I think it’s rather cruel. This could be a good opportunity to teach the child empathy. Instead, the parents are just taking the easy way out. Typical of the society we live in.
Gee, when my sister had cancer, I was neither tired nor sad. Granted, she lives four states away, so I wasn’t involved in her care except for visiting one week. And I wasn’t sad because it was caught early, she had a good prognosis and excellent facilities for care, and we had breezed through cancer with my mom a few years before. I was pissed off at her husband and daughter, but that’s a different thread. So why would they automatically assume she would be tired and sad? Sounds to me like they may be people who fear cancer is catching, and avoid being around anyone who might have it.
The OP does say terminal cancer, so I think it’s fair to assume the nanny will be sad.
Unless the email stated “we should fire her because her sister has cancer” there will likely be a way to explain what they wrote.
But even if there was some evidence, I still doubt any major news outlet is going to run a story about a couple firing their nanny. If she were fired from a nanny service or if it was a celebrity couple it would be newsworthy. Barring that, they are just a couple of jerks.
I thought good nannies were like gold to the point people will swipe star nannies from their peers if they can get away with it. If a nanny can be fired for something so relatively petty as the chance she might not be chipper enough I would suspect she’s either well out of that den of crazy people, or there’s a lot more to the story and the cancer issue was simply what they chose to hang their hat on re firing her.
I’ve got some questions before I can give an opinion.
- How old is the kid
- How has the cancer affected the nanny. People I’ve known with terminal cancer, or even non-terminal cancer, are taking radiation treatments and are in horrible shape - hardly surprising.
How much money do the parents have?
Being a nanny is a hard job. The best thing for the parents to do would be to keep her on while hiring another nanny. But if they can barely afford her that won’t work so well. Likewise, if the kid is 8 is a different story than if the kid is 2.
As someone who just hired a nanny, this story sounds appalling. I have to wonder whether the parents were lying to cover up some other reason for letting her go. What are they now doing for child care? If they’ve already got a replacement lined up, that suggests to me that this has been in the works for a while, and they just seized on an opportune cover story.
I can understand not wanting to pursue publicity. Other parents may indeed be sympathetic, but new parents want their nanny to be a no-drama situation; I suspect that relatively few would be likely to step up and hire someone out of this kind of situation. Also, references are so important, even for a good, experienced nanny, that this person is likely to want to avoid doing anything that would jeopardize these parents’ willingness to give her a good review in the future.
Here in the DC area, nannies very often have contracts providing for notice or severance pay. Other cities may be different, but hopefully this nanny had some such provision (or at least may pursue it in her next position).
Because a nanny is still your employee, even if you’re a private individual. Unless she’s working on a self employed basis (and therefore has other ‘clients’ as well). You are her employer and are therefore responsible for her tax payments (deducted at source) and with complying with her statutory rights, such as minimum wage, sick pay, paid holiday entitlement and rules around dismissal. At least that’s how it works in the UK.
I’m sure ‘she didn’t click with Junior’ could be classed as fair reason for termination as it’s an integral part of her job and would presumably be worked out in the initial probationary period anyway. But if it really is ’ because your sister is sick and you ‘might’ be sad’, no.
I don’t think the chemo can have had that much of an effect on the nanny, considering its her sister who has cancer.
What the fu**? Why would you call the newspaper on this?
God people grow up and drop the need for attention.
Who gives a crap why she was fired, it’s over, find another job.
Oh shit. :smack: My wife worked for a nanny school and so we knew lots of people with nannies, none of whom were like this. I’ll change my vote to the employers being assholes then. No brainer, actually.
If one parent got cancer, perhaps the other should put the kid up for adoptions so as not to bring her down.