It is a fascinating experiment to be initiated into some form of motherhood by parenting other people’s children. I had that experience as a housemom in a group home full of exuberant boys. Our guest post today is written by a woman who has experienced it by becoming a professional nanny. I have a lot of respect for the parenting opinions of those who professionally parent, but aren’t actually parents. They have a lot of wisdom without all the guilt and bias being the actual parent brings. I find there’s a clarity gained by intimately observing and interacting with other parents and their parenting styles before you’re the parent yourself, which is why I asked this nanny if she’d share her top three observations with us. So, here’s a little perspective from the point of view of the woman who watches your kids. You’re gonna like it.
*Because what she is writing is so tied up with her job, I’m withholding her name. And also because sometimes being mysterious is fun.
In many ways, I feel like my life resembles the movie Groundhog Day. I work as a nanny, and I have lived through the baby stage, toddler stage, and elementary-aged kid stage many times, only to repeat it all over again. I’ve worked with a few families with teenagers, though I am glad that is behind me because the laundry of teenage boys is not for the faint of heart. Or those without bleach. But babies poop all over their clothes and mine, so perhaps it evens out. My life during the day is very much like that of a stay-at-home mom right down to the children crying in turn, piles of laundry, continual need to prepare nutritious food made with ancient grains and garden produce for tiny people while I eat a PB&J over the sink an hour later, fights over weather-appropriate outfits before school, and grocery lists. However, I myself am a single adult, so I arrive home at the end of a long day with yet another dinner to prepare, my own home to clean and laundry to do, a roommate to not ignore, and events on the calendar to ensure I actually see other people from time to time. My professional life is the personal life of working parents, so I am often a sounding board on their struggle to balance the job they love with the family they love. While I often wish I more squarely belonged in one category or another rather than straddling several, I’m grateful for the unique perspectives it has afforded me. Now many years in and several jobs down, I’m on the verge of awarding points for truly creative excuses to get out of homework, and have a deep, burning hatred for Dr. Brown’s baby bottles.
You Know More Than You Think You Do. Also, Babies Be Trippin’.
One nanny job I had came with privacy restrictions. I couldn’t post or say much (or anything) about it on social media for legal reasons. Double that with the fact that I had been hired due to my specific skill set, had to regularly stand up in front of a judge, and I felt the pressure to KNOW ALL THE THINGS. I knew I could do the job, but could I always do it well? Sometimes “well” means “survival til the end of the day.” It felt very isolating at times, but time and again I had to trust my gut instinct and that was surprisingly confidence-building. You know what can diminish confidence? Polling the audience. I have often relied on the wise advice of friends, but putting a question out there to hundreds of people on the internet more often than not results in just as many opinions. Opinions that conflict with each other and some don’t even sound right to you but they must have worked so maybe I should try them … and then you end up even more confused and unsure of yourself than when you began. You learn by doing. You know more than you think you do.
