Nasty "Nannies"!

NB: most of my hot takes and searing rakes can still be found on the AIER website aqui: https://www.aier.org/staff/robert-e-wright/.

Nasty "Nannies": A Cautionary Tale

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a land not so far away, a very large family faced a conundrum about what to do after noticing that their nannies had multiplied in number and grown quite nasty. The solution to the family’s problem, which is ongoing and even growing, is by no means clear but surely something must be done. Maybe you can help?

The first big difficulty is that the family inherited the nannies, most of whom are quite old and/or childless. The head nannies are the oldest and have become scolds. When family members object to their many rules, the nannies retort by asserting that they are following the terms of their ancient employment contract, a determination generally seconded by a small group of the head nannies claimed to be sufficiently independent from the others to render an objective opinion on the matter.

When pressed, the nannies also point out that family members possess the right to choose which faction of nannies is in charge. The nannies who lose leadership roles remain employed but defer, more or less, to the winning nannies until the next selection is made in two, four, or six years, depending on the exact nannyship role in question. 

Traditionally, the nanny leadership selection procedure appeased most family members. Recently, however, the legitimacy of the selection method has been questioned due to rule changes, some of which appear to have violated the ancient employment contract. Also, the selection justification strikes some family members as odd given that today the vast majority of the nannies, including many very powerful ones, are not subject to direct selection.

The nanny leaders hire many subalterns to perform various tasks, few of which seem necessary or even beneficial once the costs are properly accounted for, an exercise that the nannies refuse to undertake in a serious way. Mostly the nannies just make and enforce rules that make a few family members happy or rich while making the rest poor or miserable. 

All told, the nannies take about one in every three dollars earned by family members but they give some of it back in various ways, some of which are very popular and some not so much. The entire complicated exercise appears designed to prevent family members from knowing precisely how much they contribute to the nannies on net. The richest family members of course contribute more but all sorts of claims to the contrary are made to keep the family divided.

Understandably, some family members are not happy with the arrangement and wish to change the terms of the ancient employment contract but other family members fear that even worse arrangements will take their place. Some joke that everything is fine because their nannies are the worst in the world, except for all the others. 

A few family members whisper that maybe the family doesn’t need any nannies at all. Others think they need just a few, like when the family first hired them, and the nannies were more like sentinels. Many family members, though, cannot imagine life without nannies and would gladly give half or two-thirds of other family members’ incomes to have nannies tell them what to do with their lives.

The family members might be able to work this all out themselves but the nannies interfere constantly, in ways large and small. The nannies scold or mock those who question their authority or who have the audacity to claim that they are not following the terms of the employment contract, as amended over the years.

The nannies also claim to have a monopoly on science, a claim that some family members find absurd but others accept because they were educated by the nannies, who fight all attempts to allow non-nannies to educate family members. The nannies are so set on educating all the family members that they donate large sums to private universities in order to better control what the bastions of higher education tell family members about the nannies. One common distortion is to blame the nannies’ bad behaviors on family members.

Most of the nannies think that family members should not have firearms because it is the nannies’ job to safeguard the family. Although the nannies did successfully coordinate the family members’ efforts to thwart outside attacks several times in the past, the nannies also sometimes sent family members off to distant swamps and deserts to die for reasons that some family members thought dubious.

Moreover, some family members wonder where the nannies are when family members kill each other, as too often happens, especially when the nannies coerce them into living in close proximity to each other. The nannies seem to use everything as an excuse to take the family members’ firearms instead of looking into the root causes of murders, many of which are committed using bombs, knives, and blunt objects.

Meanwhile, instead of combatting real ills, some nannies trick family members into joining sundry ludicrous plots against the nannies simply to aggrandize themselves and make it seem as if family members cannot be trusted with their privacy let alone with guns. They also claim that some family members are better than other family members due to the way family members look, or what their ancestors did, or did not, do. Many family members find such claims upsetting and even contrary to the ancient terms of employment but they still let the nannies tell their children such things.

The nannies also routinely interfere with family members’ social media posts, especially regarding the selection process and their own health. They claim that they do not want family members spreading misinformation about the virus, vaccines, therapies, masks and other forms of social distancing, and such. Very few of the nannies have medical training and most family members see non-nanny doctors, however, so it was not clear that the nannies had superior knowledge, information, or understanding of the virus or ways to treat it or to mitigate its transmission. But apparently nannies have to nanny.

It is the utter arrogance of the nannies that troubles many family members the most. Instead of admitting that they cannot control everything and simply providing the best available advice, the nannies pretend to know everything and get defensive and even censorious when family members expose their ignorance, which is legion. ‘Tis feared the nannies might think it possible to run every aspect of the household economy, though ample precedents suggest that the attempt will lead only to poverty, despair, and death, the very things the nannies are supposed to help to prevent.

What is this family to do? Fire most of the nannies? Jettison or reform the ancient employment contract? Split into one or more new households? Or maybe the family members should lower their standards and laud nannies simply for not making things worse? Maybe pay the nannies not to nanny?

No path will prove an easy one but clearly something must change soon if the family is to survive the onslaught of their nasty nannies.