The weekend news carried yet another story about a nanny cam capturing assault of a baby. The hidden camera caught this nanny more than once in the act of shaking a crying, five-month old baby girl. It later caught her smothering the baby to keep her quiet. At her job, the mother saw the assault and called her husband, screaming, “She’s shaking my baby, she’s shaking my baby!”
Character checked by nanny cam!
The baby’s parents did the right thing before hiring a nanny: checked the applicant’s references. The 60-year old woman’s references were good, and she passed the criminal background check. She passed a so-called “character check”, too, but no one really checked her character – until the nanny cam did it.
Many companies offering background checks claim that they check “character” as well as past history and criminal records, but how do they really check a nanny’s character? What, really, is character? It is common to say that character is the sum of what you are, but if that is true, how can we speak of “men and women of character” or say that a certain person “lacks character”?
I refer back to what I wrote in a previous blog entry.
Character is not automatic; not something we all have in some measure; not “what you really are”. In the “how-to” book entitled Character (© 2003), The husband/wife authors give us a clear definition: “Character is a consciously developed inner firmness that permeates the fiber of a person, causing him or her to firmly harness the energy of objective high moral values to the actions of everyday life.”
That is what a nanny character check should seek. That is what parents should look for in an applicant who wants to care for a baby or child. The question that should be asked is this: Does that person truly possess a “consciously developed inner firmness that permeates the fiber…, causing him or her to firmly harness the energy of objective high moral values to the actions of everyday life.”
The nanny cam discovered that the 60-year old nanny in question did not. She did not possess moral excellence. She showed no moral excellence in her care of the baby girl.
What did show on the nanny cam? A gross lack of character. Character does what is right even when nobody is watching – which the nanny thought to be true. Look at just a few of the vital character traits this nanny lacked.
A lack of the character trait, love. Love would do what is best for the baby, even if it meant personal sacrifice for the nanny. The nanny’s desire for quiet (to watch TV?) must be sacrificed for the good of the five-month old baby girl.
A lack of the character trait, self-control. Self-control would prevent shaking and smothering a crying child. The nanny wanted to control the baby girl, but could not control herself.
A lack of the character trait, responsibility. Responsibility would fulfill the duties of a nanny in the best possible way, no matter what that might cost the nanny personally. The nanny wanted to shirk the duty of discovering the need that caused the baby to cry.
A lack of the character trait, respect. Respect would hold in high esteem every member of the family that hired the nanny, no matter who was or was not watching. The nanny would respect the parents highly enough that she would handle their precious child with care.
A lack of the character trait, integrity. Integrity would hold the nanny true in action to how she presented herself in words. She would not pretend to be what she later proved not to be.
Character checked by nanny cam would reveal a lot about each of us. Many would be found lacking.
That’s the view from my chair. What’s your view?