It’s hard for me to believe that in the two short months of Dadwagon’s existence, I haven’t once written about my nanny situation. Or nannies situation(s). But current events have prompted this post. To whit:
• At 13 months, Sasha speaks Chinese. Or, really, understands Chinese. Tell her to “pai-pai shou” and she’ll clap (pai) her hands (shou). “Jiao-jiao” and she’ll lift up her right foot (jiao). “Qiou-qiou” and she’ll go fetch her ball (qiou). This is frankly pretty cool, not least because now I know, and can mispronounce, the words for hand, foot, and ball. But, you know, it’s also one of those neat things of being a parent—to be able to see the twitching, meconium-caked worm grow a brain.
Alas, I can’t claim credit for much of Sasha’s intellectual prowess. That honor goes to our two nannies. One is Sun Ah-yee, “ah-yee” being the Mandarin word for “auntie,” applied to any woman older than you who’s not yet obviously grandmotherly. Sun Ah-yee is in her 50s, sweet, capable, with no fashion sense whatsoever (she somehow dresses Sasha to look like a 55-year-old Chinese lady). She’s with us three days a week, and without her our home would quickly collapse into filth and misery. She cooks and prepares most of Sasha’s meals, she cleans the apartment, she stays late and will come in on weekends if we ask her to. She is awesome.
She also doesn’t speak any English at all. Mandarin is her primary mode of communication, but it’s accented according to her northeastern Chinese upbringing, which means it’s really damn tough to understand what she’s saying, especially when she won’t slow down for me. And when she finishes each disquisition by saying “Understand?” Even when I do understand her gist, there’s no way I can replicate it. Often I’ll just nod or shrug and try to edge away, figuring that whatever my answer, she’ll be fine with Sasha.
Because Sun Ah-yee works elsewhere two days a week, we also have Jessie Ah-yee. In her late 30s or early 40s, Jessie immigrated from Taiwan a long time ago, and has two children of her own, one with cerebral palsy. And she—thankfully—speaks English well, although there are times when she gives me a kind of blank look, one that implies she’s understood the words but not the meaning behind them. She gives this look to Jean, too, so maybe it’s not a language thing but a Jessie thing.
It’s thanks to Jessie, though, that Sasha knows her jiao from her shou. She’s a great teacher, and speaks Taiwanese too, so soon Sasha will know that tongue better than me.
Look, I’m grateful to the work these two women do, and am happy to spend 70 percent of my take-home pay so that my daughter is well cared-for and multilingual. But on some level, I wish it was me doing the teaching. With child care so expensive, it almost makes economic sense for me not to work at all, and to take on Sun Ah-yee and Jessie Ah-yee’s duties. But could I do it as well? Or is this early-childhood education-by-outsiders ultimately worthwhile?
Still, Jean and I can take credit for one thing: Yesterday evening, after Jessie had gone home, Sasha and I were playing in the living room. All of a sudden, Sasha stopped where she was standing, her face went red and her breath sounded constricted. Yes—she was pooping. She squatted there a moment, and, when she was done, got right up and marched over to the bathroom, where Jean and I usually wash her butt off in the sink after every poop. Oh, the things that stir a father’s sense of pride!
Next step: Getting her to the potty before she craps.