I'm not sitting in front of my computer tonight to rehash any of the details of this devastating tragedy. There's absolutely no way for me to wrap my mind around the extent of such loss and sorrow, but I know that my heart has been aching for the Krim family (immediate and extended) and that I've been thinking about them non-stop. The tragedy has informed the way I now hug my girls, the way I now talk to them, the way I kiss their little toes, the way I sing to them, the way I tuck them into bed... . All the usual but distant cliches about the frailty of life have suddenly slapped me in the face with their full-blown malevolence, and I can't help but wonder the "Is this the last time?" question every time I interact with the girls. Even when I complain to others about how desperately clingy my 13-month-old has become, I do so with the awareness that I am fortunate to have a child who wants me so -- who is alive and seeks my presence. Of course, the immediacy and urgency of these feelings will soon recede, and all will return to normal -- except for one family, of course. But that's not the point of this post.
Rather, I've been increasingly infuriated/nauseated/distressed by much of the commentary that has accompanied the tragedy-related articles. There is a lot of victim-blaming (e.g., why did a woman of her means need a nanny in the first place?, etc.) and so much self-righteous gloating (e.g., I'm a committed parent, and that's why I'll never use a nanny, etc.) floating around out there in cyberspace, forming some kind of insidious, guilt-/panic-inducing metanarrative of the (dare I say?) anti-feminist sort. I know that's a lot to unpack, but if you've gotten this far, you may as well hear me out.
Yes, there are probably some super-affluent women who really do just want to hand their kids off to their nannies so that they can sit in a spa all day. I don't know. Maybe they live in "Gossip Girl" episodes. This post is not about those Cruella Devilles. And there's usually some leeway given in the commentary I've read for women who absolutely need to work and so have no choice but to hire nannies. The women who seem to bear the brunt of the judgment and spite are those who don't have to work but hire nannies anyway. That includes women who work simply because they love their jobs or because they don't want to interrupt the trajectory of their careers. (Full disclosure: I am a stay-at-home-mom who, until now, has not used a nanny.) Marina Krim didn't really have to work, apparently, or at least that's what I've gleaned from reading between the lines.
Never mind that she was a committed, loving mother. Why would a stay-at-home mom need a nanny? To this I want to scream, because it takes a fucking village. There's absolutely no way, before you have kids, to know how hard this whole business of child-rearing is going to be. Perhaps you have a husband who travels a lot or works late hours. Perhaps you don't have parents or siblings or friends who can pop in to take care of the baby while you take the older child to her dance class. Perhaps you want to grab some groceries while your child is napping but need someone around to watch her while you do so. Perhaps you want some precious one-on-one time with your older child, so that she remembers that you love her dearly, despite the fact you seem to lavish ungodly amounts of time and energy pacifying the younger one. Perhaps you would like the occasional but regular me-time so that you can get your hair cut, see a dentist, have lunch with a friend, take a shower, pick up the apartment, return emails. Bottom line is, every mother I know needs some kind of help. You may call the help a babysitter. You may call her a nanny. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a difference of pay, benefits (if any), and hours. So unless 1) you're a parent who doesn't have extended family to help you and 2) you've never once hired someone to provide assistance, perhaps you should keep the judging to yourself, mmm?
And speaking of assistance, let's not forget that the babysitter you hired for tomorrow's date night with the spouse might have her own psychotic episode and murder your children. But she probably won't. These tragedies are sensational not only for the depth and scope of the suffering but for their rarity and randomness. A psychotic break could happen to anyone whom your child considers an authority figure, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to keep using that tutor, or stop taking your child to violin lessons, or not let her go to that awesome summer camp. It's unfair to stigmatize an entire group of workers -- i.e., nannies (not to mention the women who hire them) -- for the random violent act of one of them.
But what bothers me equally is how much of the commentary has a way of shepherding women back into their supposed place: the home. I feel like I can almost hear a certain subset of our population wagging their collective finger as they intone something about the lesson this tragedy should be for any woman who would dare continue working out of anything but necessity. Maybe they're actually cackling. Granted, I may be dipping in hyperbole and/or paranoia here, but in its milder form, there's a lot of hand-wringing by moms over whether they should feel comfortable going back to work or by husbands who question whether their wives should work. (I wouldn't be surprised to find out that half of working moms in New York City called in sick on Friday.) It's a disturbing development spawned by this tragedy, and I'm hoping that I am perhaps just being too sensitive or dabbling negligently in political correctness.
Anyway, I'm not in the business of venting (too much) about social issues, so I'll wrap up the post here. Suffice to say that we should all be grieving with the Krims, but to turn this tragedy into anything more than what it is -- that is, a random act of violence by a mind that clearly snapped -- would be doing all women a disservice.
