUR NANNY
[anonymous]

A nanny is NOT a housekeeper. These ads posted for a nanny/housekeeper are ridiculous! It's like hiring a nurse/gardener! Would you ask your landscaper to reorganize your garage? If so, that's ridiculous! He may use tools that you keep there, but his skill set and work is not related to organizing a garage. Similarly, just because a nanny works in the house all day does not mean she should be cleaning it. I realize some people want to limit the amount of "outsiders" in the house, and while that is understandable, it's ridiculous to ask your nanny to clean the house.

Many of you want someone educated that can help develop your child's mind. You'd like someone cultured that can encourage your child(ren) to explore what New York has to offer and who can teach them proper etiquette. You'd like this person to help your child with homework and school projects. Often these people are college educated. You're hiring people with Bachelor's and Master's degrees, often people with educations not far off from yours (maybe they didn't go to an Ivy League School because they didn't come from advantage, but they are well educated, nonetheless). It is an insult to ask these people to scrub your toilet. I don't care if you add $10,000 to the yearly salary. It's ridiculous.

I am a parent who has a wonderful relationship with the nanny who has been with our family for four years now. Before her, we went through several nannies. I believe we made mistakes in our search before, and I want to share our knowledge with parents I believe are making similar mistakes. Everyone should be as lucky as we are with Eva, our nanny.

What I Learned (the hard way)...

1. Separate the cleaning from the caring
Hire someone to come in two or three times a week to clean. It's not expensive. I see parents offering 50K to their nannies. Take 7K out, and you can pay a terrific housekeeper to come in a few times per week. Most good nannies won't mind tidying (putting dishes in the sink or dishwasher, picking up after the kids - teaching them to pick up after themselves - and leaving a room generally neat after using it.

However, you're better off paying someone to clean floors, windows, blinds, curtains, do laundry, vacuum, dust, and clean the kitchens and bathrooms. Your nanny will be able to focus on the childcare.

We ask Eva to do general tidying (as mentioned above). We also ask her to do the grocery shopping and run household related errands. Trust me, she has PLENTY to do while the kids are in school. She grocery shops, goes to the tailor, the shoemaker, the drugstore, the library, the dry cleaner's, etc. She also cooks on nights when my husband and I work late. (We don't ask for gourmet meals, just healthy, tasty ones.) She uses the time while the kids are at school to prepare the meals, so that when dinnertime comes, only the actual cooking needs to be done. (Thus, she can focus more on the kids and less on cooking.)

Some days she has free time while the kids are at school. This is not horrible, and I don't feel cheated. She works very hard and makes our lives a lot less stressful, so I'm content. Eva works 10- 14 hour days, so I think it's good for her to have some down time. If she ends up with three free hours, what does that mean? She only worked 7- 11 hours that day? I certainly do not feel cheated.

2. Hire someone with a college education who speaks fluent English
Before Eva, we had several people, and I noticed my children's speech and vocabulary getting worse and worse. I wasn't thrilled with the fact that when I couldn't be home to do their homework with them, they went into school with tons of mistakes on it. Eva sits with them and when they get something wrong, she explains why it is incorrect and guides them towards the right answer, never telling outright. My children do very well in all of their subjects. She helps them brainstorm to come up with interesting and exciting science and social studies projects. She reads to them in a great variety of voices and accents. Even though my third grader reads on a sixth grade level, he loves listening to her stories! We have a twelve year old, and Eva keeps a good eye on her. She tells us the "real scoop" on which boys our daughter is interested in, which kids move "too fast," etc. Because she's young, the kids don't put their guard up as much around her, and she sees and hears a lot more than most parents!

3. Make sure you pay her enough so that she can live nearby
Choose a nanny who CAN stay over with notice if you need her to, but is live out.

After a string of nannies arriving late (not always their fault, sometimes the MTA IS unreliable), and being exhausted from the commute, we tried a live in situation. My husband and I missed the privacy. There are advantages to both live in and live out. So, we set up a space where a nanny could stay over if she needed to. Then, we looked at what rents were within a half hour commute of our house. We figured out the cost of living out within a half hour of our house, and based our nanny's salary on that.

Suddenly, the quality of applicants improved drastically. Eva is a certified teacher. It just makes more sense for her to work as a nanny. Friends of ours saw how well our situation was working out, and they bought a studio twenty minutes away for their nanny. They subtracted 15K- 20K from their original salary offer. They have a great nanny too. Their nanny has a degree from Wellesley, and is very sweet.

The point is, our nannies live close. They stay over if it's needed, but they have their own private space to have guests and alone time, and we have our space to have quiet life as a family (or on rare occasions when all the kids are out, as a couple). Everyone is much happier, and there's no underlying resentment on anyone's part.

4. Treat your nanny as family
You want your nanny to treat your kids as if they were her own (or better), so treat her like family. We offer Eva the opportunity to come on some family outings and trips (not all). We give her proper paid vacation time. She gets medical and dental benefits. She gets a cost of living increase (so that in [one year] she won't be making less than she was in [the previos year], which would be the case if we paid her the same amount). We offer her investment advice (she'd like to buy a home in a few years).

But the thing that's made the MOST difference is accepting that she is a person with a life. My sister-in-law first gave me the idea. She said that she noticed she had less trouble getting Saturday night sitters when she said they could bring a friend over. I have gotten heat from people for saying this before. I realize that I don't know who Eva is bringing into my house. But I trust her judgment. Otherwise I wouldn't leave her with my children. So, occasionally (not frequently), she'll have a friend over for a tea in the afternoon. We've made it okay for her boyfriend to stop by briefly. When her sister was in town, she would stop by the house in-between sightseeing. As a result, Eva is in no rush to leave our house at the end of the day. She doesn't feel trapped.

The idea is, make the workplace a social, happy place, and productivity improves.

5. Don't be jealous of your nanny.
This is the toughest piece of advice. I sometimes am envious of all the time Eva spends with my kids.

But because of her, I don't stress when there's traffic. I know she'll be there when I get home. I don't have to deal with details like whether my blazer will be dry cleaned for tomorrow's meeting. It always will. I don't have to worry if my daughter is off somewhere doing who knows what in someone's basement. Eva keeps tabs on her. When my husband and I come home, we spend quality time with our kids. We don't deal with the stressful details of daily life that we used to deal with. We talk and play and relax together.

Yes, it costs us a lot more than it used to cost us. There are even some things we couldn't do because we have Eva. But our lives are so much better because of her.