- In her new column about Aunt Pain, bestselling author Jane Green offers advice to a desperate parent shocked by his babysitter’s behavior
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Dear Jane,
Over the past two years, my wife and I have hired a live-in nanny to help us care for our young son while also doing a few chores around the house.
She has built a wonderful bond with our three-year-old – so much so that this year we decided to invite her to our family holidays with us.
The agreement was that we would pay for her travel, her hotel room, etc. and she would be able to enjoy free time during the day while taking care of our son in the evenings so that my wife and I could have some alone time.
We had three trips booked when we made this appointment with her and she happily committed to all three.
But when we traveled to Costa Rica last month, she became incredibly upset when she discovered we hadn’t booked a first-class seat for her.
Dear Jane, Our son’s nanny is furious that we didn’t book her a first-class seat on our last family vacation – and now she’s threatening to quit
My wife and I were in first class with our son and we booked a seat in Delta Comfort+ for our babysitter. Apparently this wasn’t up to her standards.
As soon as we landed, she asked to talk to me – saying she felt incredibly uncomfortable being treated in such a disrespectful way. That our decision to fly first class while leaving her in another section made it clear how little we thought about her.
She said she couldn’t commit to joining us on other trips if that was our plan for the future, and even went so far as to suggest she would reconsider her work situation altogether if we didn’t agree to take her first fly class.
International bestselling author Jane Green offers sage advice on DailyMail.com readers’ most burning issues in her column Dear Jane agony aunt
Then she pretty much refused to talk to us about anything other than the baby.
I mean, who cares?! I’m not trying to sound rude – or disrespectful – but we pay her a very good salary, we take incredibly good care of her, and considering she gets several free vacations, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of us to put her in Comfort+ can be booked.
We didn’t even book her as a coach!
She and my son are so close, and she’s really great with him, so I can’t bear the thought of losing her, but it feels a bit like we’re being emotionally blackmailed by her.
Do you have any ideas what we can do to solve this without sacrificing all our boundaries!?
By,
Desperate father
Dear desperate father,
I thank my lucky stars that these days are very firmly behind me, but what I remember, from every au pair or nanny we had, was that they were the best, our kids loved them, and the prospect of them leaving was terrifying because they were irreplaceable.
And yet every time someone left we found another, sometimes better, sometimes worse, usually very different, and almost always as loved by us as by our children.
That is, no one is irreplaceable, no matter how great she is with your son.
Many employers believe that the babysitter should be eternally grateful for the opportunity to travel to exotic places, even though they are on duty almost 24 hours a day and share a room with the children.
But look out the window! You are in the Maldives! You may not have time for yourself, but it’s hot! Lucky you!
This isn’t what you’re describing, given her free time during the day and a few nights of babysitting, and I’d say the entitlement she’s shown is a clear dealbreaker.
Start looking for a new babysitter, because this kind of cheek doesn’t belong.