Heidi Stevens: I cheered when Elana Meyers Taylor won gold. I cheered even louder when she thanked her nannies

Heidi Stevens, Tribune News Service on Feb 19, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

When Team USA bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor won gold, I let out a little cheer.

We had just watched a lovely segment on NBC about her path to the 2026 Winter Olympics, which included returning to the sport after her two sons were born — one of whom spent his first eight days of life in the NICU and both of whom were born deaf.

Meyers Taylor and her husband, Nic, 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 Meyers Taylor 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 75 mph 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, Meyers Taylor 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 Taylor, 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 Nic Taylor a ticket to Norway, ABC reported.

She wasn’t done, it turns out. And on a Monday night in February, there was Meyers Taylor on my TV, signing to one of her sons: “Mommy won.”

Swoon.

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.

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, child care 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.

Meyers Taylor just did.

If you asked the history-making, record-breaking, gold medal-winning mom 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.