Nanny Notice

On my flight back from Australia I sorted through the movies on offer (gotta love those personal movie screens, thanks Qantas) and settled on The Nanny Diaries, starring Scarlett Johansson.

In the film, Johansson is a college graduate not yet ready to face the big bad world of the formal workforce, who instead accepts a nanny job with a wealth Upper-East-Side-Manhattan family. She soon realises that she has taken on more than a job and in fact has lost her identity. No longer called by her name, she is now ‘Nanny’, and responsible for the highs and woes of the family – their dysfunction, infidelities and an overly-indulged child.

On all accounts I loved the film. Not a huge fan of Johansson generally, I found myself able to empathise with her situation. Twenty-four and a law graduate I wonder why on earth I still find myself babysitting. While my families don’t at all resemble the ‘X’s’ portrayed in the film, yesterday I did find myself searching for the nanny-cam and wondering if confined spaces can really drive a person mad? After three hours, I was getting close.

You see having had a baby sit cancelled on Friday night I knew that my Saturday night 7 till 11 just wasn’t going to cut the financial mustard, so begrudgingly accepted a further three-hour shift with my Saturday night family, on Sunday afternoon. I arrived and the little moppets were still asleep, bless. I was told to wait in the playroom and within a few minutes they were awake and ready for action. It was roundabout this time that I realised that we’d be spending the afternoon not only indoors, but confined within the walls of this playroom. All 32-squared-feet of it.

Boy, three-and-a-half and girl 18 months and me, in a room with two windows. We did have access to a loo and Mummy had brought up ‘snacks’ for the children, so we had food and shelter covered, but truly, was she serious? To add further insult she sat with me for the first ten minutes and asked on more than one occasion if I had experience with children of this age. Only about twelve or so years I replied sweetly.

I played with the children pretending she had gone in a bid to get her to actually surrender the room to me – it was barely big enough for the babies and I, let alone a controlling mother. Once gone, we began our marathon session of reading, puzzles, sing-songs and games of pretend. Pretend-kitchens, pretend-farms, pretend-schools, pretend, pretend, pretend! Dancing was Master-three-and-a-half’s favourite game but we had to work on him not ordering me to attention, however, “please” did became standard within the first hour. Miss-18-months showed an early aversion to her indoor slippers only to squeal each time her brother accidentally stomped on her tootsies.

It often surprises me how many parents have a higher standard for their babysitter (who’s paid a mere £8 an hour) than they do for themselves. TV was not an option – I had been told – so the hours were spent with the focus on education and interaction. By the third hour I was counting the minutes and talking in tongues.

When the playroom door was finally unlocked at five minutes past six, in the evening, I tried my best not to leap to the door. It would have been a hard task anyway, given that Miss-18-months had latched on to me at the sound of the key turning… It seemed I had made a friend (hardly surprising given I’d given her my undivided attention for the better half of the afternoon!). And while this would have been a sweet and lovely interaction on another given Sunday, the fact that I had been enclosed in a room and that her Dad had just underpaid me for my time, the further 20 minutes I spent trying to detach her from my arms only fuelled my anger.

I am done with daytime baby sits. To any future families, consider this my notice.