Update

I find it interesting in my initial blog that I assumed library science would be the ongoing constant in my life, whereas as it's turned out nannying has been that constant! I moved from Oregon back to Michigan over a year ago now and kept with the library science program my first few months back, but quickly realized that it was neither a good fit for me personally nor a means of finding secure work in the area of the state I was hoping to settle down in.

Shortly after I withdrew from the library science masters program I took a position nannying for triplet boys (then about nine months old) and eight months later I'm still at it :-), with no definite end date in sight. I want to write more, but I'm limited on time and energy at the moment. For the time being suffice it to say that triplets are a lot of work (ja, ja, I'm Captain Obvious), and a lot of fun too :-).

"Eek! A Male!"

Lenore Skenazy of The Wall Street Journal has an excellent and thought-provoking article on how "stranger danger" in the United States and its singling out of men can itself be dangerous here.

I personally think Ms. Skenazy is spot on in a lot of respects. When I nannied in Ukraine I pretended I was Nikolas' father when I was out on walks with him because male nannies simply do not exist in Ukrainian culture. When I moved back to the States and decided to take a nanny job here in Oregon I continued to get the weird looks I had gotten in Ukraine, this time from friends and family. 'What's wrong with him' was clearly written on a number of faces. My cousin, who I'm currently working for, has had friends ask her how she can be comfortable with a man taking care of her twin girls.

I personally don't enjoy changing diapers period, much less girls' diapers, but I find it insulting when I'm treated as though I'm incapable of changing them because of my gender or, worse, that I shouldn't be changing them because of my gender. Children are children. Pedophilia is a problem and we should be on our guard against it, but demonizing and denigrating all men is as wrong as saying that we should hide our purses or messenger bags whenever a black American is around because there happen to be black Americans in jail. There are male and female pedophiles just as there are white and black criminals in the United States.

So, there's my two cents on the topic. I can hear the girls waking up from their morning nap and have to run, but if anything else comes to mind I'll be sure to post a follow-up here. Please feel free to leave your own thoughts here as well!

Severe Blog Neglect

Wow, it's been a long time! The girls are still alive and I'm still kickin', no worries about any of that :-), but my faithful laptop, which had been in hospice for a month or two now, finally died on Thursday, so until I have its replacement I won't be doing much online generally, much less preparing a new post for this rather sadly neglected blog :-/. And...that's all I've got :-). Cheers!

"Onward!"

History may be hard to predict, but babies are even harder! We've been working on getting Sophie and Olivia, the twin girls I take care of during the day, into a regular nap routine. Needless to say, this is easier thought about than done and so far we've only had one or two days where they've both taken early afternoon naps. Most of the time we've been all over the place. Some days they go right back to bed after breakfast, others they fall asleep during the morning walk, and yesterday I finally had to leave Sophie in her crib around noon to cry herself to sleep 'cause she had been acting really tired for four plus hours, but refused to sleep. (That, btw, was really hard. I have trouble leaving them to cry at all, much less for more than a couple of minutes.)

Something I really enjoy about the process of instituting this nap time, however, and nannying generally is what a good lesson in flexibility it is. I like my life to be scheduled out, but life simply isn't that way and the girls remind me daily of my need to just roll with the punches and enjoy the moment instead of thinking about the past and planning out the future. So, as a dear friend of mine who's now a nun used to say, "Onward!" I hear one of the girls now, so I'm off!

"Male Nannies" by G. Roja

I'm posting a link to Genevieve Roja's article on mannies in Metroactive. My training and work experience is far less formal than most of what Roja writes about, but I've definitely gotten the odd looks from people when I tell them I'm a manny. Enjoy!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! By way of introduction, I'm a 25-year old male nanny (or manny) in Portland, Oregon, who's just begun an MLIS at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Although nannying and library science are two very different things I thought it would be interesting to track, personally and professionally, my growth in and through my work and my studies on this blog and to see if and where they intersect and overlap both in my life and in life generally.

I've named this blog after a proverb that used to circulate in the USSR. Back in the day the official record of Soviet, Russian, and world history changed so frequently that Soviet citizens found what history actually was hard to predict. I've lived all over the world in a variety of cultures and I feel the proverb in my soul. What is true and unquestioned in one place is complete lunacy in another and I often find myself wondering what in the world is real and what is just someone's perspective.

I hope to maintain this blog until either my nanny job ends or I complete my studies at Wayne State or both. My life is as fluid as Soviet history, so at some point this blog may morph into a study of library science and working in a factory or library science and teaching English, but for the time being we'll leave that to the future. I hope to keep it enjoyable and real whatever I'm writing about! Cheers!