nanny

nanny state

A government or government policy that excessively controls, monitors, or interferes with people's private actions or behaviors that are deemed unhealthy or unsafe. Can be hyphenated if used as a modifier before a noun. The proposal to place steep taxes on foods and drinks high in added sugar is yet another instance of the nanny state trying to undermine personal choice and responsibility. How long before nanny-state policies like this one slide down the slippery slope into all-out control over our freedom of speech or religion?
See also: nanny, state
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

the ˈnanny state

(British English) a disapproving way of talking about the fact that government seems to get too involved in people’s lives and to protect them too much, in a way that limits their freedom: We’re living in a nanny state; the government watches over you for everything and nobody takes responsibility for their own actions anymore.
In this phrase, the state or government is being compared to a nanny, a woman whose job is to take care of young children, telling them what to do, how to behave, etc.
See also: nanny, state
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • nanny state
  • the nanny state
  • Uncle Whiskers
  • whiskers man
  • Mr. Whiskers
  • press (one) to the wall
  • push (one) to the wall
  • push to the wall
  • Big Brother is watching you
  • faire
References in periodicals archive
Net Nanny 6.5 has been designed to address the need to monitor social networking activities such as friends, pictures, videos, personal descriptions and wall posts, as well as instant messaging conversations.
If you are under 28 you can get a one-year 'au pair' visa to work as a live-in nanny.
Hiring a nanny should be based upon finding the most qualified individual to trust with your children and accept as part of your families.
A nanny, they found, would be just slightly more than the tuition fees for putting their youngest, Malcolm, in full-time infant care, and their two older sons, Riley and Liam, in after-school programs.
As the man who lampooned racial stereotypes in The Colored Museum and Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, you must have been very aware that there were cliches you wanted to avoid with the character of Nanny.
"It's early days yet, but soon parents will be able to ask their prospective nanny, 'Are you a member of NCMA?'."
The rock stars may have won a legal victory - losing only on one count on which they have to pay EUR1,500 to the nanny - but in they also ended up losers.
Unquestionably, your nanny is less fortunate than you are.
Andrews' voice, but she's done more on-screen housekeeping and childrearing than Mary Poppins and Maria yon Trapp put together, and the only reason that most of us don't think of her as nanny of the year is that when women of color take up this kind of domestic labor of love they tend to be called housekeepers or maids.
This does not improve relations in the home, nor simplify the nanny's feelings towards her own children.
As Amanda Cotton from NannySearch pointed out: "You need a licence to use a fishing rod but anybody can set up a nanny agency."
Monica Frei Jenkins, president of nanny recruitment firm Town & Country Resources, said: "One thing people have a lot of out here is stock.
In recent years, the so-called nanny tax has received much bad press--witness a Wall Street Journal piece entitled "The Hand That Taxes the Cradle"--obscuring the responsibility incumbent upon all employers, even when the workplace is the household.
The spirit of liberty and justice found its expression in Maroon history through the legendary figure of Nanny. Oral tradition and fragmentary records sketch a remarkable woman for whom, in the matter of her enslaved people, compromise with the British was unthinkable.
Net Nanny Software International Inc, the online web content filtering software company, is to release a computer security product, called PC Nanny, that allows parents to control the access their children have to locally held files on home computers.