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Rogue nannies: When a care giver turns abuser

Living

The year 2009 was a terrible one for Laura Nyaboke. It is the year she lost her first born child at the hands of a rogue nanny. "I left home for work. As usual, I had made sure that the baby had enough breast milk to last him the day," she says. But at around midday Laura got the heart wrenching call from a neighbor.

"She only told me to rush home; that my son was alone in the house and needed emergency help," she says, visibly shaken by the memory of the day's events. "I froze. I could barely lift my legs to get to the nearest terminus to catch a bus home. But somehow I did."

Her boy had been taken to a nearby hospital. When reached the casualty department she was met with her son's lifeless body: solemn and still.

Her whole body shook with pain. "He was my first child; my ray of hope; the starting point of my motherhood." Back at the estate rumours were swirling: word was that the nanny was culpable in the death of Laura's son.

Depending on whom you heard it from the story changed – some said she slapped the baby and left him to cry and others insisted that she sat on the boy, suffocating him in the process. Whatever the truth was, Laura was convinced that the woman was evil and conniving.

"It is a neighbor who took notice that there was little or no activity going on in my house. She knocked severally but no one answered. She opened the door and found no one else but my son's body. The nanny was nowhere to be seen: she had taken off," she says.

The death of her firstborn son still haunts her. However, she is comforted by her Christian faith, choosing to believe that "God has a reason for everything".

Laura, according to Sociology professor Halimu Shauri of Pwani University, was a victim of the evil nature of mankind. "Well-cultured human beings have a good grasp of those values that make us human: care, humility, love, selflessness and happiness," Prof Shauri points out. "But not everyone conforms to these values – not because they are not human but because they tend towards their evil psyche, which is part of our human make-up."

For the professor, it all goes back to ancient times, when [it is said] Cain, furious with God, killed his brother Abel. "We are born with an instinct that is both evil and well-meaning. At any given moment in our lives, depending on how we have been raised, we can access that evil and inflict maximum damage on our fellow man."

Nannies, Shauri says, are prone to a limited understanding of their own situations.

"Woe unto you if you bring home a nanny who has so many hang-ups about their own situation. Because they may have a problem to settle with nature and your child may end up the victim in that scheme," he says. But nannies can't be all bad, observes Trizzah Kamau of Nanni, a domestic worker agency. "They are human beings just like us," she says of the help that parents hire for their children. "They ought to feel decent as they work for us." Trizzah takes offence at the deplorable conditions some nannies are subjected to.

"Being a nanny is no mean feat," she says. "You ought to have dignity. It is therefore a big problem when he/she is treated inhumanely."

Trizzah believes that parents sometimes 'bring out' the worst in those they hire as nannies. But at the same times, she agrees that the world is not devoid of inherently evil individuals who only want to inflict pain; unprovoked and malicious pain.

She takes cognizance of the fact that in Kenya nannies are, in many cases, lacking in professional training. "Our style is to ask for referrals: we ask our friends if they know someone who is looking for a job. We don't question their professional integrity and swiftly integrate them into our lives. They have no training and are most likely not educated to standards where you would expect them to offer quality services," she observes.

Laura's pain is definitely not limited to her. At least not in this day and age where nanny cams have become a necessity. These have offered a glimpse into what really happens when parents leave the home.

In 2014, the case of a Ugandan nanny, Jolly Tumuhiirwe, who meted out severe violence on an innocent four-year-old girl, found herself in the media spotlight.

"That was an awakening to the reality that nannies often don't mean well," says Joan Wanjiku, a mother of two. Joan quit her job two years ago to watch over her son and daughter. "I have hired [and fired] more than 10 nannies. It is from that experience that I have concluded that a child is best looked after by their own mother and father and not a nanny. The farthest that care can be extended is to a blood relative," she says.

For Joan the jury is in: nannies can't offer the same care [that God] meant for mothers to provide to their children. "All of my nannies exhibited signs that they didn't quite like caring for my children. I would come home and find my children with cuts, bruises and ugly bumps. I would ask what happened and they would cover it slyly saying, 'she fell; he was playing; another child hit him; she knocked herself on the table,'" she says.

She believes that at 4 and 2, her children didn't have the words to explain what they were going through and couldn't therefore inform their mother of what happened while she was away.

Catherine Mbau is a counselling psychologist at Arise Counselling Center. And she too, like Prof Shauri, says that nannies often act out on evil whims.

The solution, she believes, would be to do that which parents rarely do: conduct job interviews and assessments before hiring the nanny.

Catherine says: "It is only through understanding their qualities and motivation for the job that a parent can make prudent decisions as to who is best suited to be a nanny. This person is coming to be part of your family. They will be very close to you and even more to your child. You ought to know and understand them well."

Laura never chased after her on-the-run employee. She says she has not even considered it: "I will never get my son back and a protracted court battle will be an everyday reminder of what happened. I choose to let it go; my heart will fully heal someday."

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