39. Get a French Nanny

And by French, I mean Filipino.

I learn the most about French motherhood on Facebook. I keep my account on the decaying husk of a site because of the plethora of mommy groups, where you can buy secondhand baby equipment and get the names of reputable dentists and pediatricians. And most importantly, Facebook is where I learned French moms love Filipino nannies.

[Note: If you are not Filipino, please go ahead and read this next paragraph but IGNORE the paragraph that follows it in italics. If you are Filipino, go ahead and read both paragraphs.]

I assume a big part of why so many French moms like Filipino nannies is because they are indeed good nannies, and French moms may attribute this to Filipinos' alleged caring, nurturing personalities -- the same reason certain people claim they make the best nurses, caretakers, housekeepers, etc. Yeah, it gives me the ick. No group is a monolith, and I can personally attest to knowing many Filipinos who are highly uncaring and inhospitable (see: author). But scrolling through Facebook, I regularly see posts from French moms specifically requesting Filipino nannies because they care for the kids like they are their own.

Filipinos: I know in terms of Asians, we rank pretty high. (Note to non-Filipino Asians: why are you reading this, but also, c'mon, Asians love to rank other Asians.) And yeah, there's a reason why I feel like a failure if someone comes over and I don't already have rice warm for them in the rice cooker. I'm not saying being caring and welcoming is in my DNA, but it is engrained fairly early on. But let's keep that between us.

Anyway, whenever I see such a post, it always reminds me of the brief period of time when I inhabited both demographics of highly sought after nannies: the Filipino nanny and the American nanny. During my tenure as a nanny, I was always highly aware of the other Filipino nannies. After all, at the playground, all the nannies sat in groups: the Filipino nannies, the Caribbean nannies, the Spanish-speaking nannies, the Italian nannies, the 20-something American nannies, and the one male nanny who actually ran around and played tag with the kids. (Show off.)

Most of the Filipino nannies spoke English with their kids, as that was another draw for hiring them. It always amused me to hear a little French kid adopt the highly specific English-isms I strictly associated with Taglish. ("Françoise, close the light!") I could also always tell if a kid had a Filipino nanny if they responded to an angry psssst in their direction.

Now that I have kids, I see the Filipino nannies again at the playground, as well as at school and daycare. Sometimes we talk, and other times, we just stare at each other intensely for a few days until this eventually just turns into a friendly nod.

Lately, I've been trying out this new, revelatory thing called not assuming the worst in people -- so that means I don't immediately jump to the conclusion that all the teachers, school admin, and other parents assume I am my kids' nanny. But when I am meeting many of them for the first time, I am often greeted with a hesitant, "And you are their....?" So I'll just leave that there.

Now, every time I see one of those seeking-a-Filipino-nanny posts on Facebook, I remember that I, in fact, kind of do want a Filipino nanny, too. Or at least, I want someone who will speak Tagalog to my kids for a few hours a week so that they can soak up the language the same way I did as a kid. But since I don't want to write a Facebook post explaining this, I did the next most reasonable thing: I threw myself at a random Filipino at the playground.