The realization came to me while listening to a foreign woman talk about her experience working as a nanny for the super rich in Turkey. I’m just a middle class working stiff, but people with money know the difference between rich and super rich. It’s a numbers game, not one housekeeper, but two, not just one chef, but also an assistant chef, plus the gardeners, drivers, security… and the nanny.According to my source, the farther you move from London, the deeper you move into slavery, with practices on the İstanbul-Bodrum axis a blend of European liberalism and Middle Eastern tyranny. There are exceptions, of course, and the Manhattan exposé of 2002 -- “The Nanny Diaries” -- showed that New York has bestial mothers and fathers to equal any depraved ruler of Rome or Arabia.
One nanny in İstanbul learned the limits of her role when she disciplined her charge, a small boy, after he pulled her hair. She took the boy’s hand and said, “No, no, you don’t pull people’s hair.” Unfortunately for her the father was in the room and did not approve of anyone telling his son how to behave. He did not reprimand the nanny, only fired her on the spot.
Another nanny got sacked when she suggested that the prince she supervised might be better off with some fresh vegetables and fruit in his diet rather than the McDonald’s burger and fries that he ate every single day.
The woman hired as a nanny should have a minimum of job security in the form of a termination clause stipulating a month’s notice or a month’s pay, but those who get such treatment are the lucky ones. Some women love to care for children, but the pay is a big draw -- about 650 euros a week. If you live with the family and only have one day off a week, it’s easy to save a lot of money because you don’t have any expenses besides your shampoo and whatnot.
And the real money is on the agency side. One woman dominates the market in İstanbul, no one knows how. For every nanny placement she is paid 6,500 British pounds. She must be perfectly happy with dysfunctional families that fire nannies left and right.
Another friend of mine, a foreign woman married to a Turkish national, described going to the Anadolu Club on Büyükada and seeing some teenage boys going crazy, throwing food, tossing chairs and cushions in the pool… and no one stepping in to stop them. Her husband went to the father of one of the boys and said, “Aren’t you going to do anything about this behavior?” The father instead started fighting with the man for not minding his own business.
You may wonder why the nannies get paid in euros and the agency gets pounds. It’s because the rich people don’t care; money is money, the currency doesn’t matter. If money talks, they can speak any language you want.
If a Turkish son is treated like a prince of the realm from birth through adolescence, is the end result a man fit to rule? And what about our young women? Do the same principles apply to girls?
There’s no hard and fast rule, for splendid individuals come from poverty, horrid people from privilege and the other way round. Every kid by the age of 12, no matter what his circumstances of birth or upbringing, knows the truth. They know you cannot trust big people, no matter how kind they seem.
George Orwell said, “Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of 7 or 8 onwards.” I quote him to show you that I’m being generous in allowing the kids to mature by 12. Which generosity brings me to my conclusion.
Yes, rich parents can be very stupid, but let’s not lose sight of the importance of taking responsibility for one’s own actions and behavior. That’s why I say, if blame we must, then blame the children.
