The Problem With Nannies/'Mammy'

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=618876

On this thread on the Straight Dope messageboards they were discussing the implications of the Mammy stereotype. One point I found really provocative and interesting was the idea that a mammy (or a modern nanny's) relationship with the children she cares for is bought and paid for, and that one of the darker implications of the idea is that the nanny isn't being her true self.

What does everyone else think?

EDIT: @Best Of: A mammy is basically the American idea of a black woman as the nurturing caretaker to white kids, with her own family etc never being part of her life in the same way. She was usually a plump elderly woman with really dark skin. Think Hattie Mac Daniel's entire movie career. Her roles were all that type of character. There's no equivalent Aussie stereotype AFAIK.

edited 24th Jul '12 1:07:10 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

Could you include a brief definition of a "mammy" in your OP? Just a sentence or two will do.

Does the Mammy stereotype even still exist anymore? I think that one's fallen by the wayside, along with saying "Yes, massuh!" and "Oh lordy lordy".

Mammy has evolved into Sassy Black Woman.

Although, ironically, the biggest perpetuator of the stereotype is Tyler Perry in his Madea movies.

edited 23rd Jul '12 8:57:52 AM by KingZeal

The problem with the mammy stereotype is that it's racist and outdated. The problems you just listed in the op could be said of any nanny or children's caretaker in this day and age, regardless of race. Personally, if I wanted to hire someone to take care of my child, I wouldn't want it to be with someone incapable of emotionally connecting with them.

Edit: Since the op hasn't clarified yet what it is, and it is very culturally specific, here's a quick wiki link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammy_archetype

edited 23rd Jul '12 6:05:28 PM by AceofSpades

Emotionally healthy people tend to bond with children they're raising, whether they're your own kids or somebody else's.

You'd probably have to actively hate the kids with all your heart and all your soul to not develop a bond. Cm'on! Kids trust their caretakers, learn stuff from them, look up to them. That shit grows on you.

edited 23rd Jul '12 5:54:39 PM by Politruk

Bossman seems to still be active, but it seems to be equivalent to "sir" in usage.

@Politruk: I'm not disputing that. In fact, when I was five, my family lived in Singapore and we had a Filipino housekeeper/nanny who, with one of my aunts, took care of me and my little brother because my parents both worked. I loved her because she took care of me and was nice to me. Five year-olds love anyone who's nice to them.

But there's another issue raised in that thread. What (IMO and AFAIK) Nzinga (OP of the thread on SDMB) seems to be saying is: The nanny becomes part of the employer's family, but the other way around almost never happens. The employer's family never becomes part of the nanny's life and the relationship is sort of self-centred - the family loves the nanny because of the things she does for them i.e children eventually have more complex reasons for loving their parents that aren't just "my parents take care of me/do things for me and that's why I love them." With a nanny it's "my housekeeper/maid/nanny takes care of me/does things for me and that's why I love her." And it stays that way because especially in cases where it's an Old Retainer sort of relationship (ie the nanny cared for the parents when they were kids situation) the employers themselves also see her that way, because they never get to know as much about her family as she gets to know about them.

edited 24th Jul '12 3:06:02 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

Bossman is a racial term? Huh. Learn something every day.

Can somebody explain how a hired caretaker is different from an adoptive parent?

Really, I don't know how different they are, and I'm sincerely ignorant here.

There are class issues built into hiring a caretaker. The parents probably won't entirely trust her (it's almost always a her). We live in a society where we've outsourced a lot of tasks, which means that we no longer trust family servants, because they don't exist. All servants, caretakers or otherwise, are basically independent contractors. The child may not know that, but the parents will.

I doubt that parents, if they're hiring a nanny or putting their kid in daycare, is going to leave their child with someone they don't trust to take adequate and loving care. Hell, part of the reason women are hired for this job is the stereotype that women are more loving and nurturing towards children. This "parents don't trust" caretakers is bullshit because those are the employees a good parent would take the most care with. And also why it's still considered shocking when a child carer turns out to be abusive; they hired this person because they seemed trustworthy.

Anyway, is this thread supposed to be specifically about the racist connotations about the mammy stereotype or about the problems with child carers in general?

Of course there are class issues! There are always class issues.

What I found particularly damning in the original thread was the bunch of upper-class twits agonizing over whether the nannies they had while they were kids actually liked them.

@Ace: Which is why I said they won't entirely trust her. Not that they won't trust her at all. It's just that it used to be that wealthy families might have a family servant whom they absolutely trusted. That's no longer true. The modern era is one with an empty home. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing (it's good that women can go out and work, after all) but it has been hard on families in our culture.

@Original thread: If you have to ask...

Anyway, I'd say this thread should be about general child care. The "mammy" stereotype is basically dead. Who cares about the race of your caretaker?

edited 24th Jul '12 12:50:15 PM by Ultrayellow

Generally speaking, even during the age of the "Mammy", it wasn't about the caretaker's "race", either. It was about her attractiveness. The Mammy existed because she was "safe"; supposedly, there was no hope of the wife feeling threatened of her husband's infidelity or of her running off to become some other guy's "property".

Can somebody explain how a hired caretaker is different from an adoptive parent?

Really, I don't know how different they are, and I'm sincerely ignorant here.

Well, for a start, the caretaker is acting as a proxy for someone else during certain hours, rather than being a full-time parent with full legal custody.

It's a pretty huge difference.

@ATC: The caretaker is paid to look after a child, while an adoptive parent isn't.

@ATC: The caretaker is paid to look after a child, while an adoptive parent isn't. Taking care of the children is the caretaker's job.

I think so. It's a common term used by black people I know, it might be Ebonics or whatever the proper term for the accent/sub-language or whatever the hell the proper terminology is^note ug, brain fart, can't remember the right term for language variant based on geographic or cultural division. IANAL.

The word you want is dialect.

That's the one. I knew it was a "d" word, wouldn't come off the fingers though.

[[qouteblock]] What I found particularly damning in the original thread was the bunch of upper-class twits agonizing over whether the nannies they had while they were kids actually liked them.[[/qouteblock]]

Now let's be fair, racism/classism aside, wondering if your childhood mother surrogate really loved you or not is kind of distress.

edited 25th Jul '12 6:22:36 AM by joeyjojo

Changed thread title to be more inclusive and less about a more-or-less dead stereotype.

@Katrika: Thanks.

Yeah 'Mammy' is rather culturally specific.