… but the circumstances surrounding the Krim children murders in New York City involve *two* families. The nanny’s actions may be the stuff of Halloween nightmares and maddeningly inexplicable, a horror that the childrens’ mother should never have witnessed. It’s natural that we empathize with the parents over the loss of their well-loved children. But the nanny also has relatives and an adolescent son and they are as mystified and horrified as the victims’ family.
I wish that the people who are keeping the Krims in their thoughts had considered how insensitive that might sound to the family the nanny left behind. At some point in the future, we should have a discussion about whether it was the shock of the murder itself or the socio-economic chasm between victims and perpetrator that caused the thought keepers to forget the pain, grief and confusion of the nanny’s family.
Maybe that’s something the 1% should spend the weekend thinking about.
Filed under: General | Tagged: 1%, Krim murders, Manhattan, nanny, two families |
The Confluence 
This post is sick. You have jumped the shark.
Are you saying you *don’t* have any good thoughts for the nanny’s family and her teenaged son? Did you know they were recently forced to leave the apartment they sublet? Did you know that her neighbors were worried about her?
A nanny is not a domesticated animal that may suddenly turn on her charges like some pit bull. But from the reports I’m reading, that’s how people are talking about her.
I’m sure you couldn’t be more disgusted than I am by that.
How has she “Jumped the shark” Disgusted?
Because she has shown some compassion for the nanny’s family?
No….I don’t think what she has to say is at all wrong but you…well you may well live up to that tag you have…DISGUSTING?
I can’t relate to your sentiment regarding the Occupy movement, but it feels like your post is suggesting that the Krims were the 1% and the Nanny was just acting out of economic despair. She was a trusted, reasonably well paid member of the Family, CHOSEN for her worth as a person. I certainly feel that the family members of the Nanny are as stricken by the unspeakable shock as those of the Krims. I often think of Susan Klebold who, only after ten years, could write an essay http://www.oprah.com/world/Susan-Klebolds-O-Magazine-Essay-I-Will-Never-Know-Why expressing her anguish at her son’s suicide and the massacre of his classmates at Columbine. “Josie” was suffering from far more than envy at the Krim’s prosperity. So many pressures impact New Yorkers, consider that the Krim’s home was actually a refuge and a hospice for an immigrant who at least had a job, a lovely family, friends and a dignified existence. Her actions, choice of murder weapon and timing all point to something far more like dread than class warfare. Josie’s family and friends will find solace. If she survives her suicide attempt, and we can pray that she does, I would suspect that the Krims will pro-act with compassion and forgiveness toward her. People who share their prosperity are World Class Spirits who don’t stop being givers just because something is taken from them.
I am saying a couple of things at once. The first is that the rather well off manhattanites who identify with the krims have them in their thoughts, which is understandable. But they seem oblivious to the fact that the nanny’s family has been devasted by this as well, as reported in the nytimes. Imagine what it must be like for her teenaged son who probably won’t be going to school any time soon. Who will support him? I guess that’s up to his aunts but I just get the feeling that the thought keepers don’t really think about the nanny actually having a family.
My second point is this: if the Krims were paying her so well, how come she couldn’t even afford an apartment for herself and her son in Harlem or the Bronx? A living wage should mean enough money to provide a roof over your head. She was in financial straits even though she was living with her sisters in a cramped apartment. Did the krims pay her taxes? Did they pay her medical insurance? Did the nanny get paid well enough to pay these things herself?
I’ve been reading all day about how shocked the krims’ social group is. They all have nannies in their houses and they feel a sense of betrayal as if the krims’ beloved family pet suddenly became rabid.
This is not to say that I blame the victims. But the krims seemed oblivious to the fact that their nanny was under stress. That’s something her neighbors knew right away. And it’s very telling the way the two groups describe their interactions with the nanny. The krims’ neighbors call her cold, unfriendly, non talkative e Ben as they acknowledge that the children were happy.
On the other hand, the nanny’s neighbors said she used to greet people with a ‘hi neighbor!’, was jovial and religious. Up until recently. They noticed that she looked worried, had lost weight, was looking older and admitted to having financial problems.
Why did the krims not notice this? Like I said, I’m not blaming the victims. I just find it curious. What happened makes no sense. It’s not sane in the way the shootings in aurora make no sense. But in that case, the university was well aware that the shooter was psychologically unraveling. They weren’t surprised.
But in this case, the krims seemed to notice nothing.
One other detail I find disturbing. The mother came into the apartment, and finding it dark, left it to ask the doorman if the kids and nanny left. When she came back into the apartment and opened the door to the bathroom, that’s when the nanny started to stab herself. The nanny *waited* until the mother made the discovery and then stabbed herself. As someone mentored at another site, people who use knives in their murders do it because they are really angry. It’s an act of rage. The nanny had plenty of time to kill herself while the mother talked to the doorman but she waited until she was discovered.
THAT is one angry nanny. Whether it is misplaced anger or psychotic delusion, we may never know but one thing is for sure, the nanny seems to have gotten the mother’s attention.
This has my antennas up….
Who is this witness referring to and who’s voice did she hear? I am not at all saying Mrs. Krimm killed her kids and slit the nanny’s throat, I am just curious as to who she heard say this.
I believe I read in one of the first articles how a Krim neighbor reported seeing the nanny in the elevator and she didn’t say anything….I got the impression that the neighbor expected to be gushed over and was put off because the Nanny didn’t give deference to her. I could be wrong, but I am sure there were class divides going on here. If not the Krims, then the world in which they lived. NOT excusing any actions. Just saying…..
(This is from the CB posting since the 2008 Hillary campaign, not the newer CB.)
The murders of her charges by the nanny are abhorrent. She must have mentally snapped. She was stressed in many directions: financially insecure, forced to move from a home she liked, and a single immigrant parent of an adolescent who has been exposed to different cultural expectations and lots of ads.
I am an American who was a nanny in Sweden briefly when I was 21. It was exhausting spending all day caring for one child. Afterwards I slept fitfully on a mat on a Swedish friend’s kitchen floor in a small apartment, not in the opulent one in which I worked during the day. I didn’t last too long, my own choice. I quit after my 4-year-old charge Eric took the ironing I had just finished and stuffed it down the toilet. He thought I was a fool because my Swedish was so limited. He went ballistic whenever we were out and there was an audience. Creating a scene is so very un-Swedish. I don’t blame him, but all of the Swedish nannies had found him impossible, which is why I was hired. Had I been 50 years old and subject to possible menopausal mood swings, I wouldn’t have lasted even a day.
As a NYCer, thank you for your post.You do echi what many if us are saying. It is hard to explain the economic disparity in this city.
You have one mother working ten hour days to out her child through school; you have another whose husband makes millions, but she cannot handle chauffeuring her children to their wealthy-children-in-Nyc activities. The rich child goes to a great public school available to rich children. The other child has a long travel through the Bronx to attend Catholic school.
The nanny asked for extra hours, but the family set her up to interview with a babysitter with another family.
The children of both families paid the ultimate price.