# Nanny's boyfriend **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 23, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987 "2014-02-23T00:47:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/21 "2014-02-23T14:24:29Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > I wonder if this old trope has ever played out anywhere besides cliche teen horror flicks? It’s happened to us, sort of. The very first time we left our daughter with a babysitter who wasn’t a grandmother or aunt, we hired our neighbors 16 year old daughter. We had known her since she was 12, and she seemed like a sweet, responsible, kid. An hour after we left, we got a call from another neighbor that there was a pickup truck in the driveway. We rushed home, and found the babysitter and a guy we’d never met in a state of partial undress in the living room. Our daughter was watching a video in the basement. I’m pretty sure that they were fully undressed when they heard the garage door opening. My wife had wanted to call the police as soon as we got the call from our neighbor. I was 100% sure what we found was what we would find. I had a quiet word with the babysitters father. They were quite aware that she was seeing the guy and that they were having sex. Of course we never let her babysit again. But she had lots of babysitting gigs. She worked in the after-school child care program at the local elementary school, and is now a pre-school teacher. Hopefully the incident represented a one off lapse in judgement. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/22 "2014-02-23T16:47:48Z")
I’d want to know how old the nanny and boyfriend are. If they’re 16-20 I’d be a bit concerned, but probably get over it if she seemed responsible. If they’re in their 30s, I probably wouldn’t think much of it. Basically, does it appear that every time the kids are all content they’re going to sneak into another room and make out for 10 minutes or can they restrain themselves and the boyfriend is just there for company and to help out for the night. @astro, Real Life isn’t the Straight Dope. People do things that aren’t allowed. When I was little my parents had to fire one of our babysitters because they came back early and found that after we went to bed she had invited a bunch of friends over, I assure you, no permission was granted. Some friends of ours were having their basement painted. They stopped down to check on the progress and found one of the painters asleep on the couch and the other playing with the Super Nintedo, inconceivable. The fact that the boyfriend greeted the OP at the door tells me that he had permission to be there, but people do break rules sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/23 "2014-02-23T16:58:47Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > Hopefully the incident represented a one off lapse in judgement. Someone gave me that pipe just today. No, I only smell like smoke because my friends were smoking in the car. It wasn’t my fault, that cop was being a jerk (speeding tickets FTR). No mom, they were handing out free condoms at the school (they actually were, but how many kids had to explain that to their parents). etc etc etc The things my parents believed (or at least wanted to). She didn’t lose her virginity on your couch and it didn’t stop when she got caught at your house. The only thing that stopped is him parking his pickup in the client’s driveways. From then on he parked around the corner and walked. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/24 "2014-02-23T17:12:14Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > . . . Trust is not subject to the transitive property. . . . God, this is the best summation of my feelings as I struggle with my in-laws about this - thank you! Our situation was that my sister-in-law (whom I like and trust, and am fine with her taking care of my kids) wanted to let her friend (who I had met that day for the first time) watch my kids. At a pool. Without my SIL there. Sorry, but no. I would have been fine with SIL and her friend taking the whole passel of kids, but, as you say - trust is not subject to the transitive property. FWIW, I would have been just like **steronz** and wife - a little concerned, but OK once I knew the parents know the guy and are fine with him being there. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/25 "2014-02-23T19:45:03Z")
Dropping your kids off at someone else’s house entails trusting their judgment. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/26 "2014-02-24T03:07:22Z")
I wouldn’t drop my kid off at a friend’s house when the parents aren’t home. So I wouldn’t even get to the Nanny’s BF part. IF I were OK dropping my kid off at a friend’s house when the parents weren’t home, then I probably wouldn’t care about the BF being there. As far as whether a Nanny would ever sneak a BF in, when I was a kid I became the de facto babysitter of my much younger siblings when the hired sitter would leave to go “wrestle” her BF. So, I probably would verify with the parents that the BF was allowed to be there and trusted. ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/27 "2014-02-24T15:19:30Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Trust is not subject to the transitive property. I can trust a nanny well enough to sit with my kids, but not trust her well enough to have 100% faith in her judgement about the men in her life. I can trust my neighbor well enough to trust her judgement in a nanny, but that trust doesn’t magically pass through my neighbor and into the nanny and then into the nanny’s boyfriend. I mean, by that logic, if the nanny’s boyfriend then wanted to bring his band over to play xbox, I should also think that was fine, because if I trust my neighbors, I trust their nannny, and if I trust her I trust her boyfriend and if I trust her boyfriend, then surely I trust his friends? He trusts them! > > So yeah, I would have called to make sure they knew the boyfriend was there and that they had met them. Provided they knew and knew him, I’d probably be fine with it. But if the boyfriend had friends with him, or if they didn’t know about him or that he would be there, I would have gone back to get my kid. > [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > God, this is the best summation of my feelings as I struggle with my in-laws about this - thank you! > > Our situation was that my sister-in-law (whom I like and trust, and am fine with her taking care of my kids) wanted to let her friend (who I had met that day for the first time) watch my kids. At a pool. Without my SIL there. Sorry, but no. I would have been fine with SIL and her friend taking the whole passel of kids, but, as you say - trust is not subject to the transitive property. > > FWIW, I would have been just like **steronz** and wife - a little concerned, but OK once I knew the parents know the guy and are fine with him being there. So first of all I’m with the OP and his wife. I would have been a little concerned at an unexpected person there no matter what the sex but once the parents confirmed they allowed it I would have been fine. The other discussion on the transitive nature of trust (or lack thereof) I find very interesting. I think it depends on the type of trust you have in someone. There are few people in my life now who if they told me I could trust someone to do something I would have complete faith that they would deliver. There are a lot of other people that I trust to DO things but I don’t trust them to judge others appropriately. FWIW, each of my two SIL’s fall into a different camp for me ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/28 "2014-02-24T16:31:13Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I found a [picture of him online](http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071015201142/muppet/images/3/35/Officercarruthers.jpg). I think he’s a cop, don’t sweat it. Hahaha. First I was like wtf are you talking about? Then I remembered Nanny. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/29 "2014-02-25T17:04:23Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > It’s happened to us, sort of. > > The very first time we left our daughter with a babysitter who wasn’t a grandmother or aunt, we hired our neighbors 16 year old daughter. We had known her since she was 12, and she seemed like a sweet, responsible, kid. An hour after we left, we got a call from another neighbor that there was a pickup truck in the driveway. We rushed home, and found the babysitter and a guy we’d never met in a state of partial undress in the living room. Our daughter was watching a video in the basement. I’m pretty sure that they were fully undressed when they heard the garage door opening. > > My wife had wanted to call the police as soon as we got the call from our neighbor. I was 100% sure what we found was what we would find. > > I had a quiet word with the babysitters father. They were quite aware that she was seeing the guy and that they were having sex. Of course we never let her babysit again. But she had lots of babysitting gigs. She worked in the after-school child care program at the local elementary school, and is now a pre-school teacher. > > Hopefully the incident represented a one off lapse in judgement. Your wife wanted to call the police? Why? What law was being broken? “Joel, get off the babysitter!” BTW, yes, I banged a BF while babysitting, but I asked the mom if I could invite him over first. She gave permission. He didn’t even arrive until the little sprog was in bed and she never woke up. In fact, he and I fell asleep half-dressed on the couch. The mom came home, woke us up, paid me, and sent us home. No harm, no foul. Sometimes, even teenagers have consenting, protected, safe and responsible sex. It happens. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/30 "2014-02-25T17:38:06Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > Your wife wanted to call the police? Why? What law was being broken? > > “Joel, get off the babysitter!” > > BTW, yes, I banged a BF while babysitting, but I asked the mom if I could invite him over first. She gave permission. He didn’t even arrive until the little sprog was in bed and she never woke up. In fact, he and I fell asleep half-dressed on the couch. The mom came home, woke us up, paid me, and sent us home. No harm, no foul. Sometimes, even teenagers have consenting, protected, safe and responsible sex. It happens. Ok, but you had permission. In general, you aren’t supposed to invite people to your employers house to bang them on the clock. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/31 "2014-02-25T17:40:10Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > Your wife wanted to call the police? Why? What law was being broken? I think she thought the car may have belonged to an intruder. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/32 "2014-02-25T17:57:19Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > Sometimes, even teenagers have consenting, protected, safe and responsible sex. It happens. I just wish they cleaned up the dishes and picked up toys as often as they had consenting, protected, safe, and responsible sex. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/33 "2014-02-25T17:58:53Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > I think she thought the car may have belonged to an intruder. Correct. At the very least a trespasser. Our 2 year old was in the house with a 16 year old girl, and a strange vehicle was in the driveway. Shame on us for not thinking “There’s at least a 90% chance she’s alive and well. Let’s finish up our dinner and be home in a couple of hours.” The babysitter was explicitly told that she shouldn’t admit anyone to the house while we were gone. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/34 "2014-02-25T18:47:04Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > I just wish they cleaned up the dishes and picked up toys as often as they had consenting, protected, safe, and responsible sex. I had a policy on that too: You want a cleaning lady, hire one. You want someone to take care of your kids, that’s going to be my primary focus. Now, I will clean up after them\*, pick up toys, do the dishes I made dirty from feeding your kids, but I’m not going to clean the house and do your dirty dishes. - I may be mis-remembering history, i.e., I may or may not have been that responsible as a 14-year-old babysitter. Upon further reflection, probably not. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/35 "2014-02-25T19:01:43Z")
Hopefully you gave your friend’s nanny some extra financial consideration for also watching your child,OP. After all, it’s not part of her job and if something happened she could be held liable. IMO, it is never a good idea to leave children alone in a home with an adult who you don’t know,male or female. And if your wife got a “bad feeling” then unless you don’t trust her.judgment (another problem entirely) then you both shouldn’t have allowed you daughter to stay at the home. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/36 "2014-02-25T19:10:51Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > I had a policy on that too: You want a cleaning lady, hire one. You want someone to take care of your kids, that’s going to be my primary focus. Now, I will clean up after them\*, pick up toys, do the dishes I made dirty from feeding your kids, but I’m not going to clean the house and do your dirty dishes. Yeah, we have a policy on that too – there’s lots of kids in the neighborhood, so clean up and don’t fall asleep with your boyfriend’s dick in you or we’ll hire one of your competitors. Just kidding, none of the babysitter’s we’ve hired has ever bothered to clean up in the manner you describe, which is really all we expect – the house shouldn’t be messier when we get home than it was when we left. But alas, it’s a seller’s market and we take what we can get. When I was babysitting as a teenager, I felt I had to do some light housekeeping to keep a competitive edge, but I guess that attitude is no more, at least in my neighborhood where kids can just mooch off their parents. Still, we haven’t caught anyone half-naked on the couch, so I guess we can still afford to be choosy on that front. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/37 "2014-02-25T19:27:30Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Yeah, we have a policy on that too – there’s lots of kids in the neighborhood, so clean up and don’t fall asleep with your boyfriend’s dick in you or we’ll hire one of your competitors. > > Just kidding, none of the babysitter’s we’ve hired has ever bothered to clean up in the manner you describe, which is really all we expect – the house shouldn’t be messier when we get home than it was when we left. But alas, it’s a seller’s market and we take what we can get. When I was babysitting as a teenager, I felt I had to do some light housekeeping to keep a competitive edge, but I guess that attitude is no more, at least in my neighborhood where kids can just mooch off their parents. Still, we haven’t caught anyone half-naked on the couch, so I guess we can still afford to be choosy on that front. 😃 At $1.00 per hour, I wasn’t cleaning jacksquat. Now, if the parents upped the ante a bit, then sure. One lady had an illegal day care in her house. She hired me to stay with 11 kids for a week so she could go clean some rental apartments that were turning over (she and her husband owned the properties). So, for a week, at about 15, I took care of almost a dozen kids, eight hours a day… for $25 a day. I thought that was like the bonanza jackpot to beat all jackpots at the time. Now, I realize, I should have charged her $25 per kid, per day. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/38 "2014-02-25T19:29:14Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > Correct. At the very least a trespasser. Our 2 year old was in the house with a 16 year old girl, and a strange vehicle was in the driveway. Shame on us for not thinking “There’s at least a 90% chance she’s alive and well. Let’s finish up our dinner and be home in a couple of hours.” > > The babysitter was explicitly told that she shouldn’t admit anyone to the house while we were gone. No, no shame on you. That’s perfectly reasonable; just wasn’t made totally clear to me in the OP. Or I read too fast. Or something. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/39 "2014-02-25T20:02:39Z")
😛 > [@steronz](#): > > I just wish they cleaned up the dishes and picked up toys as often as they had consenting, protected, safe, and responsible sex. “One of these things is not like the others…” ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987/40 "2014-02-25T20:39:08Z")
If they trust the nanny, why would they not trust the nanny to prevent her boyfriend (who obviously, being a man, will be overcome with lust at the sight of a child) from acting on his insatiable primitive male urges? Or, to put it another way, what the actual fuck is the problem here? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nannys-boyfriend/681987.md?page=3)