Over six years ago, I became a babysitter. Two years after that I joined Care.com and became a nanny. Right off the back, people would always tell me how 'easy' it must be to be a nanny. "Oh, you just play with kids all day. You get paid to do that? That's easy!"
The last word I would use to describe nannying is 'easy'. Whether I'm watching a six-month-old baby or a teenager, it's hard. Kids are a lot of work, and it's unlike any other job in the world. Most people can go to work and interact with tons and tons of different people every day, keeping those people happy for only an hour or less. Imagine caring for the same children for endless hours every week, while trying to keep them happy as often as possible.
Many people can go to work and not care. It's so hard to separate yourself from your work when your work is keeping kids alive and thriving. A lot of jobs these days allow you to become so detached from your work, but with nannying you have to be engaged to do your job. Caring for a living takes a huge emotional toll that most can't understand.
It's easy to say that nannying is easy, when you haven't done it. When you haven't gotten texts at all hours of the night talking about sick kids, asking about stuff for kids, or changing your schedule that starts in a few hours, you don't get it. If you haven't dealt with bullied, educationally struggling, or tired kids, there is no way you could understand. Taking care of kids is completely opposite of most other jobs.
Nannying, and any job that involves caring for or raising children, needs to be taken seriously. It's not a "cute first job". It is taking the best possible care of little humans until their favorite person can get home. Some would say that nannying is one of the most important jobs of the world, and I would agree. You can only raise a child once. Parents choose the best possible nanny to take the best possible care of their children, and every nanny takes that seriously.
Some families even require certifications from cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to Early Childhood Education. You can literally be educated on how to care and teach children, that's how important of a job it is. Nothing you can get a degree in can be called 'easy'. With kids, you only get one shot whereas new days can be blank slates at other workplaces. Kids are being taught, sometimes for the first time, and it's so key to their development into adults. Remember when you were learning to do something for the first time by practicing for weeks or months? Those moments would be made impossible without childcare professionals.
Nannies, teachers, and daycare workers, are professionals. It's honestly time that people acknowledged how important it is to raise children.
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