Hired Cape

“I’m the nanny,” I say with a great deal of pride in my voice as I strike the Wonder Woman pose. For a brief moment I imagine a red cape billowing out behind me, my mud coated tennis shoes are tall stovepipe boots, there isn’t any macaroni in my hair, no snot on my shoulder, no finger paint smears down my front. I’m the super hero my charges see. I am Master of Electronics, Lady of Double Knots, Queen of High Up Things, Goddess Referee. I am all powerful, clearly the coolest adult since Batman. Not as cool as my bank account won’t allow me to buy out the zoo and stock the freezer with nothing but ice cream but hey nobody’s perfect.

“Oh,” is all the mother I’ve been talking to for the last half hour can say. Her eyes fall on my kids with a pitying look and shortly after she finds a reason to ignore my existence. I lose my cape. I’m back covered in mud and paint with food in my hair. I’ve lost twice the cool points I had to start with.

So what happened? We were just talking about our kids, their likes and dislikes, the headaches we get over making them eat their veggies, and how hard it is teaching them to tie their shoes and mind their manners. Now suddenly I’m being skirted around like the droppings that big labradoodle always leaves at the park. What happened actually isn’t hard to understand, even if its kind of ridiculous. I’m hired help.

Maybe this segregation was understandable a century ago but today we like to pretend it doesn’t happen. It does all the time. I’ve held several different positions over the years, caterer, nanny, paper pusher, minder of the elderly, even some time dressed like a beer wench pushing Oktoberfest merch on drunk middle-age men. But being a nanny is without a doubt the one that its most frustrating.

Nannies are awesome. I’m not just saying that because I am one. They’re legitimately amazing. Whether they live-in or out they are always on call. If a parent needs to work late or go in early the nanny is there. If the kids are throwing up the nanny is there. We attend school functions, family affairs, and are all over the teacher helper positions. We cook, clean, supervise play dates, check homework, and still manage to watch the latest Disney movie 400 times inside a blanket fort. Our ipods are full of tween pop music and we have every episode of Dora the Explorer memorized. You can even bet your last dollar that when you say Jake we think Neverland Pirates before Gyllenhall ever crosses our minds. And lets be honest if we were on a date with Jake Gyllenhall and our kids called we’d be leaving him without second thought.

So if we’re so dedicated to our jobs. If we risk our health and personal lives to ensure the children are cared for why are we treated like we’re on the same tier as the scullery maid? It’s simple. Its because we are. We might even be worse. The parents see us as a threat. When their kids wake up in the middle of the night they call for the nanny. When they’re sick they want us to cuddle with them on the couch watching that Disney movie again. We’re there all day, every day. We know their secrets. We know their biggest dreams. We even know why they’re not talking to their BFF ATM.

The other adults in the family, aunts and uncles or grandparents tend to have varying ideas on us. Some love us. They see our capes. Others dismiss us because they think its a failure on the mother’s part that we are around. Adults beyond the family tend to believe along this line. We’re there because the parents fell down in their duties. Moms should stay home and raise the children. Dads should work 9-5 and coach little league on Saturdays. The 15-year-old neighbor girl should watch the kids that one date night a month trying to save money to buy concert tickets to her favorite boyband. It should be simple and neat and clean. Nannies shouldn’t enter into the equation. When we do no one knows how to handle us.

So let us all stop a moment and think about this.The first thing I'm going to do is look into what a nanny is. Lets check Webster and ignore the female goat entry.

Nanny noun a person, typically a woman, employed to care for a child in its own home. caregiver, caretaker, babysitter, au pair, governess

Ok not a bad place to start. Governess probably doesn't apply anymore, though Governess Sarah has a nice ring to it. No? But these other titles still apply. Which means our next step is to decide what “care for” means. This is something that will be defined early in the job, usually when you draw up a contract. The basics for every job are meal prep, supervised play, light laundry and housework, occasional adventures outside the home for doctor’s appointments, transport to and from school, sports, or other classes, from time to time extra children will be thrown into the mix for playdates, and somewhere in all of this you must be sure the children complete their own chores. There will be times when the child is sick and you have to manage their illness and if you spend long enough in this line of work you will find yourself in an emergency room going over the story in your head a million times before the parents arrive.

You actually become an expert at handling crisis situations from injured children to getting blood/crayon/paint/playdough/feces out of carpeting, off of walls, and cleaned from any other stainable surface they decided to decorate. You even gain some plumbing skills you never imagined you’d need because what sensible person thinks the toilet is a great race track for Hotwheels? Did you forget that our charge is only 3? They’re not sensible creatures so glove up we’re going in.

One of my personal favorite parts of nannydom is getting to teach the kids. My current charges and I are planning our summer vacation adventures right now. Among these will be planting a garden and growing flowers for the butterflies we’ll be raising and vegetables for a picnic before school starts back. We’re going to build a small ecosystem in an old fish aquarium to watch the life cycle of frogs! This is one all three of us are excited about. We've spent hours on Amazon and picked out a few science experiments and one awesome solar powered robot kit to build as well. My 4-year-old has taken on the challenge of learning to read before his first day of school in late August. His 9-year-old sister has decided she wants to sew her own dress. The great part of all of this? The kids don't realize how much they'll be learning, be it important book learning or just practical life skills. Already they surprise the adults in their lives with what they know in areas not covered by standard curriculums for their age/grade. Which can be said for most children with a nanny.

Teaching is a huge part of nannying. It starts simple and basic. You get to teach them to walk and talk. Then it gets harder. You're charged with the task of potty training, bed making, playroom keeping, and mastership of silverware. Teaching them to count or their alphabet is simple work. There are millions of songs waiting to be sung that do this wonderfully. You learn to jam out to the Alphabet Song. You become a great mimic of Count von Count from Sesame Street. You end up memorizing Dr. Sueus's works. "Big A little a what begins with A? Aunt Annie's alligator. A a A."

Every day is a new lesson and you and the children are expected to attack the lesson of the day with excitement. But since you can't always do that you'll learn to sneak it in. You count the swings or slides on the playground before you earn the chance to go and play. Your walk to the park is spent discussing the seasons and weather, or what kind of animals live here and there. You find yourself becoming a walking encyclopedia at their beck and call. Every day they've got a new question and like it or not you've go to answer it.

Unfortunately this job's downside doesn't end with their sick days or potty training disasters. This is when you feel like you earn that superhero cape just by surviving the day. There are parent dramas to navigate, especially in situations where the parents are separated. It's inevitable that one is going to want something for the kids that the other doesn't want. I've had parents who use their kids as weapons against each other. I had one father who made a few attempts at driving his son off the road to his death out of jealousy. He ended up losing his rights and I'm glad to say has had no contact with my little man since. That's an extreme case though, and not the most extreme I've been in.

When you're hired on with a family you're made an honorary family member. That means any hardship the family encounters you're right there with them. You're there for the layoffs, scary doctor's diagnosis, ups and downs of their mental illnesses. You're there for the deaths, the new pets, car accidents, the bullying, the visits from in-laws, all of it. You're there the thin line between the children and the drama. Whether you're protecting them from the down's of their parents depression or holding their hands in a hospital waiting room you're their person, their living breathing security blanket. Which is a task no dollar amount can make easier.

With all of that in mind the final part of "caring for" a child seems like small fries. But its so very deeply important that it can't be avoided: Discipline. This is something that is discussed between the nanny and the parents at the start of the job. Its a touchy subject with extreme variations on how it should be handled. But no matter how it all pans out it is the hardest part. You grow to love these children as your own. Do you remember being little and getting in trouble your parents would punish you then say "This hurts me more than it hurts you."? Its true. As the person whose job in life is to make sure you are healthy and HAPPY making them unhappy for whatever reason and however long hurts us.

All in all at the end of the job you’re in love with the children who have been in your tender love and care. There is nothing in the world you wouldn’t do for them. You’ve fought their fights. You’ve led their parades. You’ve been such a constant companion that your friends and family no longer even bother to roll their eyes let alone correct you when you refer to your charges as your children. But the job does end and worse than any disciplinary action you’ve ever had to take you must walk out the door and not look back. As the world learned from Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee the job of a good nanny is to stay until she’s no longer needed then move on to where she is. Its generally in the best interest of your kids and their family. So you put on the brave face until you get a block down the road and then you sob just like your little ones started doing when your tires hit the asphalt.

Now we know what a nanny is and what a nanny does. That brings us back to our original question that I was asking myself as I watched myself and my charges shunned by that mother with the pitying eyes. What happened? What happened was the mother didn't fully understand what my job is. She only saw children missing the love and care that should come directly from their parents not be given to them by a hired third party. She didn't see that these children have an extra parent that they wouldn't otherwise have. A person in their life who has the unique position to put them above all else because they are her/his source of income. But income is rarely the reason for going that extra mile. Love nearly always is the reason we step up, go out of the way, and push so hard. The pay can be awful. But the love, respect, and those warm gooey feelings in the pit of our stomachs when they wrap their arms around us at the end of the day more than make up for the pay.

In no way am I saying nannies can replace parents. I'm not saying that all kids would benefit from having a nanny in their lives. I'm not saying these things because they're not true. But there are situations where nannies create a balance in a family’s life and allows them to develop and grow in a healthy fashion that makes for stable support group and well rounded, confident young people. So maybe our imaginary capes are well deserved.