If British nanny Mary Poppins were plunked down in San Francisco today to push a pram around, say, Potrero del Sol Park, here’s what she’d learn from current nanny Rosa Medrano: “The first thing we do is check all over the area for needles, for syringes, for poop or glass or condoms or other dangerous things.”
If Mary Poppins worked in San Francisco these days, her charges would not be named Michael and Jane. Nope. Her kids would be called Juniper or Marcelo, Dara, Ada, Bruna, Otis and Ben, Sequoia, Daphne, Beatriz, Ariel, Dan. Those are just some of the kids that Rosa Medrano has cared for in her 25 years in San Francisco.
At 50, with the vitality, energy and appearance of a woman half her age, Medrano is among the legions of S.F. babysitters and caregivers hauling double wide strollers onto crowded MUNI buses, balancing kids on their laps at library story times, pushing them on swings at playgrounds and parks, and sharing snacks and toys on blankets in the grass. She has a wide smile and a quick step, and she talks to all her kids in Spanish. She spends her days circumnavigating San Francisco loaded down with paraphernalia: portable potty-training seats, teething rings and soap bubble wands, books, stuffed animals, Tupperware, thermoses, games and puzzles and tacos.
“Some families have me cook for their kids too, and I say well ok they are going to get used to my food –and when I leave that’s a problem for you! All my kids end up loving tortillas and tacos and quesadillas,” Medrano laughs.
Nor do her kids stay indoors, glued to a screen. “The parents don’t tell me where to take their kids. They know I know the best places! I tell them there are so many great free activities: music, movement, arts and crafts. You don’t have to pay for anything! When I arrive, the kids are smiling; when I leave the kids are smiling.”
It’s only in winter that nannying can tax her imagination. “When it’s raining and cold and foggy and windy there are literally four places to go inside. The Academy of Sciences is best, but so crowded. Still, I never stay in cause of weather. We bundle up, put on our rainboots and get on the bus!” She also likes the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39 and the Noe Valley recreation center.
One of Rosa’s fellow nannies, Alicia, who has a degree in marketing and communications from Mexico, set up a Facebook group for about 20 nannies so they can share information about conditions in various parks, plan meet-ups, share resources, and support each other in what can be a lonely occupation.
There are no regulatory agencies that oversee nanny hiring or licensing, unless you go through an agency, but the gifted ones like Rosa are bequeathed like jewels from family to family.
She was born in the small Mexican town of Tarimoro, state of Guanajuato, and came to San Francisco in 1998. She met her future husband, Juan, at a Tarimoro dance when he came home on a visit from San Francisco, where he’d lived a decade.
“I turned him down but he kept asking, until finally I danced with him,” she says. “If I had stayed in Tarimoro, I would have ten kids by now, like my mom and my husband’s mom.” She shakes her head. “It’s like scorpions having so many kids: you carry them all on your back till they eventually drown you with exhaustion.”
She has two kids, both of whom live with her: Mayra, 22, who just graduated from UCLA, and Juan, 27, who works as a caregiver for the elderly.
Coming to San Francisco was a shock: a blanket and a mattress in a room in Daly City. “Coming from tiny Tarimoro, I had no information about what to expect here.”
She left her 5-month-old son in her sister-in-law’s care in the Mission and found a job sweeping up hair in a beauty salon.
“I have always worked. But English I got from the kids I cared for.” The kids correct her, too: “No Rosa no, that’s the kitchen, not a chicken.” She worked at five hair salons, and clients began asking her to clean their houses on weekends. She made the leap to babysitting, when her daughter was a toddler.
Gifted from the get-go with children, it wasn’t always easy with the parents.
“I went through such hard times at the beginning, but I told myself, Rosa you must take it, you must bear it, to get a letter of recommendation. Some families never even offer you a banana or a glass of water. One family accused me of taking a fork to the park. ‘Don’t take our silver to the park!’ Though I was hired as a nanny, they had me do all the laundry, all the dishes, clean the house, and take care of the kids. For $5 an hour. In 2004.”
She briefly worked at a daycare center but found it stifling and regimented.
The last ten years have been the best years of her life, she says, because she knows her job so well, and works for wonderful families.
Like this mom of a two-year-old whom Rosa has cared for since she was three months old, “Rosa helped me to grow and change as a mom. Being a new parent, everything is new. To have this person in my life who is so competent in what she does, who can help me maneuver my child through all these stages of life—-I am truly grateful.”
The mom, who declined to be named, added that her parents can’t understand how she can stand not knowing exactly where her kid is all day long, as Rosa sets the agenda.
“But I love that Rosa is out and engaged with the world and encourages kids to do that too, whether that’s with classes or other kids or other caregivers or the natural world. She is curious, open and engaging and she brings that to the work.”
Medrano works with children as young as three months, and often remains with them until they turn three.
What are some of the misconceptions about her work?
“That it’s easy,” she answers quickly. “It takes huge energy. It’s a blessing, but it’s constant vigilance and responsibility. We teach toilet training. We help them start solid foods. We can’t eat lunch till the kids are napping, and if they have a stomachache or are fussy, you have to hold them in your arms until they are ready to sleep.”
And then she stops, smiles, and adds that it’s hard “to leave a piece of you with them, when it’s time to go. You cry, you miss them, but then I get asked to babysit, so I still see some of my kids.”
