I am a new nanny. They interviewed me on the phone and flew me out from the midwest the day before I was to start work. My contract stipulates that if I don't fulfill a year contract, I have to pay the airfare back. I feel like a hostage. During the interview I was told that I would have shared use of the family SUV. It was the nanny car. They assured me they had their own car. Well, I have use of the nanny car during working hours, and mostly week nights. On the weekend, I have to ask to use it, and then they try and stagger when they need it back. They genuinely do seem to need it to take each kid to different activities, I know they split up. But this is big pain. I don't know anyone else yet, so I don't have friends to pick me up. I've been taking the train in to the city most weekends but it gets expensive and feels lonely. In short, I feel really duped about a lot of things.
They were looking for a certain kind of nanny and I fit that bill. I am what I said I was. They are not. The father is always walking around with a glass of scotch. I was supposed to do children's laundry. But when I am here, and the wife asks me if I can wash her sheets today, what am I, a 22 year old nanny supposed to say? If you ask your nanny to wash your sheets, you have some nerve. But if the nanny has to pull out wet lingerie and deal with gooey spots on the sheets, than you are disgusting. Take care of that your self!
Just the same, I do laundry most every day in the laundry room. The female I work for gets dressed in the laundry room after work. She pulls on yoga pants. She drops her underwear right there on the floor and leaves it there. It doesn't matter what the underwear look like, delicate, sharted, or with a massive bloody kotex still affixed to it. As angry as it makes me to be so disrespected, how do I step over something so gross all day long? I wish someone would have told me seperating bloody maxis from dirty drawers was going to be part of my day.
I didn't realize the three and a half year old was still potty training. But that isn't a big deal. What is a big deal is that they tape a picture for the boy to aim at TO THE LID OF THE TOILET BOWL. Not in the bowl. But so that he literally shoots at the top lid as it is propped open. 1/2 of the pee goes in the bowl. Guess who is losing her finger prints to constantly bleaching the bathroom? Most of the time the pictures are of a basketball hoop or bulls eye, but one morning Dad had taped a picture of OBAMA on the toilet bowl. What is that teaching the kid?
The ten year old girl is so obviously the least favorite kid. She's heavy set. The 7 year old daughter looks just like her mom and is thin. The 7 year old's clothes come from boutiques downtown. The ten year old's clothes are GAP and Old Navy. The ten year old is also not supposed to eat sugar. That is what these brilliant parents have decided is going to help with her weight. In the morning, the other kids have toaster waffles, with syrup. She has toaster waffles plain. But those waffles have chocolate chips in them. If they cared, wouldn't they buy fruit and yogurt? I know I would like that kind of food in the house, but I am met with, "I'm so tired of throwing out outdated yogurt and rotten fruit". The other kids snack on Oreos and fruit roll ups and all kinds of processed junk. The 10 year old isn't allowed to have the cookies, but can have the fruit roll ups, gushers and cheez its, goldfish, etc. Do you want to scream yet? They aren't helping her. And Mom sets a stellar example for diet. She comes home, opens a bag of potato chips and cracks open a bottle of red wine. That is dinner. That is the only thing I ever saw her eat, with the exception of Cinco de Mayo, when with much fanfare, they brought in a personal chef to make a sumptuous Mexican feast, including flan, which the ten year old could not have. They had no problem with her eating four tacos, a chimichanga and a trough of black beans, but who am I to judge?
The seven year old girl is cute, but so is the 10 year old. The only thing they ever compliment the 7 year on is how pretty, cute, darling, beautiful, petite, gorgeous she is. What the hell man? Are they so obtuse that they see they are destroying both girl's potential with their hideous parenting?
The parents often go out on the weekends and they use a babysitter. The mother told me that anytime I am free, and want to make some cash on the side, she would prefer to use me. I babysat last Saturday night from 6-11. Pay = $35. Of course, she paid me the same she would pay her 16 year old sitter. But I should be happy, it's spending money in my pocket.
As a live in, you have to know you're going to put up with stuff. I am a morning showerer, or rather I was. After being here 4 days, it was requested of me that I shower at night, because she and he didn't have sufficient hot water flowing in their waterfall shower!! I came upstairs one day, unshowered, in sweat pants. She said, "Oh do you not feel well today". I said, "I was going to take a shower after I got X and Y off to school." She said, "what were you going to do with Z" (the three year old). I suggested I would put on a cartoon for him. She responded, "No that wouldn't be prudent, let's stick to the night time shower and start the day fully ready".
I feel like a hostage. There is bottled water in the house. I took a bottle down to my room one night and came up with it the next morning. My boss looked at me and said, "Honey, the bottled water is for sports activities only, otherwise, faucet is good for all of us". On Sunday afternoon I came home from walking around the local town and She asked me, "Honey, are you eating chips in your room? We don't want to get rats. Please eat your food in the kitchen." What? Other nannies have refrigerators and microwaves in their rooms. I have a basement bedroom with a jail cell style window and a 1/2 bath, located right next to the home theatre.
Oh and guess what the kids like to do on Saturday and Sunday mornings? The parents send them downstairs to the theatre armed with movies and juice boxes and nutri grain bars. They sit for hours in the room watching mindless cartoon movies and wall rumbling decibels. Of course, the parents get to sleep in, having sent the kids two floors away.
And finally, I accepted a job at $450 live in. I am in an upscale suburb of NYC. Now that I have been here a month, I have met other nannies. They make on an average TWICE what I make.
When I interviewed by phone with the family, they needed someone fast because they had caught the last nanny stealing. Well, guess what, according to the 10 year old, the last THREE nannies have all been fired for stealing and all within the past 18 months.
I want to have a Dr. Pepper and bag of chips and watch the Voice. I want to shower in the morning. I want to have the transportation I was promised. I want to sneak out in the dead of night.
