THE NANNY SYNDROME: Part I
So focused on this election business was I that I almost missed a great opportunity to introduce what will no doubt be a recurring Diversity Mom theme – something I call “The Nanny Syndrome.” It’s a Halloween tale of sorts, at least it happened at a Halloween children’s dinner organized by a women’s group – many of them friends, practically all of them white – of which I am normally happy and proud to be a part. I was not the only brown-skinned person in the room. Several mothers brought along their nannies and, of course, there was the wait staff, but my daughter was clearly the only child of color. Over the course of the evening, an older woman I did not know, but who sat our table, generously divided her attentions between the little boy who had come with her and my daughter, who looked quite glamorous dressed as a movie star. Dinner was lively and fun, as were the rounds of bingo afterwards. Towards the end of the evening, however, the woman leaned over and just had to ask me, “So, you are this beautiful little girl’s babysitter?”
Well, there I was dressed the part in my cashmere sweater, fancy French silk scarf and Italian designer loafers, sitting next to a little girl who looked very much like me, and after close to 90 minutes, it had not even dawned on the woman that I was the child’s mother. Why is it that for some, in this day and age, a woman of color in certain environments with a child – any child – still can only have one job? Nanny, babysitter, caregiver: call it what you like, but mother seems to be out of the question. This just makes me crazy.
I remember overhearing a friend of my mother’s talk about how someone asked whose maid she was while grocery shopping near her new Beverly Hills home. That was forty-something years ago, when barriers were just starting to fall and middle class blacks were beginning to find their way into affluent neighborhoods, independent schools and big business. No one will argue that in many ways, times have changed; what concerns me is how in other ways, they have not. Just look around some of the private schools today, not to mention a good number of corporate boardrooms. If progress is this stagnant for those who have supposedly “made it”, then what about those still struggling to get there? And forty years from now, will people carry the same faulty preconceptions about my daughter? Now, that’s scary!
Well, there I was dressed the part in my cashmere sweater, fancy French silk scarf and Italian designer loafers, sitting next to a little girl who looked very much like me, and after close to 90 minutes, it had not even dawned on the woman that I was the child’s mother. Why is it that for some, in this day and age, a woman of color in certain environments with a child – any child – still can only have one job? Nanny, babysitter, caregiver: call it what you like, but mother seems to be out of the question. This just makes me crazy.
I remember overhearing a friend of my mother’s talk about how someone asked whose maid she was while grocery shopping near her new Beverly Hills home. That was forty-something years ago, when barriers were just starting to fall and middle class blacks were beginning to find their way into affluent neighborhoods, independent schools and big business. No one will argue that in many ways, times have changed; what concerns me is how in other ways, they have not. Just look around some of the private schools today, not to mention a good number of corporate boardrooms. If progress is this stagnant for those who have supposedly “made it”, then what about those still struggling to get there? And forty years from now, will people carry the same faulty preconceptions about my daughter? Now, that’s scary!
The Nanny Syndrome had to make me laugh! Once, I was in the park with my then 2yo daughter. A woman who seemed very proper (read white as well) came to me, looked at my little one and just said in very patronising tone of voice: "you are very lucky, she is beautiful, her parents must be gorgeous!" and then she left me wondering how come all my friends think she looks exactly like me!
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Ah yes. The Nanny syndrome...
I'd like to share the Asian side of this tale. I work at an independent school - I'm not a parent, but I can tell I am going to love this blog
A favorite occasion was when an Asian colleague brought in her baby, and I did the kid-loving thing that I do by holding him. Several people, including a board member who had known me for almost 4 years, asked me when I had a baby. It didn't matter that the baby looks NOTHING like me and I hadn't shown any signs of pregnancy.
Or even better, on one occasion, I stood outside next to an Asian student of mine, and a parent introduced herself to me asking me which grade my daughter is. I had to politely remind her that I am actually her daughter's current teacher, the same teacher she had the year before.
So apparently, some don't get to claim their children of color, and others have to claim every child of color as hers...
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I completely hear you. There are two Asian women where I work who look nothing alike. One is 5'5" and the other is 5'9". But still, everyone confuses them. It's sad. They storm in and out of my office and we sort of laugh about it, but not really.
My brown friend of color told me she was in the park with her "lighter" daughter and a woman exclaimed: "you are awfully affectionate with some else's child"...!!! Gotta love white folks and their assumptions.
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I hope you are seriously writing the novel you refer to, "Poster Child". I certainly enjoy your writing style. (Let me know when you are in town on the book tour!)
I confess, I experienced the "Nanny Syndrome" multiple times while I was living in Marin County. My son, who pretty much has my face, is a bit fairer and, at the time, had blonde curls.(I had black curls!)
I very happily skedaddled out of there and raised my kids in Oakland. Although my children have attended private schools their whole life, since their first day at the East Bay French American School, I can honestly say, that never happened again!
And, although Marin County has lovely nature, it still gives me the creeps whenever I visit. (The Chronicle recently proclaimed it the least diverse county in the Bay Area. SURPRISE!)
Fun story ... on the opposite spectrum so to speak ... I was hanging out with a friend's 2 year old, walking around a very nice neighborhood in Santa Monica. The child's parents are both Dutch and she is as pale and blonde and blue eyed as they come.
I was squatting down to inspect some flowers with her, when I noticed someone in the nearby driveway, (with very large thighs) getting into his car. I heard this very German, well, Austrian, accent say, "What a cutie! Is she yours?" And to this day, despite many of his actions as Governor of California, I have a fond place for Arnold Schwartezegger for his lack of presumption in this situation! (This was in the 80s, long before he'd proclaimed himself a politician.)
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