I don't know if you have ever had a nanny but it's something quite cool and strange at the same time. There's a person that's almost as close as your mother but she only does it part time for a few years. During working hours, she's always home alone with the kid and god knows what is going on. In this list, we'll tell you 21 things nannies do and hide from the parents. According to BuzzFeed, these were all told by real nannies.
Nannies often get treated in the same way as waiters and delivery cyclists: Like it's a stop-gap to something else. A holding pattern. Less valuable, somehow, than a 'proper job.' Which is weird, really, because looking after a human life is pretty 'up there' on the big responsibilities list.
We'd never tell our employer that Sandra approached us and said she'd pay us more if we came to look after her brood.
Look, there's no way around it: Your kid is a brat. Your niece is a brat. So is your nephew and friend's firstborn and your neighbor's ten-year-old. But listen: It's OK! All kids are brats.
Every parent likes to think their child is, in some way, a genius. And there's ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that we're going to be the ones who suggest their kid is struggling with their math, literacy, or anything at all actually.
Mostly not, anyway.
If we're scheduled for a 7 pm finish on Friday, you bet we have plans at 7:30 pm.
It's super weird to us when we have to go into somebody else's bedroom, for any reason at all. But, you know, occasionally we do, and since we're there we miiiiiiiiight just have to have a peek at all the expensive lotions, potions, and fancy-pants make-up.
The ten minutes before parents leave in the morning are the most awkward ten minutes of our day. We like the parents, but ultimately we know they're watching us with their children and we feel their eyes on us. It's understandable and unavoidable, but God it's stressful.
We never claimed to have a first aid certificate, but to be fair nobody ever actually asked. We've no more of an idea on what to do in an emergency than anybody else would – but that's probably OK. Parents don't have first aid certificates either!
We know how hard it is to get a three-year-old to eat anything other than cereal, or a ten-year-old to drink enough water. Seriously, whatever works. As long as they're eating and drinking something, right?
We see the footprints parents leave on their kids – where all their bad habits come from – and we're terrified that we're powerless to stop ourselves doing the same.
There comes a point where only yelling will do. Mostly when we're trying to poop in private and the kid opens the door to the bathroom AGAIN, or if they put themselves in danger and we freak out. We're not sorry.
It's a bit of a niche market, nannying, so once we connect with the other nanny who rolls her eyes at the loud pushy mom nobody seems to like or respect at the school bake sale, you'd best believe we're holding on to our new ally like a baby with her favorite blankie. It's like therapy.
We learn so very much from them, but in a few years they probably won't even remember us, and that stings.
And we will NEVER mention that to our employer.
We're all about keeping a kid alive, clean, fed, and watered. We do not have time to do be doing the ironing, cleaning, and food shopping too.
We can't. We wouldn't be able to do this job – a job so intimate and filled with love and vulnerability – if we didn't have healthy boundaries about how much we take home with us.
We work really hard to establish our own rules and relationship with the kids we work with, so when parents say something to contradict us it feels like a punch in the gut.
On weekends we'll sit and text talk for hours. When we're with the kids? We've got to focus.
But if we don't get a Christmas gift, a birthday gift, and something from your vacation, we're probably gonna be mad.
At least for the time that we're with them, anyway.