Responsibility

(This is my 3rd post. I am yet to figure out how to make this blog show you my posts chronologically, but for now, just start with the first post manually, by selecting my earlier posts in the blog archive on your right there.)

Being a nanny is so much fun. I get to be at the zoo on lovely sunny days while a lot of people are behind their desk, staring out the window, or even too busy to look out the window. I get to have picnic lunches with kind and fun mothers and their children, we chat while watching little bundles of joy run down grassy hills holding hands like a daisy chain and then fall in a giggling heap at the bottom.

Moments like that I take a deep breath, smile and count my blessings. This is part of why I am constantly quite a cheerful person, and people, including the person who suggested I give tips on how to be happy, see me as a happy person. I am, indeed, a happy person. I can't say my life is easy, but I have learnt from my own wonderful mother to savour moments, to charge myself with the joy such moments can give me so my battery of life is nearly always full of happy.

But this job also comes with a great deal of responsibility. I am the person parents trust to guard their children, to be there when they cannot. And I do not take that responsibility lightly. 

I would like to explain to you the difference between a nanny and a babysitter, before I continue, because the biggest difference is responsibility. A babysitter is the person you call to come to your house in the evening every now and then, to mostly sit on your couch while the children sleep. Or maybe they will take your kid out every now and then in the afternoon to a park, or something like that. A nanny is a person who looks after people's children on a weekly basis, often for a whole long day, or several, and takes them to school/swimming/kindergarten/ballet and things like that. A nanny drives the family car, cooks in the family kitchen and tidies up after the kids in their house. And, most importantly, a nanny feels just as responsible as parents for teaching kids right from wrong, how to use manners, and how to navigate life on this amazing planet of ours. A nanny raising kids, too. We don't just play with them. 

I am, as I've written before, quite strict. My kids are not allowed to talk with their mouth full, are not allowed to roll their eyes at other people's remarks (child or adult) or use rude language, for example. My kids will tell you I have lots of rules. And, they will also tell you, they are easy to stick to because the rules make sense. I always explain why I want certain behaviour. I want these fantastic little people to become fantastic, well-balanced adults one day. Adults that take responsibility for their actions, stand up for whats right, and consider other people they share the world with. Kids are not just small people with many questions. Kids are future adults.

I find answering kids' questions very easy. And because I nearly always get a good night's sleep and look after my own happiness by frequenting many cafes with excellent coffee and good food, often in the company of lovely friends, I have plenty of energy and patience to explain things to my kids. For some unknown reason I have been blessed with the skill of speaking 'kid'. 'Kid' is a simple language, but it had many words. It can be a slow language, but it's often very creative. It can be extremely repetitive, but I don't mind. "Please sit on your bottom, I don't want you to fall off your chair and hurt yourself." "Please sit down, sweetheart, if you stand on your chair you might fall and hurt yourself." "Could you please sit down, lovely, when you perch half on the armrest like that you can lose your balance and fall." See, I'm fluent.

Also, kids like me and they listen to me. They just do. I don't know how, but they just feel comfortable with me. As I write this I am babysitting for a friend (sitting on his couch using their wifi while their baby girl sleeps). She had never really properly met me before, but I walk in and she reaches out her arms to me, quite happy to be handed over to me. Now I've been told she's usually quite friendly with everyone, but still, I like it. She looks at my face and smiles. She's ok with me. 

Not everyone has that effect on children, let me tell you. My husband has three bothers and his eldest brother has two sons, and when they were quite little, they used to cry when they would see one of his younger brothers. It was quite hilarious. Admittedly, this brother is quite a big man and has a beard. Maybe they would cry too if I had a beard. 

I like teaching kids things, I love seeing how one week they are struggling with something, the next they're freewheeling and showing off what they can do. Tying shoelaces. Braiding Barbie's hair. Puzzles, games, tricky tongue twisters. Riding bikes! I wish I could learn things that quickly still. But alas, my French takes the same kind of dedication that kids put into their achievements and I just don't have the same amount of time or stamina to practise. 

Anyway. Just a bit about what I like about being a nanny. It's a good thing to be.