Nanny&Me

I have spent the past 6 months of my life soaked in the excitement that a new baby brings; enjoying leisurely days in the park, afternoon strolls, and the occasional outing with a mommy stroller brigade. I am one of those people who, prior to having my son, was completely career driven. I focused a lot of my time and energy on my career and on academic endeavors. Having children always felt so right to me, but I always felt such a strong duplicity between my career ambitions and the part of me that could see myself at home raising a gaggle of kids. What I didn’t realize is just how closely the lines of these two parallels would sit, and how difficult the idea of putting my son in the care of someone else would be.

At this point I have six months remaining of my maternity leave and while I soak up every moment of bliss, I do wish that I could spend more time with my son, watching him learn, grow, and explore the world around him. So how did it come to be that I found myself searching for a nanny?

Growing up I had a wonderful nanny; a nanny whom I was so deeply connected to that she later became my Godmother. She cared for me from the time I was ten months old to the age of 5. She taught me proper manners, instilled in me a love for walking (yes she had me walk from the Beach of Toronto to the Eatons Center when I was 5 years old!), and provided me with a total and complete sense of love and security. I had Maryann in my life for many years after her experience as my nanny. In fact, I gained a second family out of the whole deal as her family welcomed me with open arms. She was a willful woman and eventually passed away (although she put up a good fight) from Alzheimer’s Disease, but she was a mainstay influence in my life throughout my childhood and into my adolescent years and I still feel her close in spirit. She was a firm British woman who balanced her demand of P’s and Q’s with just the right number of “I love you’s”. Sounds pretty great right?...it was!

Me (on the left) and my nanny, Maryann (centre) at my baptism. That's my brother in the back (he lives in Scotland and works as a bio-genetical engineer), and that's my sister on the right (she ran away with the circus...okay well she didn't exactly "run away", she actually lives just down the street from me, but she does run a super cool Cirque gym in Toronto called Cirque-ability)

Naturally when it came time for me to think about childcare options, a nanny seemed like a great idea, but doesn’t it cost thousands of dollars a month to hire a nanny? As it turns out, there are plenty of cost-effective nanny options. We considered some other options like daycare or home care and I do realize that many people see daycare as a wonderful opportunity to develop a child’s social skills, but I feel that if your child has social parents, then they’re going to be exposed to healthy social relationships. My husband and I are very social, community-oriented people, so this wasn’t a concern for me. I just love the idea of my child being provided with the opportunity to develop a deep and meaningful bond with a sole caregiver. In addition to all of the warm and fuzzy elements of the decision, there were logistical benefits too. My husband and I don’t have conventional 9-5 professions; he works as a sound engineer for tv and advertising, thus works on a freelance/no schedule basis and I work in the non-profit sector in an equally unconventional way. We both have jobs where (to a certain degree) we can set our own hours, and we both prefer to work when our creative juices are flowing (which can be a bit unpredictable). For us, not only did a nanny seem like an option that would provide our son with the one-on-one care that we’d like to see him receive, but it also seemed like a great option logistically.

At the end of the day, I feel deep down inside that I want to give my son the same opportunity that I had. While I recognize that I was blessed with a very special and unique nanny and subsequent relationship and bond, if there is even the slightest chance that my son will have half of what I had, then I say sign me up! thus our journey begins...

Related Posts:

Tenant Experience
About the Blog