May 4, 2007

Parenting is a nanny-splendored thing

By Malcolm Fleschner / Humor Columnist

I admit that I get a little steamed over the immigration issue, particularly whenever someone says that illegal immigrants are only flooding into the United States because they're willing to do the jobs that Americans don't want to do.

"Oh yeah?" I often angrily shout in response. "Well, if that's true then why aren't hordes of illegal immigrants lined up to mow the knee-high grass in my backyard, scrape all the dead leaves out of my gutters and clean my cats' overflowing litter box?" I have yet to receive a reasonable answer to this question, although that may have something to do with the fact that as soon as she hears me yelling, my wife always walks over and shuts off the television.

One job that Americans don't want to do where immigrants are definitely picking up the slack is in raising our children. It's no secret that kids today are an unruly, obnoxious bunch. Why, just ask the curmudgeonly old coot who lives down the block from me and he'll talk your ear off about how out of control kids today are. Frankly, you don't even have to ask - just walk past while he's out collecting the newspaper in his ratty bathrobe and you'll get a 15-minute lecture on the subject. Also about how there hasn't been anything worth a damn on television since Lawrence Welk went off the air.

But the point is that it's no wonder so many parents these days are choosing to farm out the job of taking care of their children. My wife and I represent the rare exception. After lengthy, involved discussions about our values, priorities and what we felt would be best for our family, we realized something important: that short of selling a kidney on the black market, we could never afford a nanny.

And so, despite the disapproving looks we often receive from other parents, we've taken on the task of raising our three preschool-aged children ourselves. Or, more precisely, my wife has. Much as I hate to admit it, whenever I'm left in charge of the children, within half an hour the whining, crying and screaming just get to be too much to bear. Frankly, it's amazing the kids can tolerate listening to it for even that long.

Unfortunately, for parents looking to hire a nanny, the process isn't simple - after all, you're trying to find a nanny who will shower your children with all the loving care and attention you would give them if you weren't too busy working to earn the money to pay for the nanny.

Not surprisingly, as with most parenting duties, the responsibility for finding a nanny usually falls to the mother. This is probably for the best. After all, dads, left to their own devices, would probably forget to ask prospective nannies about their availability, experience and references in favor of questions revolving around such topics as the nanny's "measurements" and whether she finds men with receding hairlines and extra weight around the middle attractive.

One approach to the hiring process that's becoming increasingly common is a tactic known as "nanny poaching." At first I was confused about this concept, mistakenly assuming that it involved travel to Africa to participate in some sort of illicit safari-type outing where wealthy big game hunters pay for the opportunity to track and kill Fran Drescher.

But then I learned that the term is applied to new mothers who troll local playgrounds, watching intently to see which nannies interact closely and play with their charges, as opposed to the nannies who choose to spend the time gossiping, talking on a cell phone, dozing, or absent-mindedly sticking pushpins into voodoo dolls of their current employers.

Having scouted out the scene, the "poacher" will offer the most attentive nanny a job with more money, better benefits, a signing bonus, use of the family's corporate jet, a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax - whatever it takes to secure her services.

Naturally, this practice raises certain ethical questions. Right now where I live in Palo Alto, members of the local parents' club are up in arms over a case of nanny poaching, with posters to the club's message board heatedly debating whether the mother in question is, in fact, "worse than Hitler" or merely "a vile, detestable parasite fit only for extermination."

So we see that nanny poaching, while effective, may be the kind of activity that may inspire your fellow mothers to exact a bit of swift, vigilante-style retribution. And, like it or not, that's one job we Americans are still perfectly willing to do ourselves.

E-mail Malcolm Fleschner with your best tips for tracking and capturing the wily and elusive nanny at Malcolm@CultureShlock.com.