I'm looking for a term that a child (who also has regular parents) would use to refer to a male live-in caregiver. Is there any such word? (Loan words from other languages, as long as an English-speaker has a reasonable chance of recognizing them, would be okay also.)
For example: "This is Alfred; he's my ____". Ideally, the same or similar word could also be used as in "_____, will you take me to the park?".
Internet searches mostly turn up results about males being "nannies".
Words I don't like:
- Nanny – sounds feminine
- Sitter – implies someone watching a child only temporarily
- Papi (and variants thereof) – to easily confused to mean "father"
- Childcare-worker, childminder – a mouthful, not something a child is likely to use
- Guardian – not technically correct when the child also has regular parents; also, a more endearing term would be preferred
- manny – just sounds silly (to put it politely)
- tutor – close, but implies someone who is primarily an educator; looking for something more general
- au pair – obscure, not very recognizable, and connotes someone younger
- amah, ayah – obscure, and anyway denotes a woman
- attendant – maybe, but ideally I'd like something that means closer to 'supplemental parent'
Best Answer
Keeper, noun
Caretaker, noun
Optionally, the child could describe Alfred as his "parent's assistant," or more wordily his, "parent's assistant who looks after me."