Why I Quit Being a Nanny

I went to school for Child Development because it was one of the easiest things to get basic certification in, and I loved kids. I wanted to be able to start working as soon as possible, and it seemed like a good route to explore. I did not know precisely what kind of job it would land me – I was aiming more for an assistant preschool teacher type thing – but as I finished up my classes and began my search for childcare positions, I ran across dozens and dozens of families seeking Au Pairs. The idea intrigued me. Who wouldn’t want a home-oriented job if they could take it? I’d always wanted to work from/at home, but it had seemed unrealistic. Suddenly, it looked like a possibility. And who couldn’t use the family atmosphere? It beat the stress of retail and whatnot that you always hear about.

So I took a job as a live-in Au Pair for a family with two young boys, just like that. It was my first job, so I was just excited to have a job at all, but it seemed like such a good situation, such an agreeable arrangement.

It started off well enough. There were a few quirks and bumps, and clues that it wasn’t going to be quite as glamorous as I might have thought, but nothing entirely condemning. The boys were darling (if a bit difficult at times, but nothing I couldn’t handle). It proved to be the parents that caused the later issues.

I had agreed to a term of at least four months, and tentatively for a year or more – typical for an Au Pair; no one wants to perform an extensive search for the perfect addition to the family just to have them skip out after a month and have to start all over again – nor is it convenient for a nanny to start all over searching for a family in the same sense. Not only is that impractical, it’s a little unfair to the kids – just long enough to form attachment, still fresh with the excitement of having a special person come to ‘live with them’. It’s a big thing having a playmate come to ‘live with’ you.

But it proved to be a lot bigger than I thought. Even knowing I would be playing that major role, I could not have been prepared for the weight that I would find myself pulling.

I had been told, at the beginning, that the reason this family wanted a nanny was because, as two working parents, they needed a bit of help to stay caught up so that they could spend more quality time with their own children. They needed me to pick kids up from school and babysit until they came home from work, but at that point I would have cleared their way to take over until bed. I had housework duties throughout the day and at dinner time to see to this end game for them. It sounded like a noble cause to me.

However, it wasn’t long before it became evident that it wasn’t going to carry out like that. Aside from beginning to take advantage of me and demand more in the way of errands and housework when I was home alone, these people began to use me as a way to occupy the kids so that they could get more work done in the evenings. It was an easy scheme; the kids loved me, so they would often snag me for a game or two even while the parents were home, and I wasn’t just going to turn cold and say no and retire to the back room without exception just because the parents were in the house (I imagined this wouldn’t earn me points as a good nanny in the parents’ eyes, since it was the only time they could see me in action). So I would play one last little game – but since we were having so much fun and getting along so well, the parents would leave us, and go start their own thing, and just let it play out. And you can imagine how long these things would ‘play out’. Kids don’t get tired of being played with. Kids don’t want to go to bed.

Before long, I was being asked to calm the kids when they threw tantrums. I was being asked to talk them out of misbehavior. I was being asked to put them to bed. And once they got a taste of that, the kids began to request me. If they were requesting it, it made it extremely hard for me to say no. Especially since, against what I would have expected, the parents were completely for it. I thought they might become defensive of me being favored, maybe pipe in to remind the kids bedtime was one of the only times they got to spend together. Instead, they seemed relieved when this request came up – even, I daresay, encouraging of it. As if once the possibility was there, they began to taste all the other things I would be freeing them to see to, the progress they could making, the projects they could be refining.

It became apparent that I was riding deeper and deeper into a very sticky situation. Clearly, these parents were married to their jobs – the problem from the beginning, even though I couldn’t have known. They became easily addicted to the convenience that I lent to their aptitude, until they were just as attached as the children, and just as needy. I ran the household. I had become the mother.

I was accomplishing the opposite of what I had gone there to do. In the months that dragged on, as I gritted my teeth and bit my tongue and waited for my term to pass, the boys became more and more attached, and I struggled with the controversy that had taken root inside me: I no longer believed in what I was doing.

It is a strange thing to realize you don’t believe in what you are doing. It is more disorienting even still to keep doing it. But I had come to grant these people more time with their children, and I was freeing them to neglect them instead. The irony was enough to kill a person. I hated it. These kids needed their parents. I was a barrier – all the more one because of how attached they were. But for this reason, I realized it would be better to quit sooner rather than later. I was not going to replace these kids’ mother – was not going to let myself allow that. It was intolerable to let them shirk the responsibility, and to be the one they compelled into taking over. The sooner I quit, the easier it would be on the kids.

I fulfilled a year with these people. They were very compelling. They DID need me. My opinion was that they needed a huge lifestyle change for the good of everyone, but I imagine that was never going to be an option. I stayed on longer than I wanted because, in truth, I knew they would just get another nanny. My leaving wasn’t going to teach anyone a lesson or anything. Someone was going to keep doing my job after me. If someone had to do it, I might as well try to make a difference in these kids’ lives while I could. We had become special to each other – there was no doubt about that – so I ought to do what I could for them since I had the opportunity. Who knew what kind of person would end up as their next nanny.

So I concentrated on playing a supporting role, since I had authority and responsibility over them either way. I like to think I did make a difference, in some small way – in some way other than replacing their parents outright. They deserved attention to their lives, to their persons.

And even if I regret the replacement that I represented, it’s true that they deserved someone to sit and watch them in gymnastics class, someone to show up at their birthday parties when their parents were out of town, and to their school events when their parents couldn’t be bothered. But those moments were never mine to cherish. It shouldn’t ever have been me – and I hope it is never you.

Not all host families are like this. But be aware of the strength of the attachment that will be formed between you and these kids, and of the potential for things to spiral out of control in this environment. The ‘glamor’ I first envisioned surrounding this job was due to the fact that it is usually the higher class of society that hires help – but the higher class of people may mean instead that they are married to success, and the reason they really need help is to maintain a lifestyle. Being a nanny can be extremely rewarding. But it can also be extremely challenging, and leave the kind of mark you never expected to find in the lighthearted world of children.