Love, loss, our nanny, and Chappell Roan

Reflections on caregiving spurred on by pop’s current It girl

I turned on “Red Wine Supernova” a few days ago. This prompted my daughter Phoebe, who’s just shy of two years old, to say our nanny’s name: “Hayley!”

It was Hayley who introduced us all to Chappell Roan earlier this year. Chappell accompanied Hayley and the girls for living room dance parties and rides to swim lessons alike, becoming our inadvertent summer soundtrack.

I marveled at how, in Phoebe’s tiny body, the memory of Hayley registered. But the realization also made my stomach flip from nerves.

Because Phoebe doesn’t know that Hayley, her companion for the last 15 months, isn’t going to be our nanny anymore. Phoebe doesn’t know that Hayley is off to her next adventure: a year working abroad.

I don’t know if Phoebe wonders where Hayley went, or if she even experiences her absence as a loss.

But there’s something that cuts me about the whole thing, even though I knew it was coming. It’s that Phoebe doesn’t know that that many of the people we love will come in and out of our lives. And for her, it’s just beginning.

Bumble for nannies

When Hayley walked in the door for the first time, I didn’t know how close we’d become. Phoebe was less than 6 months old, and she wasn’t quite sitting up by herself yet. But my maternity leave, longer than probably 99% of American women’s, was up, and it was time to bring in the paid care.

Day 1 back to work. Phoebe hadn’t woken up by the time it was time to log in for my first meeting.

I’d grown weary and resentful of my nanny search during leave. It was sapping precious time and made me feel like a corporate hiring manager. I spent hours sourcing candidates, phone screening, and conducting onsite interviews. I Forcing my children to participate as members of the interview panel felt especially icky. So I threw my hands up and hired a service. Families fill out a questionnaire and open shifts, and sitters pick them up. It was like Bumble for nannies; what could go wrong?

Well, I already struck gold once on online dating (Jake and I are celebrating 10 years next month, thanks OkCupid), and I was about to do it again.

Hayley’s first day was my first day back to work. I don’t even remember if I did a phone screen, and we hadn’t done a trial sit. But once she got here, we started talking and it felt like we never really stopped. Because I was breastfeeding, I’d come out of my office multiple times a day. So I’d sit on the couch, and Hayley would sit in my living room chair like a guest I was entertaining, and we’d get cozy. We talked about work, family, growing up in Texas, and babies, of course.

Over the next few months, thanks to the creepy cross pollination of our Instagram Explore pages and Spotify Suggested songs, taking each other’s book and podcast recommendations, and our shared project of raising my two kids, we covered even more ground.

And here’s the thing I didn’t realize about bringing a nanny into your family. I didn’t really have an ideal one in mind. I mean, you want someone to be competent. But newborns are easy. Especially since I was doing the feeding. I thought I just wanted someone to hang out with Phoebe, take her on some slow walks outside, and hold her while she fell asleep before tenderly laying her down…

And Hayley did all of that, of course. But where she surprised me, and blew me away—she made me feel like an interesting human, not just a mom, not just an employer. And to me that support was so amazing. It’s women supporting women.

Matrescence

Early motherhood is a transition from your past life. There’s even a name for it: matrescence. It’s the emotional and physical changes that moms encounter as they enter a new phase of life. Similar to adolescence, there are growing pains. Even though this was my second baby, I was still feeling the unsteadiness and upheaval that my first kid’s arrival brought. So much attention goes to babies, but the moms gets neglected—their needs are constantly pushed to the side. But they need support too, of course.

While Hayley wasn’t officially caregiving me, taking care of my baby so I could focus on work, easing that stress, was care on one level. And she listened to me drone on about parenting topics like feeding and attachment style. She knew the names of my coworkers and listened to my work stories. She knew about my relationships with my family and Jake. She knew how much I struggled with the bounce back mentality. She was there for me. And while she was paid, quite literally, to be there—that human touch she brought to her care, that wasn’t a requirement.

You can’t put that in a  job description.

“Make me feel good.”

“Pat me on the back.”

“Talk to me about books you like and listen when I tell you what I’m reading.”

I’m laughing just thinking about it. I got so lucky. There’s so much more we could talk about here: how caregiving is so utterly undervalued here in the United States. I know I undervalued it until I started doing it. And there’s all these layers, not just caring for the kid, but for the mom and the family too.

Seattle

After those first few weeks the deal was sealed. We added after-school care with my older child, Helene. Hayley started picking her up from school for us. The months rolled by into a full year. Both the kids loved her. And I invited Hayley to join us in Seattle so the girls and I could stay a couple extra weeks. Jake’s work took him back to Austin, so we had a little room in our two-bedroom basement apartment.

She accepted, and joined us for the last two weeks of our stay this summer. It was a sweet time together, a send off for her, one last hurrah for us all of this chapter. We’ve stayed in touch so far, and I hope we do for a long time.

One chapter ends; the next begins

Phoebe now attends the same Montessori preschool as Helene. She has a class of other toddlers and rooms full of toys and materials to explore. She has new teachers who will love her, I’m sure. Her world is growing.

Hayley’s world is growing too, literally in another part of the world, and I’m so excited for her.

I don’t rue my kids growing up yet. It’s just getting so much easier. Bring it on.

But the inevitability of chapters closing for good, and relationships shifting, as the years pass by—whew. It’s comforting that some things won’t be this hard, at least not in these specific ways, forever. And at the same time, as I’m nearing 35, realizing I can’t redo parts of my life ever again—like the kids and I can’t have that year with Hayley again—in a small way, it’s devastating.