‘Our dream nanny is usurping me in my own home’
I’ve told my husband about it and he thinks I’m being oversensitive and often takes her side
To begin with, our nanny was a total dream. We employed her to help with our four very energetic boys and they took to her instantly, as did my husband and I.
She is in her mid-40s and never wanted children of her own, she is a great cook and a natural with our sons. “You’ve hit the jackpot with her!” our friends would say enviously, and it really felt like we had.
But then, about a year after she started, a last-minute change in my work schedule meant that I was at home on Monday morning to have breakfast before everyone went to school.
As I dished up pancakes for the boys she looked at them disapprovingly and rolled her eyes. Then she seemed to take great delight in pointing out that my children didn’t like thick American-style pancakes anymore and preferred the thinner crepe variety. I laughed, assuming she was joking, but her supercilious manner told me that she wasn’t. I was so taken off-guard that I didn’t know how to retort. When the boys started moaning in agreement with her I was humiliated, upset, and annoyed.
From then on, she started making more snipey comments about the way I did things for the children – from what flavour ice-cream I ordered in the supermarket shop, to their bedtime routines and even the pronunciation of their friends’ names. These may sound like irrelevant subjects, but the way she made the remarks was always so pointed and critical. Each one seemed calculated to upset me.
Within a few months her comments started getting personal too. She began offering her opinions on anything from my clothes, to my friends and even that I looked like I had put some weight on. While I’m used to dealing with criticism and confrontation at work, receiving it in the comfort of my own home really shocked and destabilised me.
I’ve told my husband about it and he thinks I’m being oversensitive and often takes her side. She’s not attractive in any way so I’m not suspicious of anything going on between her and my husband at least, but I do feel like they’re both against me sometimes. I feel isolated and alone in my own home while our nanny is showered with love and affection from my husband and sons.
It’s become so frequent now though that she regularly undermines me about how to parent the boys. The other day I found myself snapping back at her when she said my eldest could go to bed an hour later than I had said, and then I received the brunt of my son’s vitriol too for being the ‘baddie’. On another occasion she openly disagreed with my decision not to let them have mobile phones yet (they’re all still at primary school!) and the icing on the cake was when she took it upon herself to give her advice about what secondary school we send them to.
We pay her a very generous salary and treat her like part of the family rather than a member of staff, so I really don’t know what her problem is with me.
I dread her being around and often feel unwelcome in my own home, where she’s blatantly usurping me. I’d love to sack her but my husband won’t hear of it and I know we would struggle to find someone who gets on with the boys so well. I can’t tell whether it’s all in my head and I need to put up and shut up, or I need to lay my cards on the table and tell her it’s got to stop.