Yes.

Winston Churchill’s nanny, Mrs. Everest, was engaged by the Randolph Churchills very soon after Winston was born in 1874. The depth of his love for Mrs. Everest and hers for him is shown in this passage from his My Early Life.

I travelled up to London to see her. She lived with her sister’s family in North London. She knew she was in danger, but her only anxiety was for me. There had been a heavy shower of rain. My jacket was wet. When she felt it with her hands she was greatly alarmed for fear I should catch cold. The jacket had to be taken off and thoroughly dried before she was calm again. Her only desire was to see my brother Jack, and this unhappily could not be arranged. I set out for London to get a good specialist; and the two doctors consulted together upon the case, which was one of peritonitis. I had to return to Aldershot by the midnight train for a very early morning parade. As soon as it was over I returned to her bedside. She still knew me, but she gradually became unconscious. Death came very easily to her. She had lived such an innocent and loving life of service to others and held such a simple faith, that she had no fears at all, and did not seem to mind very much. She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I had lived.

He kept a picture of her in his bedroom until the day he died. So it was that when the man some called the ‘Greatest Man of the Age,’ lay dying in 1965 at the age of ninety, there was but one picture that stood at his bedside. It was the picture of his beloved nanny, gone to be with her Lord some seventy years before.

And of his monther, wikipedia writes:

As was the custom of the day, she played a limited role in her sons’ upbringing, relying largely upon nannies such as Winston’s beloved Mrs. (Elizabeth) Everest. Winston completely worshipped (sic) his mother, writing her numerous letters during his time away from home at school, begging her to visit him, which she rarely did. However, after he became an adult, she and he became good friends and strong allies, to the point where Winston regarded her almost as a political mentor, more as a sister than as a mother.

Thank you, Jennie and Randolph for the genes. Thank you Mrs. Everest for the upbringing.

As a homeschooling family, we enjoy a wonderfully close relationship, in part because we bond during our time spent together. My sons enjoy a very close friendship. Few parents, I think, would want to admit that their relationship with their children are “less” because they choose to send them to public/private schools. They balance their needs, wants and abilites just like the parents who use night nanny.

Our first kid had colic, and for a few months she cried from 8:30pm until 1:30am every day (you could almost set your watch by it). My wife and I alternated sitting up holding her, which was the only thing that seemed to help, and we became lifetime Blockbuster Gold members, because we rented over 250 movies that year. I’m too old to do that again, but at the time (even thought I was working crazy hours at a startup), I liked my nights with her. I think that these parents who can’t be bothered to get up at night are giving up more than they are getting, and I hope that it’s not a permanent arrangement for them.