Folklore: Too many babysitters

Genre: Proverb, Russian 

Renee Perelmutter female, age 25
UC Berklely linguistics student
born in L’Vov, Ukraine
Russian-Israeli-English-speaking
Oct 20, 2001
UC Berkeley, Dwinelle Hall

Y CEM HEK T  bE3   T A3Y
(u simi nynak ditya biz ghlazó)
To seven babysitters [a] child without eye
Too many people doing things, it goes wrong.

Renee, a UC Berkeley linguistics student is from Israel (her parents moved there from the former USSR in the 1980s ). She first remembers overhearing her parents use this proverb when she was about six years old when they still lived in L’Vov, Ukraine. 

She said it meant that when two many people are doing the same thing, it goes wrong. Like having too many baby-sitters. She said she overheard it from her mother. “My parents were probably discussing work or something.” Renee added that Russians are always using lots of proverbs, and especially half-proverbs in order to describe all sorts of conditions. It is very typical.

I think a possible cognate proverb might be, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Cooks/baby-sitters are both servants, too many of them doing their job spoils the outcome—the job they were trained to do. 

There is also the nuance suggested that petty officials, insecure with their lack of power, all compete to try and run the show, to disastrous results—a common occurrence in Russia. 

In Archer Taylor & Bartlett Jere White’s “American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880,” (Harvard, 1958), I found: “There are so many cooks the broth must always come out rather bad.” (33, Smith, “Downing,” 167); and, “If five cooks can spoil the broth, what may not five captains do with a pleasure excursion.” (Clemens/Twain, “Innocents,” 1 20). (p 79).

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

I imagine the Cyrillic is wrong, font keyboard layouts have changed since 2001. There was no standard keyboard layout, and if you don't have that particular font installed, then you'll get odd characters on a US keyboard.