Who’s Minding the Baby?

The tragic story of an English au pair convicted of the murder of an 8-month-old boy in Massachusetts has forced Americans to reflect on what we consider acceptable child care arrangements in this country. There has been considerable comment during the trial and its aftermath about the practices of upper-middle-class parents who hire teenage girls from foreign countries to watch their children while they work. It is not remarkable that women put their children in someone else’s charge; what is remarkable is the uninformed and sometimes cavalier way in which they choose a substitute caregiver.

Psychologists know of several factors that predispose toward bad parenting, neglect and, at the extreme end of the spectrum, abuse. The average au pair, in fact, through no fault of her own, embodies these very risk factors. She is a relatively young caregiver, she is biologically unrelated to her charge and, as a foreigner in an unfamiliar culture, she is by definition lacking in social support. Her interest in baby-sitting may or may not be purely altruistic. After all, as critics of the au pair system have pointed out, if her sole interest were caring for children, would there not be an ample supply in her own country?

Psychologists, informed by evolutionary theory and census data, have learned something over the years about the profile of the caregiver most “at risk” for maltreating children. Evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson have shown, for example, that nonrelatives and younger mothers are far more likely to be the perpetrators of infanticide. Evolutionary theory posits that parents are selfishly motivated to care for their young in order to perpetuate their own genes; unrelated individuals will obviously lack this motivation. But age adds still another dimension to the problem, in both biological parents and their hired surrogates. Because women’s reproductive abilities diminish as they age, children born to older mothers are harder to replace and are therefore more highly valued.

Even nonrelatives are affected by this principle, because the mechanisms that underlie age-related changes in parenting are operative in adoptive and substitute parenting situations, too. Evolution has designed women to be more sensitive and highly invested caregivers as they reach the end of their reproductive years, a fact that is borne out by the plethora of data on the inferior care provided by teenage mothers.

The au pair resembles the stepparent much more closely than the adoptive parent in that she is a nonrelative with what may be a less than altruistic agenda of her own. When an au pair’s social agenda conflicts with her duties as a hired caregiver, it will be hard to predict what the outcome will be for the baby in her care.

Another variable reliably linked to child abuse is social isolation and lack of social support. Having a spouse, an extended network of relatives or a community to call on serves to buffer against the stresses and strains of biological parenting. By contrast, one can hardly imagine a more socially isolated individual than the average au pair. Unfortunately, when the strain of a crying infant, a boiling tea kettle and ringing telephone become too much to bear, she has far fewer resources to call upon.

If au pairs are not an option, it is reasonable to ask who should watch the children when parents are at work. In the absence of state-certified infant care programs, our first choice would have to be a nonworking female relative like the proverbial grandmother, a sister or an aunt. If none of these is available, a mature woman with adequate resources and local social support network should come next. This solution will pose some challenges for the working parent in terms of cost and convenience; it will not be quite as easy to spell out your ideas about child care to a mature woman who may already have had years of experience raising children of her own. But if children are indeed our most precious resource, it might be well worth the added cost and effort.

If all this makes you want to send your au pair home on the next flight back home to Europe and hire a well-credentialed nanny (after your mother or mother-in-law refuses to move in), you are probably not alone.