I know what you did last summer....

I don't belong to any local online parenting sites, and today I was reminded on why. I had tea and a play date at a friends house when she told me that she had joined one of the local forums but that it was beginning to get on her nerves as all the postings was either heated arguments about vaccinations, breast and bottle feeding and stay at home versus work.
And one other thing:
Nanny-bashing.
Every day she read at least one new thread along the lines of:
To the mother of the toddler in a green stroller with a nanny wearing x in such and such park/playground/library/toddler group - please be aware that your nanny let your child cry for 30 seconds before responding,
or
did you know that your nanny doesn't wipe his/her nose properly after sneezing.

Some of the alerts were more serious. Like: she talked to her friends while your child was about to climb up the play-structure/walk out of the playground/put a small, unidentified object in his/her mouth.

This is such a huge, gaping big black hole of a grey area that it is hard to cover it all in one small blog post.
As a mother with a part-time nanny I am the first one to admit that I would like to know everything, I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, that goes on while they are together. But on the other hand: I wouldn't have employed her in the first place if I didn't feel one hundred and a gazillion percent sure that I could trust her with my child.
Thing does happen, though, there are enough scary stories in the papers to prevent us from feeling completely relaxed about leaving our children in a paid care situation.
I just do hope that the people posting these alerts have a very genuine reason for doing so and are not simply exaggerating a perfectly normal situation. How can we know? We won't. We just have to trust our better judgement, the alerter, as well as the parent on the receiving end.