When Team USA bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics in February, I let out a little cheer.
We had just watched a lovely segment on NBC about her, which included returning to the sport after her two sons were born – one of whom spent his first eight days of life in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and both of whom were born deaf.
Elana and her husband Nic Taylor learned they both carried a gene mutation that can result in a child being deaf, according to the Athletic.Nico, their older son, also has Down syndrome. They quickly learned sign language to communicate with their growing family, and Elana spent the days leading up to her final two monobob runs teaching them “gold medal.” Just in case.
She told Athletic reporter Lindsay Schnell she considers careening down the ice at 120km/h in a bobsled her “me time.”
How could you not cheer for this hero?
Her latest medal made her the oldest woman (age 41) to win an individual gold in Winter Games history. Even before she won gold, Elana was the most decorated Black Winter Olympian of all time.
Despite all that, she almost didn’t compete in Milan. Shortly before Christmas, according to ABC News, she texted her husband from Norway: “I’m done.”
But Nic, a former bobsledder, works as a performance coach for the San Antonio Spurs. And a Spurs player who wishes to remain anonymous, heard about the text and bought him a ticket to Norway, ABC reported.
She wasn’t done, it turns out. And on a Monday night in February, there was Elana on my TV, signing to one of her sons: “Mummy won.”
Everyone plays a role
And if all of that wasn’t magical and moving and inspiring enough, Meyers Taylor topped it all off with something truly revolutionary.
She thanked her nannies.
“It took so many people to be here,” she said through tears after grabbing the gold. “It took so much work for everybody. My husband. My kids. My nanny Macy. My nannies along the way. My parents. Everybody. I’m just so grateful right now.”
My nanny Macy. My nannies along the way.
I see athletes thank God. I see athletes thank their trainers. I see athletes thank their parents and coaches and spouses. All beautiful and appropriate.
I don’t usually see athletes thank their nannies. I love it.
As Dr John Trainer puts it: “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”
And it takes a lot of work to raise them. Righteous, rewarding, wonderful, grueling work. Work we chronically undervalue and underpay and under-showcase.
It’s also work that matters. Tremendously. The learning, the brain development, the capacity to care and connect that happen in children’s first five years of life are never again matched. It’s truly the most rapid period of human development.
Life happens simultaneously
The caregivers who fill children’s early years with love and safety and playgrounds and books and songs and snacks aren’t doing it so their parents can go off and do more important things, like win gold medals.
They’re doing it because important things – essential things, life’s biggest things – happen simultaneously. Take root simultaneously. Grow into something beautiful and world-changing simultaneously.
And it takes many hands to help ensure they do. Caregivers – nannies, childcare workers, preschool teachers, stay-at-home parents, grandparents who swoop in to help – work diligently behind the scenes. But that’s not because their scene isn’t worth our gaze. It’s because we rarely, as a society, train our lens there.
Elana Meyers Taylor just did.
If you asked the history-making, record-breaking, gold medal-winning mum which means more to her, her sons or her medals, I’m guessing she would look at you like you had three heads. Her sons, without question.
But she gets to have both. And both – her boys and her sport – get to have her. And that changes the world, in all the best ways.
And that’s thanks, in large part, to her nannies.
It’s no wonder they popped into her mind during the biggest moment of her career. I love that she didn’t leave them there.
I love that she shouted them out, alongside her husband and parents and kids. I love that she trained our lens where it too rarely goes – to the quiet heroes doing the most important work. – Tribune News Service
Heidi Stevens is a Tribune News Service columnist. You can reach her at heidikstevens@gmail.com, find her on Twitter @heidistevens13 or join her Heidi Stevens' Balancing Act Facebook group.
