Babble

 I was looking into hiring a nanny through a nannyshare, and the only thing I realized is that it would be hard for me to hire an African American nanny. Because I'm a white school teacher who teaches in a predominantly (99%) African American high school on the south side of Chicago. My students have some pretty low expectations for white people, much of which is deserved. So the idea of telling them that I, a white woman, had hired a black woman to take care of my kid seemed like something they would not appreciate. It just felt wrong and I knew they would give me a really hard time about it. And that I would feel really guilty about it.

But I ended up going with a great in home daycare, so now I don't have to worry about it.

Your question is a great one, though. It does seem that all the nanny ads make a point to mention the ethnicity. Although I don't think there are any Tibetan nannies in Chicago. 

I do a lot of chitchatting on the playground, and I haven't ever heard a mother express an ethnicity preference in the context of a nanny search. I have heard people say they wish for Spanish-speaking nannies to benefit their child's acquisition of Spanish language. But I don't think that language is equal to ethnicity. I assume that what I see at the park is based on the ethnicities that live here. (Bay Area) I've only hired two nannies so far, and I didn't have an agenda for what her ethnicity would be at either time. I would have been excited to have a Spanish-speaking nanny, but that's not what we found and we didn't prioritize that. (My first was an immigrant from Eritrea and my second was a Caucasian American college grad-- and both were fantastic.) Once you prioritize experience, references, good chemistry/communication, and compatible hours and salary expectations, I wouldn't think there is even room for ethnicity to get on the list with a family's other "must-haves".

 

I'm not a mother, I just lurk on the boards because I find the views and stories of all these amazing people so fascinating, and because I have a nephew. I also have a lot of ideas about how I would LIKE things to be if I had a kid, including what I would do for childcare. In a perfect world, I would stay home with my kid, not because I think childcare is wrong or immoral or scarring to children or anything like that, but because if I had the opportunity to spend most of my day with my kid, I would grab it.

However, I would, I'm sure, also like days away from my child. I've always thought that I might have a regular sitter or such who was also bi-lingual, and I would have set days a few times a month that my kid would be immersed in another language. So I suppose I am a person who would be likely to purposefully seek out a nanny from a culture that was different from my own. I don't think that it's as much about the stereotypes for me, although I think that what I would want my child to get out of it would be more than just exposure to another language, but also to another way of life.

We all know that different cultures look at things in different ways, and it's often very helpful in life to look at something from a different perspective. It's also good for children at a young age to learn that people are all different and from different backgrounds and that is a wonderful, valuable thing. I know my way is not The One Right Way, it's just one way, and my kids might not choose that way in the end, but that has to be their choice, and it's my job as a parent to help them explore the world and the choices, even at a young age. And this is not the the only way to expose children to other cultures, it's just one way in which I would choose to try to help them.

It seems like the respondent who is praising the original poster's question is in fact... the original poster.  Also, the original poster's comments seem directly lifted from "Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy".  Which I am currently reading.