Like every other parent in the New York metropolitan area, I've been closely following the case of the nanny who stabbed two of the kids in her care.
She was just reviewed by a psychiatrist and found fit for trial, but I guess it wasn't a clear decision.
The judge, Justice Gregory Carro, said two state psychiatrists had interviewed Ms. Ortega and reviewed her “rather voluminous” medical records and determined that she was able to participate in her defense in a meaningful way.
Sounds like the Stabbing Nanny had a long history of mental illness.
Should nannies have to get a license to practice? If gun owners have to go through a background check, shouldn't the same go for the people who left to mind your children?
Thoughts?
Apt. 11d 
Optional credentials for professionals sound like a great idea, but I’m hesitant on a required license. There’s substantial grey area between babysitting and nannying…you could watch children anywhere from an hour a week to full time. When do you require a background check and when not? What about fellow parents? You don’t need a license to watch your own children, so why should you need one to watch other people’s children?
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You’d still be able to get around the licensing requirement by hiring a nanny at a nanny show.
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There wouldn’t be a nanny show exemption, but many nanny purchases are between private individuals, so a nanny license wouldn’t be required.
Realy though, licensing in this case would serve as a guild protection measure, and its main advocates usually are those trying to professionalize the nanny profession. I think that one should so their own background checks and decide what ther willing to live with,
The difference between nannies and guns is that someone else hiring a bad nanny (or not knowing how to treat one) doesn’t usually harm my kids.
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An Irish nanny is currently accused of beating to death a child in her care: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/nanny-to-face-more-serious-charges-in-us-29150303.html
The trial of an Irish nanny in Boston will be contentious.
Please note it is alleged that she’s been in this country illegally since 2002. I do not think that nanny licensing would be a barrier to working as a nanny. The state seems to find unlicensed daycares frequently. Recently, the state auditor ran a cross-check of sex offenders and daycares–and found a significant number (119!) of identical addresses. http://www.wbur.org/2013/03/27/sex-offender-child-care-report
If the state can’t keep track of a limited number of child care providers, I don’t think they’ll be able to keep track of everyone who calls herself a nanny. And the paperwork involved would discourage some natural caretakers from becoming nannies. The middle class would be priced out of the market, and children would be no safer.
Of course someone who’s a danger to children should not be taking care of children. How does one decide, though, who’s a mentally ill danger to children, and who’s a caring, trustworthy individual. So many people are taking prescription medication these days for psychological conditions–most of them are not a danger to anyone.
One should not make laws from outliers.
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“How does one decide, though, who’s a mentally ill danger to children, and who’s a caring, trustworthy individual.”
One should read “Protecting the Gift” by safety expert Gavin de Becker for some tips. For starters, he says never, ever hire a male babysitter – nor a female sitter who allows her boyfriend or older son to be around your kids. Why? We all know the gender of the majority of sex offenders.
But of course, even a harsh, brightline rule like this one would not have helped the children in these cases of abuse and murder at a woman’s hands.
Parents these days are on their own with nothing but their gut-level reactions really to steer them. Sure they can use techniques like background checks; hard-hitting interview questions; and nanny cams. They can come home two hours early unannounced. They can seek feedback from other adults (like the front desk person at the play gym, or a grandparent at the music class) who regularly see their child in the sitter’s care. Trust me, they have an opinion.
Where I live there are babysitter credentials folks (usually teen women) can earn by taking a class, where they learn things like first aid and CPR.
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Picking a nanny was terrifying. I was lucky to be working from home so I could hear her, plus anyone taking that job had to be willing to be heard. I think my screening process was as rigorous as one could be (I asked the de Becker questions including “have you ever hit or abused a child in your care?”) but I was aware it was still totally imperfect. At a certain point you hold your breath and trust-but-verify.
I re-hired her for my youngest.
I am pretty sure a background check up here (Canada) would not turn up health information.
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“Where I live there are babysitter credentials folks (usually teen women) can earn by taking a class, where they learn things like first aid and CPR.”
The Red Cross here does babysitter training for 11-15 year olds. I’m planning on sending my 5th grade daughter to the class eventually.
Didn’t the family in the NYC story know the nanny really well? I believe they’d even vacationed at her family’s home.
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My main thought is that horrible episodes make for bad laws, and that sound policy should be based on objective statistical analysis. (I would think most people with graduate degrees in social science would agree.) Most gun violence is committed by inner city males using handguns, so it doesn’t make sense to restrict the right of rural people to purchase powerful rifles if that’s what they want to do. As for nannies, I have no idea how many of them kill children in their care each year, or under what circumstances, so I have no policy recommendations whatsoever. No law or program should ever be implemented without an actual affirmative good reason (based, as I said, on objective statistical analysis), so I would be against a licensing program for nannies.
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One should not make laws from outliers.
Yes. Making laws from highly visible but very unusual cases is a plan for making bad laws. Of course, it’s possible to have a background check run on someone if you want, and if you think it’s important, you should do it on your own.
The “never hire a male to watch your kids” idea is dumb, too. The vast, vast majority of men never abuse kids. It’s a sign of not knowing basic probabilities, I think, and makes me not think much of such “security experts”.
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Child advocate John Walsh gives the same advice to “never hire a male to watch your kids.”
Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted,” began advocating for missing children in 1981, after his son was killed by a stranger. He knows some men are offended by his advice to never hire a male babysitter. But as he sees it, if a teenage boy wants to experiment with sex, you don’t want him using your kids.
“It’s not a witch hunt,” he says. “It’s all about minimizing risks. What dog is more likely to bite and hurt you? A Doberman, not a poodle. Who’s more likely to molest a child? A male.”
Airlines use similar reasoning when they seat unaccompanied minors only with women. They are trying to decrease the odds of a problem. Certainly, many men would be safe seatmates for kids, but sometimes, especially on overnight flights in darkened cabins, “you have to make generalizations for the safety of a child,” says Diana Fairechild, an expert witness in aviation disputes. Airlines have had decades of experience monitoring the gender of abusive seatmates, she adds, quoting a line repeated in airline circles: “No regulation in aviation takes effect without somebody’s blood on it.”
From WSJ – “Are We Teaching Our Kids To Be Fearful of Men?”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118782905698506010.html
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Why think John Walsh, tragic though his loss was, is really an authority? He’s a celebrity now, of course, but nothing more.
As it turns out, poodles are very common biters- in general, small dogs bite as much or more than big ones. So, his general reasoning doesn’t seem so good. And even if airlines do this, so what? The question is, are they justified? Would this support the idea that you should “never hire a male” to watch your kids? Of course it wouldn’t. Thinking such a categorical claim could be supported by the relative risk rate shows a serious misunderstanding of probabilities.
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I hear you @Matt, but this is an area where my heart trumps my head. Variations on your “serious misunderstanding of probabilities” argument are actually quite en vogue right now with the Free Range-ers, who take it several steps further and accuse anyone who ever brings up any potential risk to a child of being some overbearing, worry-wart helicopter parent.
This presupposes we know the actual rate at which children are sexually abused – a crime that is by all accounts notoriously underreported. Look, we parents all have to make the kind of childcare choices we can live with.
I’m not the kind to let my kid play at Michael Jackson’s house, have a sleepover with my uncle the priest, or allow a teenage male babysitter to watch my 3-year-old daughter or my 2-year-old foster baby. If that makes me some ninny who can’t grasp basic statistical concepts, then that’s a label I will proudly embrace.
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