Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 18, 2025
The neighbor’s question is casual. “Are you the new nanny?” The toddler is beside her, small hand in hers. She answers evenly no, I’m the mom. The neighbor hesitates, explains that she thought someone else was.
It should have dissolved there.
But some moments do not. A biracial child who reads as white. An Asian American mother accustomed to being misidentified. A nanny who, apparently, let assumptions settle. What unfolds afterward looks like a sudden employment decision. It doesn’t feel sudden.
This story sits in the space between public perception and private boundaries. It isn’t only about who said what on a sidewalk. It’s about who corrects a narrative when it forms and who benefits when it isn’t corrected.
The firing reads abrupt. The undercurrent does not.
The visible conflict begins with a neighbor’s comment and accelerates into termination. The mother discovers that her nanny did not correct repeated assumptions that she was the child’s parent and that the child had been heard calling the nanny “mama.” When confronted, the nanny minimizes the issue. The mother fires her on the spot. The household is left scrambling for childcare, and her husband objects to the immediacy of the decision.
Beneath that sequence is a longer buildup. The mother later identifies a pattern of smaller behaviors she had dismissed which toys were offered, which foods were heated up, offhand remarks about neighborhoods. None of them explosive on their own. Together, they alter the texture of the situation.
The husband’s frustration centers on logistics and consultation. The nanny’s internal reasoning remains unclear. The employment arrangement ends; a severance is offered. Operationally, the problem is managed. What lingers is less procedural.
Text Version
AITA for firing my nanny after she didn’t correct people who thought she was my child’s mother?
CONCLUDED
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Nannythrowaway00
AITA for firing my nanny after she didn’t correct people who thought she was my child’s mother?
Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole
TRIGGER WARNING: racism, parental alienation
Original Post Aug 24, 2021
Throwaway account and name changed for privacy.
I (35F) am Asian American and my SO (38M) is white. Our child (2) ended up getting all of my SO’s recessive genes and looks almost entirely white. This is a rather sore point for me since I often get mistaken for the babysitter. We have a nanny (Mary) (25F) who coincidentally has the same color hair and eyes as my child (very light, golden brown hair and greenish hazel eyes). Mary is great with my child and she seems to genuinely care about my child.
I work unusual and long hours (emergency physician) so I don’t really see my neighbors very frequently. Today, I happened to have a day off and ran into my neighbor while walking with my child. The neighbor said hi to my child and asked if I was the new nanny. I said no, I’m the mom. The neighbor seemed very confused and said that she had been under the impression that Mary was the mom. At first I was annoyed but assumed it was an honest mistake (a lot of people think this when they see them together bc of their similar coloring). However, my neighbor then told me that Mary was telling people she was the mom and that she had heard my child refer to Mary as “mama.”
I confronted Mary about this the next time she was over and she basically brushed it off and said she didn’t actually tell people that, she just didn’t correct their assumptions. I then asked her about my child calling her “mama” and Mary told me it’s short for Mary (her name isn’t actually Mary btw, but it is a name that starts with “Ma” also). I was really angry at that point and told her she was fired. She got very upset and started crying, saying she needed the money, that she loved my child, and that this was incredibly unfair. I stood my ground and she left. (I ended up leaving my child with my mom so I could go to work.)
My husband came home later and got angry with me for firing Mary without consulting him and for not having any backup plan for childcare. We are now scrambling to find a daycare or nanny ASAP and my mom has to watch my child in the interim. My husband thinks I overreacted and that I’m just sensitive to this issue bc our child doesn’t look like me. I do kind of feel like an AH now bc our childcare situation is a mess and Mary is out of work with no notice. But at the same time, it feels really sketchy to me that someone is masquerading as my child’s mother.
Edit- I want to clarify that my sensitivity doesn’t stem from the fact that my child doesn’t look like me physically, but the racial undertones that come with the automatic assumption that I (a POC) must be the babysitter. Most white adoptive parents are not mistaken for a babysitter while out with their POC children, but almost all POC parents of white passing children are assumed to be a babysitter, rather than either the adoptive or bio parent. I am bothered by the inherent racism in the fact that the vast majority of people assume that I must be a babysitter, despite the fact that my child is clearly treating me as a mother.
Another edit bc I want to defend my poor husband (just in case he stumbles upon this post). There is virtually no chance he is messing around with Mary! He also works long hours and barely has any interaction with her (I doubt he even knows her full name). The idea that they would be getting together behind my back actually made me laugh. He’s (probably justifiably) mostly upset about having to find last minute childcare, he’s not actually defending Mary.
VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE
RELEVANT COMMENTS
dish_spoon
NTA
The fact that your neighbour initiated a conversation with your child is a very good sign that they know your kid, meaning they’ve probably had multiple conversations with your former nanny. She didn’t just brush off a conversation with a stranger, she deliberately (according to her version of the events) mislead this person into believing she was the mother. Even her defense of simply not correcting them doesn’t make sense. There would be zero reason to not say you’re the nanny. In fact, that even gives you an out to leave an uncomfortable situation (“I need to get them to a playdate/home to their parents/other activity”). Further, the neighbour has no reason to lie about overhearing her say this to multiple people.
That is extremely odd behavior on the part of the nanny. Beyond contributing to a misguided perception of you among your neighbours and being potentially confusing to your child, her actions demonstrate a lack of emotional stability and good judgement. I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving my (hypothetical) child in her care. Best case is that she’s young and stupidly wanted to cosplay being a wealthy SAHM without considering how that would affect your family. You say she’s otherwise a really good nanny, but that’s a big red flag. Her motives aren’t entirely clear, but she’s definitely acting in her own best interests, not those of the child. The fact that her argument against being fired was that she loves your child is sort of the point. She does not seem capable of respecting appropriate boundaries.
Unrelated to my ruling: I would be curious if your nanny ever came on to your husband.
OOP
I think out of every possible scenario the most likely one is that she enjoys pretending she’s the SAHM wife of a wealthy doctor. The jokes on her though bc my husband and I owe a combined $400k in med school debt and the vast majority of our salaries goes straight to student loans.
~
Lucia37
Mary had a great opportunity by being the counter-example to the idea that POC’s are always the nanny, and she chose not to take it.
She also is giving OP’s daughter the subconscious message that white is better, or that OP might not be her real mom.
As a white person, I really want to take Mary aside as ask her why she thought either of these things was OK.
NTA
OOP
Thank you! This really captures the essence of why I was so upset. It’s not just the fact that people mistook Mary for the mother (bc while it is annoying, I’m not going to fire someone over a simple misunderstanding), it’s that she almost seemed to relish the idea that my biracial child was so white passing that it was inevitable that people would think my child was hers. I didn’t end my conversation with my neighbor with the intent to fire Mary, it was Mary’s reaction to my questions that caused me to become angry. She was very dismissive of my feelings when I told her it was upsetting to me and essentially said my child “looks so much like me so of course people will think I’m (their) mom.” Mary didn’t become contrite at all until it became apparent her job was on the line.
OOP had this repy to a downvoted Commenter about the nanny’s dealings with the neighbors
I obviously wasn’t present during any of her interactions with the neighbors but Mary is very outgoing. My impression from the neighbor is that they see and chat with each other almost daily when they’re both outside on walks and my neighbor seemed very familiar with my child. It weirded me out that someone who sees my child almost daily for months has been under the impression for that entire time that the nanny is the mom.
OOP Updated Aug 25, 2021 Same post/Next Day
Update- I wasn’t expecting this to get so many responses, thank you for taking the time to respond. I noticed a lot of dismissive attitudes from non POCs in the comments. This is the very same attitude that caused me to become angry with Mary. She downplayed my very real reasons for being upset and additionally implied that my child just looked white. Part of being a good nanny for a biracial child is to help that child understand and be proud of their heritage. This post made me reflect on why I became so upset with Mary and realized that I had excused many micro aggressions by Mary because of her youth and her otherwise good relationship with my child. For example, Mary only ever gave my child the lighter skinned dolls (despite us having dolls of all skin tones), Mary joked about how much safer our neighborhood was than hers, Mary never gave my child Asian food (even though I would leave a lot in the fridge and encourage her to heat it up), etc. Maybe some of you will not understand the significance of such micro aggressions, but these sort of subtle actions shape the mindset of young children. That being said, I do sympathize with Mary’s financial situation so I will offer her some severance pay.
Source
Begin again with the walk. The neighbor greets the child by name. This is not a one-off encounter; they have spoken before. The assumption comes easily. The correction is made. The neighbor looks embarrassed, then clarifies that she believed the nanny was the mother.
The confrontation happens later, indoors. The mother asks directly. The nanny shrugs it off — she didn’t tell anyone that, she just didn’t correct them. About “mama,” she offers a tidy explanation tied to her name. The tone, as described, is dismissive at first. The job ends in that exchange. There is crying. The grandmother steps in for childcare. The husband comes home to a problem already in motion.
Only after that does the sharper idea surface: recognition is uneven. In public space, resemblance carries authority. The mother has been absorbing this for years strangers defaulting, explaining, apologizing. What unsettles her here is proximity. Silence from someone hired to care for her child.
The power dynamic shifts quietly. The nanny is the one neighbors see daily in daylight. She chats on sidewalks, pushes the stroller, answers questions. The mother works emergency shifts and is rarely present for those rituals. Visibility accumulates.
Then come the smaller details: lighter-skinned dolls consistently chosen, Asian food left untouched in the fridge, jokes about one neighborhood being “safer” than another. It is simply a list.
The husband’s objection is immediate and practical no backup plan, no discussion. He is not defending the nanny’s behavior so much as the structure of decision-making. That tension sits beside the other one without fully merging.
The nanny’s motive is never pinned down. Ego, naïveté, performance none are confirmed. What remains is a scene: a child on a quiet street, two women nearby, and a role assigned before anyone speaks.
