Nanny gap - part two
Blacks have a dirty little secret when it comes to nannies
December 31, 2006
BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist
There's nothing more sobering than a slap in the face. And middle-class black folks who are searching for nannies to care for their middle-class black children are getting that slap.
Last week, the New York Times reported that middle-class blacks were having a hard time finding nannies.
Apparently, African Americans who have realized the American dream are stymied in their attempts to find au pairs and nannies willing to care for their children.
Jennifer Freeman in Chicago, for example, told a New York Times reporter that she could not find a nanny for her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. She finally found a friend, another black mother, to watch her children.
Isn't that how black families used to do it?
But success and the resources it brings have the black middle-class trying to live like the white middle-class.
When that happens, we can stop singing "We Shall Overcome."
But it hasn't happened yet.
In most arenas, black people are still struggling for equality. Despite the civil rights movement and Condoleezza Rice, the black middle-class is still operating a step behind the white middle-class.
And, too often, black people are holding other black people back.
The New York Times article quoted a white woman who operates a nanny service who said that although African-American nannies make up 40 percent of her work force, they don't want to work for black families.
"Very rarely will an African-American woman work for an African-American boss," said Pat Casico in Houston, the president of the International Nanny Association, reported the New York Times.
The reason: They fear that black people will be "uppity" and "demanding," Casico said.
Same stereotype
But I talked to a colleague and good friend (the only person I know who actually has a nanny rather than a baby-sitter), and here's a news flash: Apparently some middle-class blacks aren't looking to hire African-American nannies, either.
As a black woman, she was embarrassed to tell me that she steered clear of African-American nannies.
I'm not naming her because she still needs a nanny, and I'm sure if the owners of nanny services in this city read these quotes, she'd be blacklisted.
"Even though I am a woman of color, I will not hire an African-American woman to care for my children for the simple fact that I believe there isn't the same integrity and commitment to right living and motherhood among African Americans in the inner city as there is in other cultures," she told me.
I've partied with her, prayed with her, fought battles with her, and I wouldn't have guessed that she embraced the same stereotype about black women that other cultures have embraced.
Yet, here she was telling me that after an unpleasant experience with one black nanny, she would only hire women from the Caribbean to care for her children, who are now teenagers.
Their own worst enemies
Her first experience with an African-American nanny was enough to turn her off.
"I took a chance because I was so desperate," she said. "But I would come home to find dishes piled in the sink, the children playing over cold fast-food meals, and my kitchen smelling like cigarette smoke."
After only two weeks (with my friend complaining every day), the nanny disappeared.
"I sat watching the door and the clock with my work clothes on," she said. "After it became clear that she wasn't showing up, I had to call up the grandparents and aunts."
Again, isn't that the way black families used to do it?
So now, my friend only hires nannies from the Caribbean.
Her first Caribbean nanny set the "right foundation," she said.
"She didn't sit them in front of the TV all day," my friend pointed out.
At the same time, my friend claims that whenever she has called a high-end nanny service, she has been unable to find help.
"We would have them send me white nannies and European nannies. They would come to my house, and their faces would change instantly when they saw that I am black," she said.
"Despite all of my attempts to make them feel at ease, they would sit in my house and remain tense throughout the entire interview."
Afterward, the nanny agency would tell her that the potential candidate had been hired by someone else.
"I'll know deep down in my gut that they didn't want to work for a black family, and I have always lived in a nice home in the suburbs."
What the New York Times article really shows is that sometimes black folks are their own worst enemies.
After all, when they shun each other, you don't have to wonder what white people will do.
