Married To The Job

"A Spoonful of Sugar, A Nanny's Story by Brenda Ashford.  Doubleday   304 pages   $25.95

Ashford is now 92 and living in an assisted living facility.  She has her own small kitchen and likes to bake for visitors and children she worked with who are now adults.  She retired in her '80s!  She was a professional nanny for more than 60 years.  (Those of you who have had children, may well wonder at her state-of-mind all of those years.)

Her book is interesting because it's a living history.  Ashford was a proud scholarship graduate of the Norland College which was famous for producing exemplary nannies.  When she started work, the nanny was totally responsible for the child - from doing their laundry to dressing them; from cooking their meals to feeding them and everything in between.  The parents often saw their child for a half an hour in the evening, before guests came for dinner.  That was the way things were done then.


Ashford is adamant about children being taught good manners.  She is equally adamant that the child learn to eat everything offered on his/her plate.  Ashford believes that to continue giving a child choices merely creates a picky eater.  Even if it's a small portion, more of a taste than anything else, the child must eat it.  To reinforce this discipline, the nanny had to clean up her plate, too! 

She strongly urges readers to interact directly with the child.  Squat so that you're both at eye level.  Think about what a child has said or asked and respond truthfully.  She does admit that the only direct lie you can tell a child is regarding Santa and his existence.  On other matters, she said that babies aren't found under blueberry bushes; they come from mummy's tummy and you must tell them that. 

She urges that children be allowed to be children - to create a train from an empty cardboard box or to build a fort with dining room chairs and a blanket.  Daily fresh air was an absolute must for Ashford.  Rain, snow, hail - an hour a day.

Of all the various ages of a child, Ashford loves the newborns the most.  She is awed by the wonder of it all and at the life stretching before the baby.

She never married or had kids of her own.  Her first boyfriend was a cheat who had another girlfriend on the sly; her second prospect turned away from marriage completely and became a priest!  Admitting that she had bad luck with men, she never sought a courtship after.  She felt that she had been put on earth to tend to babies.

Admirable, of course.  Stalwart even.  But I can't help wondering if she hadn't had this position, she would have been the woman who snatches a baby out of its pram in front of the supermarket.