am hoping that you can advise me. I have two children a 5 month year old son and almost two year old daughter. I work part time, but when I work my hours are erratic - could be for a few hours or the whole day till late. I have a nanny looking after my children while I am working. She is 33 years old and married with two boys 6 and 10. She lives with her husband, but her children are living back in Zimbabwe. I am very concerned because she has been watching pornography over the internet on my computer while I am out, and the children are around. I do not know how often or for how long, but looking over the internet history it has been a few times, at least 10 to 20 websites. I have a few concerns, one of course is the effect of porn on children. I can stop her access to the internet and thus stop her watching porn in the house, but my other concern is, is someone who watches porn safe or suitable to be a nanny to my children or is she a threat to there safety (sexually or otherwise. IS there any connection between watching porn and child sexual abuse.
Thank you for advising.

Dr. Eve Answers:

You raise interesting dilemmas, thank you for your mail. I wonder how many of us "see", really "see" our house minders, nannies, housekeepers as people, as sexual people with their own lives. Why should porn be the domain of the housekeeper who owns a computer? It might be an interesting part of an interview with potential house help to include quesitons on their porn viewing..on the internet or watching your porn DVD's.. mm...interesting.. having said this it reminds me of Apartheid days when people's sexuality was so controlled.

Thus I would approach it from a household rules perspective. I wonder how present a child minder can be when they are being pulled to the distraction that porn offers - and is this followed by time out in the bathroom with a masturbation session??? I would not want my house/child minder to be watching tv during working hours as this too is distracting, nor talking on the phone to friends.

Enforcing these rules that you create is the easy part - break the rules, like in any job, and you loose the job. Your concern of your children's exposure to porn.. I do not beleive it is healthy for children to be exposed to porn , not at all. I think it is academic if your nanny will watch porn and then molest your kids- you don't want to find out. Which means this behaviour has to stop right now. Whether she is a child molester or not is not directly assocaited with her porn viewing- if she is going to molest kids , she will, with or without the porn.

So you want to look and see for yourself the type of porn she has been viewing. You need to ask her directly about her chocie of porn. and by the way have you/anyone checked records to see if she has a record of complaints agaisnt her as a child molester?? There is a registry in this country.. for what it is worth.

In summary I beleive watching porn on the job is unethical work ethos and puts your children at risk to exposure, especially as they get older. And you do want to check in with her about her seuxality and assess if she is a risk to your children. please do this with dignity as it delicate topci to raise.

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