Swiss Ms.

(Image Credit: Picked up here.)

Dear Ruth Marcus,

Has it ever occurred to you that your babysitter might read the column you write for the Washington Post? More importantly, has it ever occurred to you that, when you choose to write about a real person in the world other than yourself, you should do so as if that person assuredly would see what you were saying about her, her life, and her work? Indeed, has it not occurred to you that you have an ethical obligation to consider what you have the right to disclose about such persons and how your disclosures are likely to make them feel?

Here's the thing, Ms. Marcus. We totally appreciate how hard it is for working parents to manage the work-family conflict, and we can understand why you felt moved to dramatize that conflict for your readers by talking about the difficulties you had making sure your kids were looked after while you were covering the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week for the Post. (Your husband was also away, on a work-related trip.) It was, after all, a slice of life that nicely concretized the conflict and the policy question of how employers and government could help parents -- particularly mothers -- negotiate the competing demands upon them. I imagine it was darn near irresistible for you to write about it, given how stressed you must have been, after all you'd done to make sure things went smoothly in your absence -- the pre-made dinners! the grandmother there for the overnights! the other moms lined up for carpool duty! And then the babysitter, "new but already somewhat spotty," let you down, despite having been told that she had to "turn up on time, every day." Oh, dear. It's enough to make you choke on a fine Swiss chocolate, isn't it?

Given the nature of what you do, Ms. Marcus, you are accustomed to having your work reviewed in public -- through comments, letters to the editor, and, yes, snarky posts from dog bloggers with nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon. We are guessing your babysitter is not accustomed to such public scrutiny. We are also guessing that she enjoys considerably less job security than you do, despite the precariousness of the journalism business these days. She is new on the job. You are her employer, and you have just let the world know that her performance so far is failing to meet your expectations. Even if we assume that you had the decency to convey your dissatisfaction to her privately and compassionately (since you seem to recognize that she had valid reasons for failing to "turn up on time, every day"), there is something about this column that doesn't sit well with us. Over and over again you ask, "What to do about the babysitter?" and all we can think about is what it would be like for this single mom with the unreliable car and her own uncertain childcare arrangements to read these words, to watch you publicly pondering what to do about her probably meager livelihood. Would she be relieved to know that for now you are "Crossing [your] fingers -- and hoping she shows up?" Or would she be terrified to learn that you consider the arrangement "unsustainable?"

We are not questioning your right to fire an employee who is not in a position to perform the job you hired her to do. What we find disappointing -- even a little appalling -- is the deep insensitivity of your having appropriated elements of her life and story to your ends and telling it in a way that renders her both mute and invisible. Add to that the callousness of your publicly hemming and hawing over whether or not to fire her, and we are left with an image of you as the angry god trying to decide when to withdraw the hand that keeps the pesky sinner from falling into the fiery pit of Hell. It's not a pretty image, Ms. Marcus, and we can't stop wondering how your babysitter would feel if she were to stumble across it.

Yours sincerely,
Roxie