As Summer draws closer, the mind of a college student turns to how they are going to survive the rest of their semester and somehow pass finals, but their mind also turns to what job they are going to do during the summer break in order to fund the unreasonably priced text books. For me, last summer, I was a full-time nanny to three girls going into the sixth grade. I will be doing the same this summer and I am very much looking forward to another summer. I learned a lot about being a mother from having this job last summer, and I am sure will learn a lot more this summer. These are the top four things that I think I have learned about being a parent from being a full-time babysitter this past summer.
1. I never realized how exhausting kids were
When I was a nanny full-time, I was in charge of the kids from eight o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the afternoon, and sometimes later depending on what the parents have going on that day. By the end of the first week, I was surprised by how exhausted I was after just one. I certainly do not consider myself old, but oh my, do 11 and 12 years old have a lot of energy over the summer, where as at noon they still had hours and hours of energy left in them and I was ready for a nap, not to mention it was only 12 o'clock . By the end of the summer, I was just starting to learn how to pace myself through out the day.
2. Children naturally wake up early
I consider myself a fairly good morning person. I'm up almost everyday before seven during the school year. This is, keep in mind, with the help of multiple alarms turned up to the highest setting and a lot of mental convincing. But during the summer, I pride myself on sleeping until noon, if not later if I can swing it. Kids on the other hand can get up before eight o' clock with no problem whatsoever. The kids that I babysat for over the summer could get up before the hour of seven without any alarm what so ever. I could not believe how easily this came to them. I would get there at 8 and they would have already been up for almost two hours. I now have a greater appreciation for parents and their ability to get up, and keep going no matter what is going on around them or how tired they are at any given moment in time.
3. Being a mother is very hard
I have always as a child thought that being a mother could never be as hard as they always said it would be. I now know that I should take all that I ever said about being a parent back. If being a nanny is any indication of what being a parent is like, it's way harder than I ever expected. I have such a respect for what parents do day in and day out. I was lucky being a nanny because I was able to go home at the end of the day and did not have to do any of the work associated with after the five o'clock hour. I have no idea how parents keep there energy up to do all that they do day in and day out.
4. I am not as good of a cook as I thought...
The kids that I watched over the summer were very good kids and they rarely if ever mis-behaved or did anything bad. But they were not quite old enough to cook for themselves, so I was in charge of making lunch everyday. Being a resident of the cooking challenge made me believe that I was a super cook. Having to cook lunch every day during the summer, I realized that I am in fact not nearly the cook that I thought I was. I basically cooked the same three things for the entire summer, which was mac and cheese, chicken nuggets and hot dogs. I now realize that not only is it hard to get kids to try new things, but it is very hard to not fall into the trap of feeding the same stuff that you are positive that they will eat day in and day out.
