Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The Fight with Yoselyn Ortega and the Critical Mom

Friends have told me of summers spend slaving away as au pairs, sent to wash stacks of laundry and hang it all out on the line--while watching four or five children.  One told me of feeling sad at being far from home and being told by her employer: "I don't want to see your unhappy face!  You go in there and smile at my children."  This particular friend, because she was young and less disturbed than Yoselyn Ortega, swallowed her sobs, grit her teeth, and pasted on a smile.  Can't we assume that the children for whom she cared would have been happier if she had not been forced to fight her sorrows alone?  If the nanny has an unhappy face then she's an unhappy person taking care of your children.  If only for their sake, you owe the nanny a conversation and an attempt to discover why she's unhappy.  You owe her even if you're not interested in the nanny and don't give a damn about her.  You owe her because you want her to feel interested in your kids.  Believe me, if you don't give a damn about the nanny and how she feels, she'll figure that out and why wouldn't she take it out on your kids?  The happiness of the nanny decides the happiness of the kid--or if not, then you're lucky.  I can't understand why anyone would want a woman who's an emotional wreck to take care of their children.  The latest tidbit about Yoselyn Ortega is that she had an argument with Marina Krim the day before the murders--that they were yelling at each other, the mother demanding that Ortega "interact" more with the children and not feed them junk food.  These are red flags.  If you're yelling at the nanny, you're yelling at the person who is supposed to protect your treasures.   Not at someone who is doing faulty work on an assembly line and who can be bullied into picking up speed.   
Why is it not obvious that a mother has a vested interest in keeping her nanny happy?  The first thing you look for is a cheerful person.  Competence comes next.  The first thing you notice is the moment when the nanny isn't her happy self anymore--In I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron develops a theory about babysitters--that after a few years they wear out the way anything wears out.   Childcare wears you out even when you love your children and they're the light of your life.  They're still the ones you yell at when they forget to flush the toilet for the thousandth time, use cuss words you told them not to say, or throw a towel on the floor after using it once even though they know they are supposed to hang it up.  Usually we don't murder them for things like this--and usually neither would the nanny.  But we don't want to take any chances with a babysitter who feels undervalued, underpaid, or exploited.   No matter how irrational the demands of Yoselyn Ortega, they should have been taken seriously for the sake of the kids.  The Krim children are the victims of parents who failed to see that a nanny could possibly be as unhappy as Yoselyn Ortega.  A profound failure of imagination fueled this tragedy.

10 comments:

  1. You see the Krim children as victims of the parents because they "failed to see that a nanny could possibly be as unhappy as Yoselyn Ortega"?? What an outrageous statement to make. The mother tried to help this woman by giving her extra duties so she could make more money. Mothers and nannies disagree, they may even have a heated arguements. 99.9% of the time, the nanny doesn't kill the children in retaliation to the mother, nor does the mother fire the nanny immediately, worried that on the off chance - she might stab her children to death. So your point is absurd. There is no way on earth that mother or anyone else could have forseen the pathology that was and is present in Yoselyn Ortega. Ortega's own family didn't detect the extent of her disturbed mind. To place blame on the parents for a perceived lack of foresight is utterly disgusting. This nanny wasn't merely 'unhappy' as you tritely put it. Unhappy people hand in their resignation and look elsewhere for employment.
    This individual is a narcissist. In every classical sense of the word - shifting the blame onto others, seeking revenge for perceived slights or imagined wrongs, never taking responsibility for their own actions. From her hospital bed she shifts focus from herself back to Marina by stating "Marina knows what happened."
    Not only is she a narcissist, but also a psychopath with sadistic tendencies. She murdered Leo while he slept by slitting his throat, then transported him to the bathroom to join his dead sister. She wanted Marina to find them like that so she could see her reaction - before she began to stab herself. Otherwise she would have killed herself sooner. Call it mental illness or pure evil, but Yoselyn Ortega was fully aware of her actions that evening. Her intent was to kill those children and to make sure that the mother found them so she could watch her reaction. A dangerous offender who needs to be locked up for life, undeserving of our sympathy. The only victims here are the Krim family; Marina, Kevin, Lulu, Nessie and Leo.

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  2. I've posted a lengthy comment: tried to do so here but what I had to say took up so much space the "HTML" would not let me post it. See today's post, and thank you very much for your comment.

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  3. MOST childcare workers are overworked and underpaid. Let's face it: people don't want to raise their own kids anymore and they want to criticize the inexpensive laborers who get paid pitiful sums to watch over other people's children. And $32K/ yr salary for 50 hrs/ wk work in NYC sucks!

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  4. Yes--Ortega was making a mere $18 an hour to care for three children--that seems low by NYC standards. But it seems the salary wasn't really the main issue--it was the bad feeling that developed between Krim and Ortega. Have the feeling that for a kind word from Krim, Ortega would have fallen at her feet. But Ortega must have been unstable for a long time, and her aggression must have gone unrecognized

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  5. It's not that unusual for nannies to dislike, even hate, their employers and charges. Most are professional enough not to show their true feelings, and get on with their job. This case IS unusual because the nanny acted on her hatred. She must have been mentally unbalanced, though that does not excuse the crime.

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  6. Yes, I can well imagine nannies hating their employers, but when the employers are so oblivious to the feelings of the nanny--then there's always potential for trouble. This woman must indeed have been psychotic to kill the children she'd cared for for so long. But I have a feeling that the employer must have failed to perceive how crazy Ortega was, and I believe that failure, if you can call it a failure, comes from never having been really exposed to unbalanced people before. The employers assumed a degree of mental health that was clearly not there.

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  7. Given the trial, I thought I would chime in. We employed domestic help when my wife and I both worked high hour jobs in a large international city. The help came from less affluent countries. We had three distinct experiences. The first She was very kind with the baby. She was a bit lost in the city environs and did not speak English or any of the local languages very well. We paid her nearly double the going rate as we did not want a live-in. We thought that would help defray costs. We paid for her to return home for the holidays and she never returned. She missed her kids terribly.

    With the second, we decided to hire a live in. #2 was outwardly more gregarious, ut it turns out wholly unsuited to serve as anything one might deem a nanny. She was a slob, swore and did inappropriate things. She was spending her energy in ways that would have her fall asleep when out with the kids at the park. I found this one later. Once, she came home drunk. I stupidly gave her a second chance (the logic being firing her would essentially deport her for good). She responded well, but soon took on certain presumptive airs. Keep in mind, she is a live in and space is tight. We were not hiring someone to take care of. One day, she asked to stay out late with friends in the same building. Since the following day was a Saturday, I relented on the condition she came home at 11 (not wanting her to sleep in past the kids waking up). She returned at 1:30am. It was a slap in the face. I told her we need to have a talk. Locked all the doors that night. The next morning, she was fired and her belongs removed within an hour. She was taken to her agency. Unless you have been in my position, it is a hard one to explain the betrayal of trust and just want that means for house peace and safety. After we fired her, stories rolled in on just how inappropriate she had been from kicking the stroller to using my kids to to sell stuff for money to various people in the condo and complaining about her lack of pay.

    The third helper we hired was wonderful. She was older and more humble, from a more rural existence. Granted her job was much easier (kids were older save for the little one), but it was her demeanor. More humble. Did not need supervision. The more humble and the stronger the work ethic the more generous we were with her, with time, bonuses, and salary, etc.

    One other one that we almost hired but did not was college educated but came across as insincere.

    I think Ms. Ortega as helper was a combination of our three helpers and this almost hire. She was not a nanny per se. So comparing her to $200K nannies who cook and educate is somewhat ridiculous. She clearly has pride but a lack of recognition of her place. This is not uncommon once hiring an urbanite with middle class standing in her home country. Like with our #3, while at first they must have felt good with each other, it was clear by the end that Ortega had deteriorated and that her effort to pay for her son's private school and losing her apartment were the death blows for that pride. Her family turmoil was like our #1 and she became unkempt like our #2. And like the one we did not hire, she tried to maintain a veneer of respectability masking her true feelings.

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    1. To me, it's a red flag if a person in charge of my kids comes home drunk.

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  8. Unfortunately, the Krims failed to do the math. and recognize the big picture. I knew our helpers could save US$5K a year after all expenses, eat well, and live in a very nice zip code and send that chunk home. Net savings of US$5K a year is the amount the median family saves in the US and in the top 10% in her home country. We were easy and our kids very nice and around us were employers which were much harsher. So we knew this was a good gig for the right person and disposition. But in the case of Ortega, in debt and running a serious deficit in NYC? Something had to give.

    That the Krims offered five more hours a week was very generous. That is $400 more a month for very little work. But what Ortega needed was a lump sum, ticket back to the DR where cost of living is a tiny fraction, and termination of the contract and relationship.

    Also, breaking the wall between employer and employee and trying to make this about friendship was a classic mistake, typical among Americans. It is not in our nature. The barrier must be preserved. this is why harsher employers in other countries who pay half as much but maintain the barrier have no such issues.

    Killing the innocent babes was a weak and evil coward's way out. Her real target was the Mom and then the Dad. But she had no such courage.

    This case is very sad and sadly not terribly surprising. The Krims cannot be blamed. Raising three in a big city is expensive, esp NYC. They were willing to pay $32K in after tax dollars plus other expenses. All told, in NYC they had to earn probably $80K+ just to afford her and her expenses. Don't get stuck on titles, If he was making $300K a year, $80K is not chump change. NYC is crazy.
    I think the combo of job and parental fatigue makes one a bit desperate. We were like this. We got shafted by #1, dodged a bullet with #2, and found a life long friend (ex post) with #3. We were lucky. The Krims were not.

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    1. I believe Ortega was seriously disturbed, and that her disturbances stuck out all over her, and that the Krims just didn't see this--I don't blame them; I think people don't see this kind of disturbance easily, unless they've grown up with it--as I, unfortunately, did.

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