Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Beyond babysitters

Many Westchase families couldn't function without their nannies. "It's going to cost you," says one mom, but so does leaving a career behind.

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published December 16, 2005

WESTCHASE - Donna Drackett lay awake at night. Her baby was due any minute, and she was due to get back to work soon after.

"He could come at any time and we don't know what we're going to do," she said recently, trolling the previous night's thoughts. "Before I know it, I'm going to be back at work and this little poor itty bitty thing ..." She trailed off, resting her expectant body on the couch in her Westchase home.

Donna and her husband, Brian, were racing the biological clock to find care for their bundle of joy, jumping into a hot-button topic in modern child rearing: nannies.

They didn't care if their nanny could fly with the flick of an umbrella. She needn't have training with the royal family, parading around in a starched skirt and wool cape. They weren't looking for a nasal bombshell who loves leopard print and hair spray.

What they did want was a nice, trustworthy person who had cared for newborns before. Sounds simple, right?

Tell that to a family on the search, wading through the litany of options in child care.

"I know people go through this," she said. "It's just difficult to find someone before he's here."

The nanny ads sit among the Westchase classifieds for cars and cribs and bicycles.

The parents want part-time care, full-time care, all-the-time care. They want experience, reliability, responsibility. They want a student, a stay-at-home mom, a bilingual. They have newborns who need diaper changes and school kids who need help with homework.

The nannies have references and experience. They love kids and have good transportation. They are available part time, full time, all the time.

The Dracketts started their nanny search with an ad in the World of Westchase magazine. They got one response and set up an interview with the person who could potentially care for their newborn.

"We realized it was actually harder than I thought it would be to interview a nanny because we don't know the patterns of the child," Brian said. "We don't know anything to that effect."

It's a scary thought, Donna said, trusting a person you barely know "with your flesh and blood."

The news stories are haunting. There was British nanny Lousie Woodward, convicted of shaking her 8-month-old charge to death. In 2004, St. Petersburg nanny Sarah Slicker was sent to jail after being discovered naked with the 4-year-old boy she looked after.

Drackett has one friend whose nanny took to drinking in the house while the parents were away.

Despite isolated stories, for many, it seems to be the best choice. U.S. Census reports show that the "traditional family," a homemaker and a working father, has grown increasingly rare since the 1950s.

"We're all struggling to figure out what the right thing is for ourselves and for our family," said Mary Turnbull, who recently hired a part-time nanny for her 4-year-old son, Alex.

"I think it's good for kids to see women who go to work, I think it's good for kids to see moms who stay at home and volunteer in their communities," she said. "We have to make the choice that's best for us."

For Turnbull, that choice came after testing all the waters.

Living in Manhattan, Turnbull had a high profile finance job. When baby Alex came along, Turnbull had already stopped working. It wasn't long until she found herself itching to get back.

"I had a pretty substantial career before I had Alex, and I kind of really wanted to get back to that," she said. "I need that interaction."

Turnbull hired a nanny to help with Alex while she interviewed for jobs. Eventually, the family headed south.

"One of the hardest things to do was saying goodbye to our nanny, Gloria," she said. "We still speak with her to this day. She loved (Alex) and treated him like her own child."

It was even all right when strangers mistook the nanny for Alex's mother. "I felt that it was better that he had attachments to other people, but he understood the differences between them," she said.

The Dracketts toyed with the idea of having Brian stay home with the baby. Donna, as a chief financial officer of a psychological testing products company, is the family breadwinner. Brian recently started a new career in recruiting.

But lifestyle played a part in their choice.

"I choose to bring more money in so I can make the child's life more comfortable," Brian said. "As long as I find the right individual to watch the child, there's no reason why not."

Dyan Pithers' friends are a little jealous.

Not of her house or job or car. Of her au pair, a live-in nanny.

"On Halloween, she went around with us, and the baby got really tired at about 7:15 p.m. because his bedtime is 7 p.m.," Pithers said. "She just took him back and we were able to continue with our older son. All our friends were like, "Oh, we wish we could do that.' "

For Pithers and her husband, Jason, busy real estate agents, that kind of flexibility is essential.

She might say, "Monday, I don't have a lot of stuff to do, I really want to spend the day at Busch Gardens with the kids, you're off. Or, "I have a client meeting at 8 p.m., I'm going to have you work from 8-10 p.m.' I don't have a job that I go to at 8 and come home at 5."

Denise Oliveira, Pithers' 26-year-old au pair, recently came to the United States from Brazil as part of the Cultural Care Au Pair exchange program.

Oliveira lives in the apartment above Pithers' garage in Westchase. She gets room, board and use of a car. She must take six credit hours of education at an accredited school.

In exchange, the family gets 45 hours of weekly, flexible child care.

Oliveira speaks some English, but she wants to learn English grammar and become a teacher in Brazil.

"I want to know the American culture, American customs," she said. "I want to improve my English here," she said.

The choice was partly economical. Cultural Care au pairs get $500 toward education and a weekly stipend based on the federal minimum wage. With a one-time placement and training fee of $6,000, it works out to about $275 per week.

Most families are surprised by the cost, said Cultural Care Tampa Bay coordinator Claudette Roehl.

"It's an alternative that they didn't expect that they would be able to do and afford," she said. "They say, "People that have an au pair are rich.' "

The going rate for a nanny, by comparison, is about $12 to $15 per hour, said Eleanor Nesbit, owner of A Choice Nanny agency in Hyde Park. A Choice Nanny charges a $250 application fee and a fee amounting to four times the nanny's weekly salary.

"It's definitely going to cost you," said Turnbull, who did not use an agency, and pays about $10 an hour. "But it costs a lot to be out of the work force for a couple of years."

Little Jake Drackett came into the world on Oct. 24.

His nanny, 23-year-old Mary Gogerty, came into his life at the beginning of December.

The Dracketts found their nanny through enannysource.com, a matching service for nannies and families. She had four years of experience and had worked in Belgium as an au pair.

Donna plans to ease back into her job gradually, working part time at first. The nanny will ease in too, joining Donna a little bit at a time to get to know Jake.

"We'll see how everything works out," she said. "I think we got very lucky as far as finding her."

The search, she said, wasn't as bad as she feared it might be. The Dracketts interviewed four people in person and a lot more over the phone.

"It certainly wasn't that bad," she said. "I'm very confident with our selection. There was one other person that we liked as well, but this seemed to fit a little bit better."

So the whole family now sleeps like a baby, right?

Until everyone settles into a groove, Donna admitted, with a laugh, "I'll probably continue to have sleepless nights."

- Stephanie Hayes can be reached at 813 269-5303 or shayes@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 11:21:40]