Cons Of Being A Nanny

I’ve never tried to hide my career – I work full time as a nanny. And I love it. I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the pros of being a nanny. There are so many great things about being a nanny that whittling it down to just a few pros was hard, but it was really fun to write!

I hate to be negative, but as with any job, there are definitely some cons to being a nanny. Not enough to make me not love my job, but enough where the occasional bad day does happen.

The Cons

• Disagreeing with the parents. I’m really lucky in both of my current jobs. I work four days a week, two ten hour days with two different families, but both families are incredible! I have yet to have a disagreement with either family, and our parenting/nanny styles are very similar. But I have had other jobs where I completely disagree with how they parent, and it made it very hard to work.
• Certain “punishments”. I think having a nanny “punish” your child can be complex, and it really depends on what the parents want me to do, and how comfortable I feel with it. I don’t have punishments at either of my current jobs, but honestly, the kids are so good so I don’t need it. But I have had other jobs where they wanted me to punish the kids in ways that I disagreed with, and couldn’t bring myself to do. So how, as a nanny, do I please the parents, but not disobey? It can be complicated, so now before starting a job I make sure to have the talk with the parents. Making sure we agree on what can be done. IT makes the whole situation far less stressful.
• Being taken advantage of. I have had jobs where when I first started I was given certain tasks to complete each day. But once the parents get comfortable around me they start becoming more demanding, and expecting the nanny to do much more work with no extra pay. Not cool. People sometimes forget that being a nanny is a full time job, the same as being a retail worker, a nurse, a dentist, etc. Any other job. At other jobs if you do extra, you should receive extra. Being a nanny should be treated the same.
• Long work hours. This isn’t a con for me personally, but I know a lot of nannies who complain about it. As a nanny you have to be at your job before the parents leave for work, and stay until they get home from work. This makes for long days. Personally though, I would much rather work four ten hour days than five eight hour days. I’d rather work an extra two hours each day and have an extra day off 🙂

Like I said before, every job has its pros and cons. It’s the same for my job as a nanny. But personally, the pros by FAR outweigh the cons, and I hope to be doing what I do for a long, long time.