Nanny Tales: The Bad Family

I’ve only ever been fired from one job. And it wasn’t my fault. Really. I’ve had nearly 15 jobs since I started working when I was 14. Of course, I’ve thrived in some more then others, but I’d never even come close to getting fired. Until I started working for the…what should I call them, is Devil Family too strong?

Moms have a reputation of being blind to their kids’ mistakes. This mom made other moms look like private investigators; she took “blind” to a whole new level. She was also notorious for leaving extremely long messages on my voice mail. Since I tried very hard to be a good nanny, I always listened to her whole message. I should have hung up after 15 seconds.

One such message was delivered after her 5-year-old reported to Mom that, “Karissa told me to stop ignoring her.”

This is true. I did have this conversation with my sweet, curly blond haired, blue eyed, strong-willed wonder. She was, after all, ignoring me.

I would stand at the bottom of the stairs and call for her. She was in the room directly at the top of the stairs, out of eyesight but not out of earshot. Assuming I wanted her to stop playing and do something, Jezebel (is this name over-the-top mean?) would not answer me.

I finally walked upstairs and said to her in a normal tone, “Jezebel, I’ve been calling you. Did you hear me?” She answered honestly that she had. “Jezebel, when you hear me but you don’t answer, that’s ignoring me. You may not ignore me. You need to always acknowledge that you’ve heard me.” I went on to explain here and in several other conversations, the importance of communication. “When you don’t answer me, I get frustrated because I don’t know if you heard me, and you get frustrated because you feel like I’m nagging you by repeating myself.”

I thought it was getting better. Anytime I said something to her she would say, “ok!” and I would respond, “Oh good answer!” to which she would say, “yes, ma’am” and I would say, “that’s even better.” No joke. We exchanged this little banter several times a day.

I have this theory that to keep from getting in trouble, Jezebel would save valuable dirt on other people to disclose to her mother at opportune moments. I know, what 5-year-old knows to do this? But really, what freakin mother falls for it? (“Oh, now I can’t punish you because you just told me the nanny accused you of ignoring her”…?)

About a week after Jezebel and I had a “communication conversation,” I received the following message from mom:

“Jezebel told me last night that you tell her she’s ignoring you. This really is just unacceptable. You see her after she’s had a long day at school and you need to do things on her time schedule. She’s tired when she comes home. I know it can be difficult, kids aren’t always ready to do things when we want them to. But it’s important to be patient. She’s really tired at the end of the day. We need to do things on their time schedule. And you know, she’s tired. She’s had a long day at school. She needs to just relax when she gets home. Don’t worry if she doesn’t respond quickly. She’s had a long day at school. And she’s tired. We can’t expect kids to operate on our time schedule. We need to just be patient with Jezebel. We need to do things on her time schedule. She’s had a long day at school. It’s really important to be patient. I know this can be hard. But we need to do things on her time schedule. Tell her she’s ignoring you isn’t helpful. She’s tired. She had a long day at school."

I’m not kidding. Or exaggerating. I should have called her back and quit right then and there. But I’m stupid. And I really needed the money. And it was the middle of the semester and a bad time to find a new job. Regardless, I stuck with it determined to work things out with this mom. I called back and was very sweet (I didn’t even point out that she had taken the 5-year-old’s perspective without even asking what the adult version was…).

My time with them lasted for a little bit longer and several more phone messages. In the end, I had decided to secure another nanny job and give this mom my notice. But alas, she beat me to the punch. That, however, is another story.