FORT GREENE — Kim Janulewicz knows her relationship with her children’s nanny is unique.
Although it’s been two years since Dalila Aguirre cared for her 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter as a full-time nanny, she is still very much a part of the family.
That’s because for the first two years of their lives, Aguirre cared for both her own son and Janulewicz’s son simultaneously. The two boys are still close friends who take swimming lessons together and go on weekend play dates.
After hiring her in 2009, Janulewicz quickly learned that Aguirre, who was in her mid 20s at the time, was a single mother who was having trouble finding someone to care for her own son, who is six weeks older than Janulewicz’s.
“She was struggling with her child care situation. For me, I thought that was unacceptable, so she was allowed to bring her baby,” Janulewicz said.
So for the first two years, Aguirre raised the two boys together.
“I don’t have family here, so I consider them like my family,” Aguirre said in Spanish. “The boys are like brothers.”
While it gave the boys a friend to play with, the arrangement also worked out economically for both women.
“We were able to negotiate with her on the rate we were paying because she didn’t need to pay for outside childcare,” Janulewicz said.
For 43-year-old Janulewicz, the owner of Brooklyn-based parenting blog “A Child Grows,” hiring Aguirre was easy.
“I just think I got very lucky with finding the right person right off the bat, I felt very comfortable from the time she came in,” Janulewicz said.
But for most parents, hiring a nanny takes a lot of work and negotiation.
Janulewicz, who found Aguirre through a local Yahoo parenting group called Fort Greene Babies, said it’s key for parents to set up clear expectations about salary, benefits, responsibilities and days off from the beginning.
When Aguirre started working for her, Janulewicz drew up a contract that put all the expectations in writing.
“It wasn’t a legal document or anything, but it formalizes the relationship and puts it in writing,” Janulewicz said.
She said parents need to do their homework before setting up the ground rules. Janulewicz knew from her background working in HR that anyone working in someone’s home in New York is entitled to five sick days a year.
She also gave Aguirre, who worked about 45 hours a week, a phone and a MetroCard to cover her transportation from Woodside, Queens, to Janulewicz’s house in the Clinton Hill area.
To Aguirre, though, the relationship between parent and nanny is more important than the job perks.
“For me the most important thing is trust and sincerity," Aguirre said. "Bonuses don’t really matter, because that’s up to each individual boss. What matters to us is the trust that they can offer me and that I can offer them in return. Because, imagine, they’re trusting me with their child.”
To track neighborhood trends on how locals are approaching nanny pay, benefits and general issues related to child care, DNAinfo has put together an anonymous survey.
We're asking Fort Greene and Clinton Hill parents who've had a nanny or currently have one to fill out our survey so that we can report back on the findings.
And while we'd love for participants to fill out the entire survey, you can choose to answer as many — or as few — questions as you like. We plan to share the results in a future story.
