Why We Shouldn’t Cancel Parents

I confess, I was SUPER nervous to present my talk on why we shouldn’t cancel parents to the International Nanny Association (INA) last week.  I know that less than ideal exchanges between parents and nannies unfold on social media platforms, and in actuality both sides can take steps to improve this problem.  I approached the workshop through the lens of a once, and hopefully now much less, clueless parent who once said something somewhat off-base on a parent-nanny facebook page.  I clearly hadn’t taken the deep dive into the nanny industry yet and the exchange really impacted me.  It left me feeling very attacked and even unsafe.  I could have pulled back or walked away from my budding Same Team project, but I leaned in.

After putting my more objective, researcher hat on I began to think about who knows and does what in the parent-nanny space.  I presented my hunches on this at the workshop last week and some of my developing theories seemed to be well received by the nanny community!

In short, I believe that if we surveyed ALL parents and nannies in the search space (including those who work with agencies) we would find the BULK of parents and nannies clustered around the mean or the middle as somewhat uninformed (re: nanny industry standards) but well-meaning.  These kinds of parents and nannies are often those searching and posting on the online platforms such as Facebook groups or care dot com.  

Next, I hypothesized that we’d find a smaller percent of those in the parent-nanny space who are well-informed professional/career nannies and parents who typically work with agencies.

Lastly, as outliers, I would say there is a small percent of parents and nannies who are uninformed and not the most well meaning.  Both of these populations are the reason safety screening needs to be rigorous in every case. 

When we consider the graphic above, and what the bulk of parents and nannies (or all the people who say they are nannies) are in need of some major education from professional nanny sources.  This is where Same Team comes in.  I have spent the past year as somewhat of an explorer with numerous paid professional nanny consultations and rigorous reviews of my online course to bring the lesser informed parent-nanny population better together.  The goal of the Same Team Online Course is to swiftly, simply present parents/nannies with baseline knowledge and action steps so they too can achieve success as we’ve seen among the professional nanny/agency populations.  

These days, I’m forging ahead given the overwhelmingly positive feedback and testimonials (see Testimonials tab) I am collecting re: the course.  You can see what the course is all about when you check out my free workshop here:  www.sameteamchildcare.com