The Nanny Disaster

It is only when you realise your children hate you, [and I am not exaggerating] that you realise that the person you trusted has turned your own children against you.

Don't think it can't happen to you because....

It has, it does, it will.

Whether you've hired someone from a reliable agency, whether you've appointed a relative, whether a trusted neighbour, the possibility of them turning your child against you is alive.

There are cases where a woman has hired, and well paid a highly recommended person who has proceeded to so turn the child against the mother that even in later life, when the 'child' is a grown woman, the scab of hate remains.

There are cases in which one of the grandparents so slanders and abuses one of the parents that the children will be 'indoctrinated' against that person.

There are cases where a trusted neighbour virtually uses your child to burglarize your home and abuses you when you speak.

These are not rare cases, they are almost common.

The parents were going through a very bad patch, which would result in divorce. They sent their children to his mother on a 'temporary' basis.

Two years later, when the Mother went for the children, her mother in law refused to give them up, and they refused to leave her.

To pacify the situation, the Mother in Law made certain promises, which she had no intention of keeping.

When the father came, and physically took the children, they ran away, went back to Grandma and had been so trained so as to call the police.

Why?

In her past she had encountered certain situations, and somehow decided that she was the best person to raise these children. She never loved her son and although was not anti his wife, felt that she was unsuitable.

During the first days she had smothered the children with this endless love, and told them many scary stories, which, in their tender age believed.

They looked at their parents with fear and suspicion although could not verbalise why they were afraid.

They lived with their Grandmother until adulthood, then moved away to a house she owned and promised to leave to them.

They would, like robots chant what a 'great mother' she was, even though, if one gave them the floor they would begin a litany of the 'lacks' they had experienced, which they blamed on their parents, not on their Grandmother.

The Parents, who had divorced, remarried, had other children, were not moons circling their children, but had lives, and after a few rebuffs, done when the children were teenagers and then adults, pulled back.

Thus, proving that they 'never cared' about the children, the children forgetting how they had excoriated and dismissed the parents.

The Next Door neighbour was the Nanny. She would look after the child. She made the child love her, rely on her, and slowly but surely, made the child feel that she wasn't wanted by her parents.

A few words here, a few there, and soon enough the child would steal from the parents to give to the neighbour and if anything was said, would take the neighbour's side.

Sending the child to live a distance away with a relative, sort of a weaning period, had little use. The child transferred her 'love' of the neighbour to the relative and maintained her animosity towards her parents.

Despite the fact her parents took her to many venues every week, bought her clothes and paid her school fees, her doctor fees, and were hand on, the girl did not want to live with them.

At first it was felt that it was part of the 'weening' from the neighbour. Then it became clear that although physically and consciously she would rebuke the neighbour, unconsciously all the filth that was piled into her mind by that neighbour remained untouched.

It is not very complicated. Get a number of different 'Nannies'. A relative, a baby sitter, a neighbour, so that when the parents are not present, different people fill the role.

Those different people will attack each other, and leave the parents alone. Replacing them at intervals with new people, new environments prevents any kind of bonding.

Hence the child who on Monday goes to a creche, on Tuesday stays with Grandma, on Wednesday is looked after by Neighbour, on Thursday it is a paid baby sitter, on Friday it is the creche will not bond with any of them more than the parents.

Subsequently, changing the creche days to Tuesday and Thursday, having the child stay with Aunty on Monday, with a baby sitter on Wednesday, and another neighbour on Friday, prevents the child from having anything constant but the parents.

Although it sounds harsh, it is survival.

Nothing is worse than a child being turned against his or her own parents.