Adopting A New View On Nannies

(I spent a year as a live-in nanny for a very nice Korean family. They’d had triplets after years of trying to get pregnant, and when the kids turn 4 years old the mom decides she wants to start training to pick her career back up when they reach school age. So, I move in to help out. It is a great deal; I receive weekly pay with free room and board, and Sundays off. One of my responsibilities is to take the kids to their dance and martial arts lessons. This happens after I’ve been nannying for them for about two months.)

Me: *taking the kids’ shoes off so they can run onto the training mat area* “Okay, have fun! I’ll be right over here where the chairs are. Bye!”

(I say small words like “hello,” “goodbye,” and “please” in Korean because their parents want them to be bilingual. The three kids, two girls and a boy, run off to join their martial arts class. This class is primarily karate based.)

Random Woman: *drops her kid off and comes over to me* “I just wanted to say that I think it’s great what you’re doing!”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Random Woman: “You are so generous! Adopting those three babies from their impoverished country to give them a better life here! Bless you!”

Me: *I’m only twenty-one and it’s clear how young I am* “Um… I didn’t adopt—”

Random Woman: “And you’re even preserving their culture by bringing them here and using some of their native words!”

Me: “Okay, ma’am, first of all this is a karate class, which is primarily from Japan. Those kids are Korean, and the traditional martial art of Korea is taekwondo. Second thing, I didn’t adopt them; I’m probably not even eligible to adopt anyone right now. I’m their nanny.”

Random Woman: “What?! An Asian family with a white nanny?!”

Me: “Yes… it’s a great job. ”

Random Woman: *starts turning red* “Well, I… humph!”

(She goes across the room to wait for her kid to finish class. My three kids come running over to me. They call me “Imo,” a Korean word for “Aunt”.)

Kids: “Imo! Imo! Did you see us?”

Me: “Yep, you all did great! Who wants to go home and have some frozen yogurt?”

Kids: “Me, me, me!”

(As we were leaving I heard the woman’s kid whining about getting frozen yogurt, and I had to smile a little bit.)