Xine Sun (孙新娥)

Objectively speaking, the nanny is not a bad person. She did put effort into caring for our baby and paid attention to nutritional balance when cooking. However, based on our actual experience employing her, she had fairly obvious issues with infant hygiene, work efficiency, accepting feedback, and emotional stability. Our seven-month-old baby developed a urinary tract infection while in the nanny’s care. We did not dismiss her because of that. What ultimately led us to let her go were the care issues we discovered afterward and the way she handled them when they were raised. After our baby had a UTI, took antibiotics for seven days, and developed a full-body allergic reaction, we began carefully checking the nanny’s daily care. We subsequently found multiple times that she had not promptly noticed after the baby had pooped, and the changing pads she washed still had fecal residue on them on multiple occasions. We showed her the actual items that had not been properly cleaned. At the time, she would say she would pay more attention in the future, but a few hours later she would come back to argue that it was not her fault and that we were deliberately wrongfully accusing her. Once, we merely asked her to pay closer attention to the baby’s hygiene, and at 2:30 in the morning, next to the baby, she lost emotional control and shouted loudly. To end the argument quickly so it would not affect the baby, we as the employers chose to apologize first and soothe her emotions. Similar situations happened more than once. The nanny was usually mild-mannered, but she had a very hard time accepting work-related feedback. When problems arose, she tended to fixate on arguing about who was right or wrong, immediately distance herself from responsibility, and even shift blame onto the several elders who had consistently helped her care for the baby. We had always been very accommodating toward her. She would bring clothes from her own home to use our washer and dryer, and would even take the baby’s clothes out to wash her own clothes first. On the day we dismissed her, she stayed in our home for three and a half hours, ate, washed her hair, took a shower, and did several loads of washing and drying. She said she did not have a washer or dryer at home and that her utility bills were expensive, and we had always expressed understanding. It was only after our new nanny had already been waiting outside for more than an hour that I very politely and gently asked whether she could move a little faster. She again became emotional and loudly argued with me. In addition, the nanny’s work efficiency also has substantial room for improvement. Cooking took two hours, preparing ingredients took one hour, and sometimes she would take half an hour to return after going out to throw away trash on the same floor. Families hoping for a postpartum nanny who can efficiently balance caring for the baby and cooking should consider this in advance. Finally, she would repeatedly talk about the work income of her previous employers and stir up conflict among family members. Employers who place importance on household privacy should take note. If your family is busy at work and does not have much time to supervise the nanny, we also recommend paying attention to the actual results of her work. When the nanny first started, she was very enthusiastic and appeared to be busy all day, but based on our experience, the actual quality and efficiency of her completed work were not as good as they appeared. We can accept that someone may lack ability, and we can understand the difficulties of age and physical stamina, but we cannot accept repeatedly facing intense arguments when employers raise normal concerns about issues involving a baby’s hygiene and health. Everything above is based on our real employment experience. Sharing it is not meant to negate everything about a person, but rather to give families considering hiring her more firsthand information, so they can make a judgment based on their own family’s needs. We wish everyone the best in finding a nanny they are satisfied with and who is a good fit.