Nannies have one thing to say over and over again when they describe what
it takes to do this job.
"You have to be very, very patient," says Rebecca Griffith. She is a nanny
in New York.
Nannies work both part time as child-care workers and as live-in workers
with one specific family.
Their duties include household chores such as cooking and cleaning and
tidying the children's rooms. They also have an educational role in the child's
life. Often, nannies help children learn to read and write, and aid in general
school studies.
Many nannies are trained in early childhood education (ECE) and have at
some point run their own day cares. Lisbet Sondergaard is such a nanny.
"What I didn't like about working with different day cares and preschools,"
she says, "was the different philosophies that didn't correspond with my own:
the poor quality of care that I was thrust into and had to work under. Always
having to contact licensing and report this and that and the other thing.
It was really, to me, a hard thing to do."
She gained her job as a nanny on the basis of her professional reputation.
She is fully trained, with an ECE diploma and an "under three" certificate.
She takes refresher courses every year to keep her licenses up to date.
She says that although those things are not necessary to be a nanny, what
is becoming more common is to have first aid certification and a criminal
record check.
"Basically, I am hired just to be with the children," Sondergaard says.
"Feeding, clothing and doing laundry; tidying, driving them to appointments,
help with homework."
Sondergaard says that she is responsible for making sure "children are
learning all the things that a little child should learn," from language and
social skills to arts and crafts and science.
Griffith says the work environment is very relaxed, but looking after children
is still a very demanding job.
"You have to be on the ball 24 hours a day," Griffith says. "You have other
people's lives in your hands. And if you can't handle that, then you're in
the wrong line of work."
Whether the work is suitable for the physically challenged depends on the
family that a nanny finds as an employer.
"For instance," Griffith says, "if there's a person with a physical handicap
who got the job that I've got, there's a lot of stairs in the house. So that
would be difficult. Generally, it would totally depend on the family."