okay, I hadn't planned for that...

A lot of working parents leave their kids with a nanny or sitter or something before they're old enough to be in school. Never mind what you might be inclined to think of people who foist off a chunk of their parenting responsibilities onto someone else, it can have some unintended and sometimes just plain strange consequences. Most commonly, a child might bond more with the hired help and become more attached to them than their own parents. Or the child can pick up some bad habits.

I think a lot of people who hire nannies and sitters for all-day childcare for an extended period of time are at least vaguely aware that these possibilities exist. Sometimes they even try to negate them by making a point to spend time with the brat whenever they can. Or keeping a close eye to make sure no one is learning something objectionable. You can prepare for that shit.

But I'm not sure anyone would even suspect this would happen, let alone be able to prepare to deal with the ramifications.

I briefly knew a girl called Dawn, who happened to be white as white can be, whose mother was a single parent, meaning she was the sole provider and couldn't stay home all day with the baby. So she hired a nanny. It just so happened that the woman hired was Chinese and didn't speak terribly much English. Dawn was exposed to Chinese much more often than she was exposed to English-speakers, so naturally she picked up the language.

But she didn't manage to pick up English.

In the end, Dawn ended up having to take English instruction for her first few years at school because she happened to have been left with a sitter who inadvertently taught her Chinese. She even had a hard time communicating with her own mother.

By the time I knew her, she spoke perfect English. But I thought it was a bit weird and a bit interesting that this even happened. It would never have occurred to me to think of that as a potential consequence.

It had its perks, she told me. She could go to Chinese restaurants and order in Chinese and engage the staff in friendly casual conversation. Part of why she did it was because she always thought it was a bit funny how surprised they often were that this very not Asian chick spoke fluent Mandarin.