Mommy Shift Begins as Nanny Shift Ends

Margoth Enriquez looks at the clock. It's 6:03 p.m. -- past time to go home.

She sighs.

The nanny feeds 13-month-old Elise a bottle while Elise's twin sister rests nearby. Their 3-year-old brother sits at the table, finishing his broccoli and chicken. Samantha, 2, holds her mom's hand as they walk toward the kitchen.

"Let's see if your bottle is ready and then we're going to say goodbye to Margoth," Stacey Arnold says to her daughter.

"Why?" asks Samantha.

"Every night, 'Why is she going home?' " Stacey says, referring to her daughter's inability -- or unwillingness -- to accept Margoth's departure. "I ask myself that very question."

The answer lies across town, in a neatly decorated one-bedroom apartment near downtown Los Angeles, where Margoth's own young daughter and teenage sons anxiously await her return.

After a full day of taking care of Stacey's four children on the Westside, Margoth arrives home just after 7 p.m.

"\o7¡Hola, ninos!\f7" she says as she opens the door.

And so her second shift begins.

Jasmine, 3, who was still curled up in her Dora the Explorer blanket when her mom left that morning, jumps and squeals. She grabs her mother's hand and pulls her to the kitchen table to show her the crayon drawing she made in preschool.

"You did this for me?" Margoth says in Spanish as she kisses Jasmine's head and puts the poster on the refrigerator with alphabet magnets. "\o7Gracias, muneca\f7."

Margoth takes off her shoes and immediately begins cooking dinner. When she has the energy, she prepares traditional dishes from her native El Salvador. But many nights, she cooks what's easy and quick: fish sticks, chicken nuggets or spaghetti.

Tonight, she decides on steak, rice and a bag of vegetables from the freezer, which she puts on the table at nearly 8 p.m. -- two hours after she helped feed Stacey's children. As she cooks, washes dishes and sets the table, she asks her sons, ages 13 and 15, about their days.

"Raul, did you do your homework?" she asks. "Mario, what did you do in school?"

Similar scenes play out throughout Los Angeles County every day. Immigrant women leave their children at home -- with siblings, relatives or bargain baby-sitters -- so they can earn a living caring for other people's children.

"It's everywhere," said Lisa Loomer, who wrote a play, "Living Out," about the trend in Los Angeles. "It's this city. It's the great divide in this city."