Fri Oct 20, 2006 8:55am ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Just as trucking companies (卡車運輸公司) put signs on their vehicles (車輛) asking the public to report unsafe drivers (檢舉不安全駕駛司機), parents can now put license plates (牌照鐵牌) on their baby strollers (嬰兒車) to get feedback on the behavior of their nannies (對他們的保姆的行為進行反饋).
Jill Starishevsky, a mother of two (兩個孩子的母親) and a New York prosecutor (檢舉人、揭發(fā)人), launched HowsMyNanny.com (啟動了www.HowsMyNynny.com 意為我的保姆如怎么樣網(wǎng)站) on Thursday, which sells stroller license plates that have a unique number and include the Web site address so the public can anonymously report (不記名檢舉報告) good or bad nanny behavior.
The parents, who pay $50 for a plate, receive an e-mail alerting them to the report (電子郵件來通知他們有檢舉報告), which they access on the Web site (http://howsmynanny.com//default.aspx) using a password.
"It‘s a tool to empower the parents (使家長更加得力的工具) and to protect the parents and the children, it‘s not a tool to work against nannies. It‘s just a tool to give parents peace of mind (讓家長安心的手段)," said Starishevsky, a lawyer who prosecutes child abuse (虐待兒童)and sex crimes (性犯罪).
Starishevsky said she came up with the idea after she saw a nanny in a New York city park who for at least an hour ignored the two young girls she was looking after.
"I was so frustrated (感到不安)," said Starishevsky. "How do I tell the mother that these kids could have run into the street, they could have been taken away at the hand of a stranger."
The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor (勞動部) shows that in 2004 there were about 1.3 million childcare workers across the United States, of which about 21 percent worked in private households (在私人家庭里).
"People keep asking me if this is because I am a mom do I want to do this or is it because I am a prosecutor? My answer is I think it‘s both," Starishevsky said.
