Welcome to another week of the Open Book Blog Hop, where we talk about a variety of topics and readers can get to know us a little better. This week we’re talking about nanny cams.
Up front, I’ll tell you I’m prejudiced in this matter. Not only have I seen the horrendous videos of infants and toddlers being abused by adults, I know someone it happened to. And children are the most precious gift we have and we need to take care of them.
If you choose to install a nanny-cam in your own home, more power to you. I do believe you should tell your nanny (or babysitter) about the camera up front, but I don’t feel as if your obligated to tell them where it (or they) are aimed. Or if you move it.(More about this later)
Nanny cams didn’t exist when my children were little, and I rarely had babysitters in my home. More often, babysitting was done by relatives I trusted in their homes. I did have a friend of a friend as a babysitter for awhile, but she had her own child just a little older than mine, so it felt “safe.” Would I have installed one if I had the opportunity? I don’t know. I was much more trusting when I was younger. But my darling husband would have installed one in a heartbeat.He’s was, and still is, extremely protective of our kids.
I love the idea that many preschools have of putting cameras in their classrooms and allowing parents to log in at any time to see what’s going on. Of course, being a bit of a geek, I also know you have to be careful about how those are configured. Default passwords are never good. (Got a default password on your home equipment? Go change it. Then come back. I’ll wait.)
Are you back? Good! So on to the next part of my rant. There are many people who don’t understand the security risks of nanny cams that upload directly to storage on the internet. While that’s a good idea, you also have to make sure the site where they are stored is trustworthy, and again, password protected. If you didn’t know, there are sites out there that are devoted to finding webcams that aren’t secured and that anyone can control. You don’t want some random internet stranger watching you and your precious little one by the camera you installed and didn’t take the time to set up correctly.
Nanny cams come in all shapes and sizes these days, and I fully understand why a parent wouldn’t want to reveal that they had one to a babysitter. After all, the babysitter might figure out where all the “dead” spots are where they can misbehave without being filmed. But I also believe the babysitter has the right to know if they are being filmed. A sitter has to have the expectation that they can behave normally and not have those pictures end up as a you-tube video. (What if the sitter wants to lift her shirt and adjust her bra? Or a male sitter has to adjust another part of the body?) Balancing the opposing rights of the two parties is a sticky situation.
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Good info about the security risk of nanny cams uploading to storage on the internet. I hadn't thought about that.
See. I totally feel this way and for the same reasons. It makes me sick to think that someone would purposely harm a little kid. I mean, I know they can make you nuts. They're experts at it. Scares me to death that I might have to use day care. I listen to the nightmares a colleague of mine is having – her son is literally being bitten daily. and they're doing nothing! I think she has a lawsuit, but she's the type that won't pursue it. the facility 'reasons' with her to back down. they should have cameras installed, like you said about the classrooms. the footage she'd see might change her mind.
I don't object to people using nanny cams, but I do question their effectiveness in most cases. Our kids went to day care, but they went to a day care in a friend's home (except for a short while, our daughter went to a church day care). I knew the people and tried to get to know them better. I kind of think that, had I been spying on Consuelo, trying to catch her doing something wrong, it would have affected our friendship EVEN if she did nothing wrong and that would have negatively affected her care of my children. Even if she didn't know about it, my lack of trust would have had a chilling effect on our relationship.
Of course, if I'd suspected her of doing something wrong, my opinion might have changed. As it was, since we don't really have a lot of healthy family to take our kids in the events of our untimely deaths, she is in our wills for custody of our son. I don't believe that level of trust would have developed if I'd been spying on her.
But I also understand why some people might not agree … or might not know someone of the caliber of Consuelo. God really blessed us by bringing her into our lives when He did.
Nice post P.j. I feel the same way. And, thanks for the reminder about the passwords.
I think you're right about cameras in schools. It would be cool to take a peek at what the kids are up to, and school isn't quite as protected as the family who babysits our girl. I hope when she starts school I get to geek out and look in!
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