The Genuine Article-- Our French Nanny

When my wife's company sent her to Paris to work, we didn't think that our daughter, then just over a year old, would have any problems with attending school there. Little did we imagine a colleague would inform us that her daughter had been "surrounded and attacked" by a group of young French children on her first day of pre-school. The incident frightened her so badly that she wouldn't let her daughter go back to school. If that was the case, my wife and I had a serious problem on our hands. What could we do with Chien-chien if she was going to be viewed as a "little foreigner" and be bullied at school every day? The only solution seemed to be to have her learn French. That way, if we ended up in court, at least she wouldn't have to stand there mute. And so we hired Martine, a Frenchwoman in her 50s, to be Chien-chien's nanny.

My wife truly treasures Chien-chien, and was not at all comfortable with the idea of leaving her with someone else. First, we had no idea what kind of person Martine was. We knew only that she was a licensed nanny with documents from the French government, and hiring her to look after Chien-chien seemed better than hiring a cheaper unlicensed nanny. Second, Chien-chien understood no French, so we were concerned that she might be mistreated. We couldn't have guessed that Martine would treasure her just as much as my wife does. And Martine knew how to handle children! My wife and I thank Heaven for her.

I remember the first day we took Chien-chien to Martine's place. My wife and Chien-chien played out an extended farewell scene before finally tearfully parting. And her father? Although I understood no French in those days, I was prepared to spend the whole day with Chien-chien. I wanted to convey to Martine the idea that "if you beat the dog, you'd better be prepared to deal with the master." But in spite of my resolution, within ten minutes, with Martine gesturing and Chien-chien sobbing, I was hustled out the door. At first, I thought I had better stand outside and "keep an eye on things," but then I realized that that wouldn't accomplish anything, and I made my dejected way home. Later Martine told my wife that I had had to leave unless I wanted to spend my entire life holding Chien-chien's hand. It took Martine to remind us that short, sharp pains are better than long, drawn-out suffering.

At the outset, we were concerned that Chien-chien wouldn't like French food, so we prepared a lunchbox for her everyday and delivered it with her to Martine. But every evening, her lunchbox came back untouched. Wasn't she eating? Thinking, "If this continues, she'll starve to death," we confronted Martine. Confronted, Martine calmly informed us that Chien-chien couldn't spend her entire time in France eating the lunchboxes we prepared. And, she continued, since that was the case, why not get Chien-chien used to eating French food as soon as possible? Furthermore, she informed us that her own nutritious homemade meals would help Chien-chien grow. She was even planning to prepare a "dinner box" for Chien-chien to bring home in the evenings. Our "confrontation" turned into an abject apology!

One day, Martine mentioned to us that Chien-chien was a little cross-eyed. However, she said we were not to worry because children's eyes usually correct themselves as they get older. To ease our minds, she had already taken Chien-chien to see her uncle, an ophthalmologist. If Chien-chien would visit him again four or five times at two-week intervals, everything would be fine. When we asked her about the fee, she would only say that it shouldn't be much. In fact, she never did tell us.

Usually, nannies view sick children as an annoyance because they require more care, and often must be given medication. As a result, most nannies expect that a child's family will take care of it when it is sick. But Martine was different. When the weather turned cool and Chien-chien came down with a fever, Martine called my wife to offer to keep Chien-chien for the night. She told my wife that she had been a nurse and that taking Chien-chien home in the cold night air might worsen her chill. My wife, who had been hoping to take care of our sick daughter herself when she got home from work, naturally declined her kind offer.

In this way, we became more and more comfortable (and more and more grateful) having Martine as Chien-chien's nanny. I think Martine treated Chien-chien just as if she were her own child.

Our daughter is now three years old and attends a pre-school near our home. Chien-chien's teacher has told my wife that Chien-chien's French is very good. Perhaps because our little "foreigner" now speaks French, she gets along very well with her classmates; they all remember her French name, Elodie, and let her know that I'm there when they see me coming to pick her up after school. We owe all of this to Martine. We were lucky to find someone so skilled in the art of being a nanny. She helped us so much. Thank you, Martine!

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Chien-chien and Martine at the EuroDisney in Paris.