A Very Bad Day at Work

As you all know, I am still working as a nanny for two girls, ages 5 and 8. They are attending VBS this week at their church and when I picked them up yesterday, the older girl asked if her friend could come and play for a while. After speaking with the friend's mother, she reluctantly agreed to a 2 hour play date. On the way home, we discussed what they would like for lunch and C said that she would like to show her friend the website Wikapedia when we got home. As are most kids, the girls are very interested in the computer. They play games and do "homework" on there whenever they can. As I was preparing lunch, all 3 girls headed to the computer room. When I checked on them about 5 minutes later they were looking up their birthdays on Wikapedia. "Okay girls, lunch is almost ready. I'll call you in a few minutes to come eat." "Okaaaay Rachel!" Not a minute later, I hear the 5 year old squeal. I went straight to them and they all looked as guilty as if they had committed murder and what do you know, they had closed the Internet.

When I asked what they were looking at, I heard silence. I told them to turn the computer off and come eat lunch. I pulled them all aside individually to figure out what was going on. After lots of grueling questions, I discovered the 8 year old was showing them "boobies." And that she had looked at the pictures before. I was sooo upset I was shaking and trying not to cry. I was furious that they did this and tried to lie about it, I was scared because I was responsible for someone else's child and I was sad because I just hate that children are exposed to sexual stuff so early. Once I got over being furious, I was just so, so sad about it. I saw and heard things about kids when I was working in foster care that most people can't even imagine and most of it was about sexual abuse. That being said, I am just overly protective about children's innocence. I wish they could keep it forever.

I called their mom immediately, but of course she was on her lunch break and didn't answer. About 45 minutes later I called again and got all upset again as I explained what happened. She too was very upset, but also very matter of fact and calm about it. When I told her I needed the other mom's phone number to call and explain what happened, she said "nope, I'll handle it." I was relieved, but also felt like it was my job to explain my horrible lack in supervision.

Long story short, I took the friend home to a visibly upset mother, talked to the girls about how disappointed I was, but we all make mistakes, we deal with the consequences and we make better choices next time, yadda, yadda, yadda. I never looked on the computer to see what they were looking at because I didn't think it was necessary and I really didn't want to know. Their mom said she would look at the history later, and along with their dad deal with it when they got home from work.

Their mom called me this morning to report how it went. All the fury, sadness and fear that I felt were a result of them looking at this:


Pretty funny, huh? Did I overreact or what? But that isn't anything new!