Safety: December 2007 Archives

California environmental enforcers pressured retailers Wednesday to immediately pull from shelves children's jewelry pieces that tested illegally high for lead. See Full story.

Stores where spot testing was done included Macy’s, Dollar Tree, and GAP Kids outlets throughout California. The 16 red-flagged trinkets include a "Molly 'N Me" necklace and a "Best Friends Two" bracelet. SEE A COMPLETE LIST of the tainted items at http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/LeadInJewelry.cfm.

Ouch. This nanny got caught on tape getting abusive when one of her two-year-old twin charges resisted going down for her nap. Angry dad Brad Roth started NannyAbuse.com to create a forum for parents to get more information.

Watch this clip from NBC: http://video.knbc.com/player/?id=192803

Here are two other inventive nannywatch sites that I've written about:
LAnannywatch.blogspot.com
ISawYourNanny.blogspot.com
See my story from a month ago:

By Barbara Correa

Nasty nannies beware. Parents everywhere are watching you.

Whether on message boards, Web sites or blogs, the Internet is abuzz with reported sightings of rogue nannies slapping kids, leaving them unattended or worse.

Now, nervous moms and dads are finding total strangers out there willing to watch their backs and report any nanny abuse. And what some are reporting is fueling new concerns about the largely unregulated industry.

On LAnannywatch.blogspot.com, launched a year ago, a mother describes how she discovered that her nanny was dropping her infant twins off at a private house every day, paying another woman to watch them, and then pocketing the difference.

The nanny would then go to work at other families' homes or run errands.

The mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she is pursuing legal action against the nanny, said she checked references and did a background check on the nanny, who seemed legitimate.

She said she suspected nothing until someone in the neighborhood told her what was going on. The nanny was fired, but the mother said she posted a message on the blog to warn other parents about the scam.

After a rash of news reports showed secret videotapes of nannies slapping or beating children in the 1990s, some families took to installing hidden nanny cams.

But with the evolution of the Internet and the ability to post and blog in real time, citizen "nannywatch" sites have boomed.
Smacked on street

A recent thread on Peachhead, the huge Yahoo group for parents in Los Angeles, details the saga of a little girl named "Holland" who was seen being smacked on the street by her hired guardian.

On Oct. 30, one Peachheader -- as the site's members are known -- posted a description of a 3-year-old on Ventura Boulevard and Laurel Canyon Boulevard holding a lunch box with "Holland" written on it. The nanny was allegedly screaming at the girl and hitting her on the top of the head.

A few hours after the first post went up, mothers swarmed into action, calling local preschools to ask whether anyone had a girl named Holland in their class.

By the next morning, a message went out announcing that the child had been identified and that the parents were handling the situation.

"I couldn't get it out of my mind," said Priscilla Sanchez, an infant nurse in Encino and one of the mothers who started calling schools when she read about the bad nanny.

"It reconfirms why I don't use a nanny," said Jessica Gottlieb, a mother of two in Sherman Oaks.

Gottlieb is is a frequent visitor to ISawYourNanny.blogspot.com, a watchdog site that allows anyone with a computer to post a performance report on a caregiver.

Child left alone

One report filed on the site over the summer assails a grandmotherly caregiver who left a 2-year-old girl alone at the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square food court while she went to Panda Express "to get a bowl of chow mein."

"Why I didn't give the woman a tongue lashing, I don't know," the poster wrote. "Maybe it was because she had an accent and I wasn't sure she'd understand.

"Point of the story: Don't leave your child alone in a mall. ... This carelessness could have cost the child her life."

Gottlieb said one reason for the increase in nannywatch sites is that parents are not being selective enough when they hire. They're also learning the hard way that you get what you pay for.

"My kids go to an expensive private school," Gottlieb said. "The nannies I see there are not going to be up on that Web site."

Unfortunately, a lot of working families are looking for deep discounts on nannies.

Employing a nanny was once reserved for the rich and famous. But today, it's unusual to find a dual-income L.A. family with little children that doesn't use one.

Pat Cascio, president of the International Nanny Association, said that when she started her Houston nanny agency in 1983, there were only about 20 such businesses nationwide. Now there are thousands.

Registry virtually unknown

In 1987, California created a voluntary background-check registry called Trust Line, a database that lists in-home child-care providers who have no criminal convictions or child-abuse reports.

But the registry is virtually unknown among parents, and it only checks for certain crimes committed in California, said Cascio.

Professional nannies working on the tax rolls say that while the sites and blogs might hurt the industry overall, they also make good nannies look even better.

"The majority of what I'm reading (on ISawYourNanny.blogspot.com) is illegal immigrants. It's a little disappointing -- you have a lot of people who are ... trying to get the best deal in terms of pay," said nanny Amanda Casabianca.

Casabianca said her $18- to $19-per-hour salary puts her among the highest-paid nannies in the business.

She said an abundance of people willing to work for low pay allows more working people to employ nannies, but it also hurts quality.

"There's so many nannies," she said, "and no regulation, no licensing."

barbara.correa@dailynews.com