When Mom Needs Help, Call The Governess
By KAREN KENYON
The word “governess” – the brave Jane Eyre, her struggles and eventual happy ending -strikes a romantic chord in just about everyone’s heart.
And while most real-life situations are not so dramatic, being a governess definitely has its moments, according to Helen Antoniak. She has been a governess for the past year and a half.
She mentions the time she was pulling 19-month-old David along in a wagon and he pointed to the sky and said, “Moon.”
It was daylight,” she says, “but there was a moon, yet I didn’t see it at first. Then David said, ‘Give – give me the moon.’ He wanted to play with it! There was just so much trust in that statement. It was a really endearing moment.”
And there was the time she and another of her charges, 6-year-old Nancy, were in a Chinese restaurant. The little girl opened her fortune cookie and read, “People who make promises are quick to forget.” Then the child looked up and, said, “Love is quick to remember.”
Isn’t that something?” asks Antoniak.
Helen Antoniak, 36, became a governess after a number of years as a social worker and as the founder of the Widowed-to-Widowed program in San Diego. Sitting yogi style on window couch in the ocean-front Del Mar home where she currently works, she talks, while the expanse of gray-blue water and the white walls of the home provide an atmosphere both peaceful and dreamlike.
“I just felt drawn to child-care ads,” says Antoniak, who is unmarried and childless. I’d spent ten years with grief and pain, running the Widowed-to-Widowed program, and one year working with, emotionally disturbed girls in Ramona. The thought of dealing with healthy young children appealed to me. I thought, why should I continue to deprive myself of children? Even in Widowed-to-Widowed, I encouraged the widowed to include their children in the program.
“My first job as governess,” she says, “was a 10-week job. The brevity appealed to me since I didn’t know if I would like it. At least I thought if I hate it. it won’t last long. But I loved it. It was a marvelous experience taking care of the two little boys.
With ever-increasing numbers of working mothers, the need for governesses nannies is increasing. At the same time because of the economic situation, in general. many people, like Antoniak. are becoming innovative in their career choices. and trying vocations that may not. at first, glance, seem to fit with their training.
Debby Swanson, of Mothers-In-Deed, an agency that has for three years been providing nannies and governesses for motherless homes or for professional couples in need of child care, says, “We place 8 to 10 women per week in these homes. often the homes of working professionals, or of single parents, or parents who must travel, such as flight attendants.”
According to Swanson. most of the women are between 20 and 50, and a few do have Master’s Degrees. Antoniak received her masters in social work at UCLA.
Antoniak has found work through agencies, as well as by perusing ads in the newspapers. Occasionally there is an ad that interests her, such as the one that read, “Professional couple wants woman to supervise and tutor children.” As a result of that ad and an interview. Antoniak was soon caring for Linda, 4 and Nancy, 6.
“I worked out a system of points,” she says. “The girls could earn points. and eventually stars, for self-reliance, grooming. courtesy. for saying ‘please’ and ‘thank-you,’ for making beds. Five gold stars equaled a trip to Disneyland. I took them to Disneyland, to the zoo, on picnics. It was a great summer,” she says.
“Nancy was just learning to read and pronounce words. Linda was working on the alphabet, and I’d drill her on letters and have her answer exotic questions, such as ‘Why do people faint?’ and ‘Why aren’t coins flattened on railroad tracks worth anything?'”
In general, she tries to deal with such questions in a creative way. When a recent charge, a 9-year-old boy. asked her where babies came from, Antoniak says she explained birth to him, and then took him to the Wonder of Life exhibit in the Museum of Man in Balboa Park. “That way it wasn’t just my e1planation, but he had a complete explanation,” she says. “A whole show.”
Antoniak’s social work and counseling training help her, she feels, to be aware of certain psychological subtleties. “I try to give time and quality communication,” she says. “It’s important for children to know there’s someone there to follow through, to be consistent, and to help them build positive self-esteem.
It’s important also to be clear with messages relayed to children. and to realize the impact of particular messages. For example, if you warn. ‘Don’t fall,’ the child’s mind often subconsciously hears, ‘fall’, so it is important to be careful how we word things.”
One of Antoniak’s most challenging and poignant situations as a governess was last winter when for three months she cared for two orphaned girls, 14- and 16. Their father had died several years ago, and last October their mother died of cancer. Before making other arrangements their uncle hired Antoniak as an interim employee, to live in the house with the girls to help get them through their roughest time.
“My experience in the field of death and dying was very helpful in that case,” she says. “I tried to give consistency so they could feel someone was there. The idea was that after the loss, it was best not to uproot them.”
Antoniak has always enjoyed and been a part of a big family and children. The youngest of four children. her sister is expecting her eighth child. Some years ago Helen spent six years as a camp counselor, and before that as a teenage babysitter.
In fact, it was during those babysitting years that she first became aware of child-rearing techniques that seemed to have extraordinary results.
“I met a woman who had a 2-year-old boy. Her child-rearing techniques had a lasting effect on me,” she says. “The woman and her husband eventually had four children, and I saw how they focused on their children, gave nurturing and care, and treated each child as an individual. They delighted in their cleverness or funny remarks of their children. Whatever their children were involved in, they were involved in. That 2-year-old boy is now grown and just passed the bar exam. And I taught him his alphabet! It was a really pleasant association with quality, and it’s carried over.”
‘Governessing,’ she admits, though, is not without some adjustments. She says she has at times taken on too much and tried to be chauffeur, cook, laundress, housecleaner, as well as governess. “I thought I could do it all but realized I couldn’t.
A certain element of insecurity exists at first,” she says, moving into a house with a different family and environment I usually take my own furniture for my room. There is a feeling of security in that. For example, I always take my Dad’s desk and write at that.”
Antoniak’s experience this past year and a half as a governess has led her to start planning her own Baby University which she hopes to open midsummer. Her plan is to care for four babies – using ideas based on The Better Baby Institute – by giving tactile, visual, and auditory stimulation.
“The idea,” she says, “is to provide an environment to maximize potential. An incredible amount of information is absorbed by babies. You can feed information to them. They can often absorb reading and math before they can walk and talk.”
Antoniak has been observing various infant programs in order to create her own program. “I want to have the attitude that what I’m doing is important.” Recently Antoniak took a journal class at Mira Costa College, and placed 4-year-old Linda in the daycare facility while she was in class.
“In the journal class, we had just been reading the oriental quote. ‘If you keep in your heart a green bough, a bird will come and sing on it.’ Then we had a break, and when we came outside, Linda was sitting on a bench outside the daycare room, just singing away. I waved to her and told her how pretty she sounded And do you know that after that – every day we came there – she came out to the bench and sang?”
Just another one of those moments.