Want to see how changed the UK is? Look at how City staff treat their nannies
We’re accustomed to organising a nanny or a cleaner like ordering pizza and it’s driving a wedge between white collar workers and the domestic staff who enable their busy lives, writes Eliza Filby
The pandemic changed work as we know it; and yet, not just for the knowledge workers but for the rarely acknowledged army of domestic staff that support them.
Knowledge workers revel in their newfound flexibility but spare a thought for the nanny whose workplace is now shared with her employers. A combination of more mums and dads working from home, the rise of over-attentive parenting, tech and a cost of living squeeze means a job that was previously characterised by autonomy and trust is now dealing with hovering parents, surveillance devices and ever growing demands.
Forget mumsnet, if you want an insight into modern parenting take a peek on nanny forums. You find everything from the downright mean to the undeniably illegal. There are accounts of employers banning their nannies from eating the food in the fridge, nannies being forced to look after additional children for no extra pay, or being fired for getting pregnant. Tech surveillance is now an occupational hazard; one nanny says she was made to wear a body camera around her neck. Nannies also report being pressured to accept cash in hand by tax-dodging middle classes feeling the squeeze. It used to be that if someone had a great nanny or cleaner they would bend over backwards to keep them. So what’s happened to the English paternalistic tradition?
Before we assume this is just an issue for the super-rich, let’s remember that the rise of professional women over the last thirty years has necessitated (and been enabled by) the employment of domestic labour – mostly working class women of colour or European migrants. The reintroduction of the servant economy in the 21st century isn’t often talked about, but the fact is that complaining about nannies, cleaners and babysitters is as much a part of life as complaining about the commute.
Brexit and the pandemic have created a tighter labour market and increased costs but there is also something else afoot: the ‘Amazonification’ of service that the millennial generation in particular have internalised. The fact that we can order food to our door, hire someone to hang a picture, clean our toilet or look after our kids all at a swipe has diminished our respect for these services and the people who perform them, and in turn our willingness to pay fairly and treat them well. As has been said: ‘There was never any lockdown. There were just middle-class people hiding while working-class people brought them things.’
But there is another factor, too; knowledge workers are working harder than ever. Because of digitalisation and the normalisation of relentless long hours, the laptop class has increased their productivity the most in the last decade. As Anne Helen Peterson has written, the more educated you are, the more money you earn, the more status is equated with being busy and the less likely you are to have boundaries. It is precisely this group who struggle to employ and engage with services and people who actually do have quite specific parameters. An experienced nanny is there to care for children; not to run errands.
Over-stretched white-collar workers also struggle to support unionised public sector workers. Although solidarity for striking healthcare workers remains solid, there is less support for striking teachers and declining support for railway workers. Overall it signals a growing divide between white and blue collar workers, evident in our homes, our offices and in our current economic malaise.
Contemporary middle class martyrdom is justified; we are working harder than ever to achieve less than our parents did. But there’s another factor at play here; we are less interconnected; where are the genuinely socio-economically diverse spaces? We are divided by class in our weekly shop, our annual holiday, housing, even modes of transport. This is socially dangerous, and if an employer has less and less in common with their nanny, they’re more likely to treat them worse and worse.