Touched by a Nanny named Deirdre Bellows

Touched by a Nanny named Deirdre
Submitted by Glenda Propst

I have been in the nanny industry for many years. When I was younger I never felt out of place or uncomfortable at any conference I attended.
As my charges grew into young adults, I was always happy to share photos of them with my nanny friends as we sat around catching up and chatting. When they were young, everyone thought that they were adorable (because aren’t all babies adorable?) but as my charges grew up there were times when people simply did not know what to say to me, or how to respond.
It usually made me feel a little awkward.
As one of the older nannies when you spend as many years with a family as I have, you lose a lot of the common ground with younger nannies. It isn’t that they are mean or rude, it’s just different.
A few years ago, I was a conference and I was feeling very “out of place”
I had been in the hotel lobby and I had decided to walk up to my room and just order room service and nap, when someone walked up to me, was so happy to see me, and asked if I had lunch yet?
I said “No” she said “Would you like to have lunch with me?”
This was someone I knew but not someone I knew well. We walked across the street and had a wonderful lunch, laughing and talking and discovering how much we had in common.
At the end of lunch, when it was time to pay the bill, she said “I would like to treat you”
It was the highlight of my trip and it was also the beginning of a wonderful long distance friendship.

I was touched by a nanny named Deirdre Bellows . I know she didn’t know how much her gesture or reaching out meant to me, but it meant so much and I thought she should know.

INA ESSAY :My Advice to a New Nanny

INA Essay Submission: By Deirdre Bellows

My Advice to a New Nanny

I think the most important thing for anyone thinking of becoming a nanny is that you know yourself and that you stay true to yourself.  You don’t become a nanny to make money or to gain fame.  If you come into this career thinking that you’ll make a lot of money being a “babysitter” or that you’ll become friends with famous people,  you will burn out fast.  You become a nanny because you have a natural love for children and because you know the value of raising a compassionate and confident child.  You have to be able to give selflessly for the best of the child.  You need to be alright with small achievements and, possibly, no recognition.  Smiles, hugs and a child’s success have to be enough of a reward for you.

The other aspect of knowing yourself and staying true to yourself is that this will be of immense help to you in finding the right job.  For me, I need to work for a family who sees me as an integral part of their family.  We need to work together as a team and they need to respect and appreciate my experience and expertise.  I can be a live-out or a live-in nanny, but I need my own space.  I could have accepted higher paying jobs, but I wasn’t willing to compromise my basic needs in order to make more money.  I know that I can’t share a bedroom with my charge(s).  And, I know that I’m not very good at being seen and not heard.  You need to know yourself well enough to know what you can and cannot compromise on to be the best nanny that you can be.

Being a career, professional nanny has definitely helped me to know myself better.  I take this self-knowledge into every interview to insure that I don’t compromise in areas that are important to me.  This has made finding the perfect fitting job much easier.  In many ways finding the perfect job for you is like finding the perfect person to share your life with.  There are things that you are and are not willing to compromise on in a relationship.  You don’t want to lose yourself in a relationship and  you don’t want to lose yourself in your job.  Being in a bad job is like being in a bad marriage.  Both are very difficult to get out of and both can eat away at your confidence and your sense of self. 

Know yourself so that you never lose yourself and so that you can be your best for a child who deserves nothing less.