Strap-on Nanny

After all the nanny-cam stories that have been coming out, many families worry that even the sweetest nanny could be treating your baby like a sack of potatoes when you're not looking. When you leave your children with another adult, you would have to be blind and dumb not to at least consider the possibility that something bad could be happening when you're not around.

Thankfully, I work from home and I can either see or hear what the nanny is up to 90% of the time. The other 10% is when she is out with T-Bone at storytime, art class, or some other pre-approved activity. (Of course for all I know they're spending their time at the McDonald's drive-thru, eating donut holes and sucking lead paint off a happy meal toy). The baby is never totally alone with the nanny. So I don't worry too much about the nanny-cam stuff.

References and work history are sufficient to determine that your nanny is not a convict or a flight risk. But how do you really know what your nanny is made of?

When we interviewed nanny candidates, my husband would always do informal background checks by way of internet sleuthing -- it is amazing what kids will post on their myspace pages. One had a friend pictured with a gun (or a very realistic looking toy gun).. NEXT! One had photos of herself in drunken stupors (pretty much stock myspace stuff, but not something you want in nanny).

One candidate had this message displayed on her publicly available myspace page (names changed to protect the innocent slutty):

"hahaha oooooooh yes it was definitely FUN! i don't remember anything really, that shit was good. i was royally fucked up haha. :) i sent ashley a text message saying i wanted to fuck the shit out her with a strap on. what the fuck! lol oh dear, the things i say when i'm out of my mind :) love you girly!"

Well, long story short, strap-on girl is now our Strap-on Nanny.

In all other respects she was the perfect candidate -- solid live-in experience, references, sweet and personable. What she does with her friends in her free time does not impact her ability to make a PB&J, to drive or to change a poopy diaper. In fact in the 5 or so months since she's been with us things have been great.

Until last night. Every night my husband does a cursory check of the home computer history... He usually finds nothing of note. Photos of friends, emails about weekend plans. Even a cute photo or two of our own adorable children. But last night was different.

He came into the bedroom while I was putting the baby down.

He says "I don't know if I should even tell you about this..."

Of course then I'm immediately thinking jesus, tell me right now!

And he continues, "But I think I need you to look at it to verify something."

Me: "Verify what?"

Him: "Well, that it's an adult."

An adult what!???, should I be concerned for our children?

We go on with a bizarre form of twenty questions before I determine that while looking at Strap-on's email history, my husband discovered a photo of, er, how do I say this? A hairless va-jay-jay taken with a cell phone camera. Because it was hairless, my husband could not immediately determine if it was that of an adult.

Ok, so I'm a little dismayed that my husband cannot differentiate between an infant's vagina and some skanky ho's hairless hoo-ha. For that reason I did not panic, because I was pretty sure a child's private parts would be glaringly obvious.

So I put the baby down and we go to the computer together. He pulls up the photo. I look. And I look. I do have to look for quite a bit because, yes indeed it doesn't look quite adult. But then again, perhaps my perception is a bit skewed, but I digress. After careful consideration we both conclude that it is in fact the bald cooter of a grown woman. Further, we are fairly certain it is the vagina of our very own Strap-on Nanny.

For the next few hours we mull it over. We determined that Strap-on had taken the photo with her cell phone, at a location other than our home. She then sent it to herself at an internet mail address. Where she planned to send it from there is anyone's guess. Does that even matter?

I'll get to the punchline and just say we are not going to fire her. Again, there is nothing to indicate that this behavior interferes with her ability to make a PB&J (so long as she washes her hands first). We lived on the west coast long enough to be pretty hip with any shit people may be into -- in their free time and far away from our children.

But if we weren't moving in less than a year we would seriously be reconsidering our longterm childcare options. Who does this? Not just the hairless part, but the photo taking and sending part? I mean, is the straight up skanky-ho behavior, or is this what all the kids are doing with technology and the internets? If it's the later, then god help us when our daughters are grown....