I just read an article in Tatler magazine on the subject of male nannies (otherwise known as mannies). The woman who wrote the article is a stay at home Mom from England. She employs not ONE but THREE nannies. Granted she has four girls under the age of two (one set of triplets). Three sounds like overkill to me, but they do things differently across the pond. Anyway, the male nanny is a twenty year old named Quintin. He is the son of the authors housekeeper. Quintin had been employed by the family in another capacity (as a driver and gardener) for a while before taking on the role of nanny. I’m not so sure that this woman would have hired Quintin as a nanny for her girls if she hadn’t known his mother or if he hadn’t been employed by her before in another capacity. As well, I highly doubt that if she had only a single nanny that she would fill the position with a man. The article was accompanied by a picture of Quintin holding one of the babies while pushing the other three in the pram. What eye candy.
So the article got me thinking. Out of the four families that I have worked as a nanny for I cannot imagine any of the mothers being open minded enough to hire a male nanny. One Mom (we’ll call her CJ) in particular refused to even allow her housekeepers husbands to come help with the house cleaning. They reside in a large house which clearly requires a team to clean it. But CJ was horrified at the idea of a “ strange” man knowing where her daughters bedroom was located. I highly doubt that any of the other three families would have considered hiring a man to care for their children, although they never said so.
I personally think you should hire someone who is the best fit for your family. If that person happens to be a man, then how very au courant of you. In America, I think that if you were a single mother with a male child the idea of having a male nanny (as a male role model) might seem appealing to you. Another reason why the concept of a male nanny is likely to catch on (although slowly) with mothers is that there is also often a tension or jealously that arises between mothers and their nannies. A mother may feel that her children prefer the company of the nanny to that of the mother. Or a mother may feel that the nanny is taking the mothers place. With a male nanny this tension isn’t likely to exist. There has been an abundance of male nannies portrayed in television over the years (Who’s the Boss?, Charles In Charge, Murphy Brown, Friends etc). There is even a web site devoted to the concept of male nannies ( The Manny ( Male Nanny ) Web Site - Learn More About Male Nannies ). The web site claims that males occupy two percent of domestic childcare positions. Although most of the male nannies seem to be located in more progressive cities, such as New York and San Francisco. I see male nannies becoming the trendy new family accessory. Just wait.
