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“The Kid Was 6 Still Wearing Diapers”: 30 Nannies Of The Rich Share The Wildest Stories
In many households, nannies are more than just hourly workers. Looking after the little ones on both the lego-playing-cartoon-watching-snack-eating days and the temper-tantrum-total-destruction-don’t-want-to-talk days, they become so enmeshed in the family’s day-to-day, it might be difficult for its members to imagine a life without them.
Being a part of the family typically also means living the same lifestyle as they do (even if only while working), no matter how lavish or meager it is; and today, we’re focusing on the former. If you’ve always wondered what the life of wealthy families is like, continue scrolling to find firsthand accounts of nannies of the ultra rich, as shared on Reddit, to catch a glimpse of said life, entailing the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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#1
How tight they were with money. I would even go so far as to say selective rather than stingy.
They were wealthy because they knew how to budget. I was always to look for free activities to do with the kids. I can tell you that the Peggy Norbert nature museum in Chicago has free entry for Illinois state residents on Thursdays, the pool closest to their house has free child swim for two hours every Friday, little beans cafe and play place has half price Monday's, the Chicago Cultural Center has a monthly music program called the 'Juice box', and to keep an eye out for discounted and free entry days for Chicago residents at the area museums. The zoo is always free and picnics and park days were encouraged. The mom was always on Groupon and the children were never lacking for something to do.
While they might not have been SUPER wealthy they were certainly up there. What surprised me most of all is how much they truly loved their kids. There were a few times I woke up to texts saying I had a paid day off because the weather was beautiful and they wanted to take their children to play at the lake. Or how they preferred to pick their kids up from school themselves so they could hear all about their day. I miss that family so much but I'm still in contact with them and get texts and calls from them so I can be a small part of the kids' lives.
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#2
I temporarily nannied for my former bosses after they sold the company I worked for. Both of them were born into money and had earned their own; they were multimillionaires. Other than a rather large house, they were chill and humble. They didn’t have new expensive cars, they weren’t about name brands (though there were some things that needed to be a certain kind for their daughter that was on the spectrum), and they paid veeeeeery well. They were around a lot, both taking turns to work from home while running the other businesses they owned. They’d take “play breaks” and spend time with the kids during the day (that also served as my break), we’d all make dinner together and eat together. Any time I needed to take the kids somewhere they made sure one of them loaned me their car because my car was actually newer and more expensive than theirs and they didn’t want the kids to ruin the interior. They were honestly some of the best people and bosses I’d ever known.
Anxious Aardvark 5 months ago
Have had the pleasure of meeting a few folk that were wealthy, but the only signs were certain items of clothing, or the bottle of wine on the table. Made me laugh when at a party, one of them was perfectly happy with chips & Rolling Rock.
#3
I had an interview with a family who had a 1-year-old and was expecting their second child in the next month or so. The mom was a stay-at-home mom, but they knew their second daughter was going to have Down syndrome, and they told me they wanted to be prepared just in case she needed a lot of extra care. As it turned out, the little girl hit almost all of her developmental milestones slightly delayed. I took care of everything. I cleaned, made their bed in the morning, did the whole family's laundry, AND provided the vast majority of childcare for both children. The mom did next to nothing. The dad woke up with the girls in the morning and handed them over to me. Most days, the mom didn't even leave bed until after 9:00 a.m.
The mom was pretty odd and believed heavily in various QAnon conspiracies. At one point, she got electrolysis hair removal on her privates and had me help her Saran Wrap her crotch with numbing gel before going in. I probably could have sued them for sexual harassment, but nudity and bodies don't really bother me. This experience also helped me win concert tickets from a radio station for the best answer to, 'What's the worst thing your boss ever asked you to do?' so there's that.
#4
The family I work for right now is very wealthy- the live on fifth ave right across from central park. Three things. The first is the clothes. The girls have numerous name brand clothing items- Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Vineyard Vines, Lilly Pulitzer, etc. The 6 year olds backpack was 85 bucks. I get wanting your kids to have nice things to wear, but they're growing fast, and that shits expensive. The 3 year old outgrew her wardrobe last year, it was al replaced with the same expensive stuff.
Next would have to be scheduling. They want there children to be successful in life, I get it. But every day is something- piano, ballet, tennis, Chinese lessons and squash. They have no time to play.
The last part, which is a bit more sad if you ask me, is the lack of connect in the girls and their parents relationship. It could be as simple as scheduling- for instance, the mom doesn't know when ballet and tennis is, I do, or as intense as worries and fears. They confide in me and when I bring it up with the mom she's surprised to learn they're not just always happy because they have nice things. There's definitely something missing there and it shows. The 3 year old slips up and calls me "mama" constantly and it breaks my heart.
#5
A good friend of mine is a nanny for a very wealthy couple. They own and live in an entire brownstone type building. I think they're both lawyers. He is the source of the wealth, which is largely inherited. He has a job, but it's the kind of job where he never has to show up or do much work at all and it pays him hundreds of thousands a year.
Every day, the wife goes to her job. The husband goes to his floor of the house that nobody is allowed to bother him on. He spends the day smoking pot and lazing about like he's Jeff Lebowski.
That's it. That's all he does. But he doesn't want his kids bothering him, so he locks himself away to pretend he's still in college or something and pays my friend to raise his kid for him.
They're nice enough people. My friend likes her job. But I'll never be able to have much respect for a dude who has all the time and money in the world and he uses it to sequester himself away from his own kids, get high, and watch movies all day.
#6
I nanny for a girl in Japan, and her parents primarily work for their own real estate company. One of the craziest stories was when the girl wanted to make a flower garden. They already have a huge beautiful garden at their mansion, but the gardener didn’t want her to mess it up.
The girl saw a plot of land next door and asked me to make a garden there. When I told her that we couldn't because that’s not her house, she said she would ask her mum. The mum called the owner of the land and offered to buy it. They told her that they weren’t selling the land – so the mother bought the whole apartment building, along with the land, just so her daughter could make a garden next to their house.
#7
I worked for an extremely wealthy family and when I was going to eat lunch with the kids, I was told "the help" eats in the kitchen. I quit soon after that.
#8
How uninvolved they were with their kids life. I nannied in the US and lived with a (very young) widow whose late husband was a billionaire and had left everything to her and their two boys.
Honestly, if she saw her boys (7 and 4) 10 minute everyday, that would be a stretch.
She had 3 fulltime nannies to rotate every hour of the day, plus a cook, a driver and a housekeeper.
The driver drove the kids to school every morning and the nannies would be in charge of homework, meals, shower and bedtime when they got back. She went out every night.
I don't think she cared. I think she had kids because it's what you do and she had the means not to be encumbered by raising them. She spent all her days shopping: they were always a s**t ton of bags from very expensive brands lying around.
She didn't spend a lot of time with them and boy did that show in those kids. They were starved for affection and attention. They were super spoiled and didn't understand the cost of life: I once told them how much I was getting paid and the older one told me that wasn't a lot, he had gotten that amount for his birthday. They did not understand frustration and everything had to be given to them when they asked.
It was actually kind of sad. I wonder how they are doing now, they should be preteens.
L.V 5 months ago (edited)
Sadly not limited to rich people. My sister used to work in a boarding school, but a cheap one, where uninvolved parents would enroll their kids so they didn't have to deal with them... Some kids were bratty or even dangerous, but a lot of them likes my sister because she actually paid attention to them.
#9
The father would give me unbelievable amounts of money for basic things and refuse to take change back. Need to renew the kids' library cards? Take a $100 bill. I felt so bad for the librarian who had to get bills to break that. There was $85 leftover that he wouldn't take back.
#10
My friend's son is an exceptionally well paid banker in NYC. His grandchild (just one) has 4 nannies. At 2 this child couldn't walk because it gets carried everywhere, can only speak Spanish because that is the only language it hears. The walking thing is a problem because if the kid can't stand up properly how on earth is it going to learn to ski?
#11
I briefly worked with a wealthy family a few months ago before I had to leave the job because it was just unbearable. They were pretty nice to me, but terrible to their kid. The kid was 6, for context. These things were more sad than crazy. The saddest thing I saw was how much money they spent on themselves and paying me, and how little they spent on their kid. I was being paid pretty well (enough to almost match what I was making at my primary job while working half as many hours), the parents would be buying new iPhones, new clothes, wine, etc. Their kid however, had clothes that didn't fit, broken toys that were "too expensive to replace", wasn't enrolled in any after school activities either because it "cost money". Some other things I noticed was how uninvolved and bad at parenting they were. The kid was 6 still wearing diapers because he hadn't been fully potty trained. When I asked about it, they said "oh we just never fully got around to it, he's scared to go to the bathroom because one time we spanked him because he peed on the floor". He was completely undisciplined and whenever I told him no, he would try and hit me, scream at the top of his lungs, try and bite himself. One time I was with the mom and him in the store, and he tried to take a bunch of candy from a shelf and eat it, and I said he has to wait for his mom to pay for it first, and he LOST it. Tried knocking over shelves, ran around screaming, tried hitting OTHER people, and swearing up a storm. His mom LEFT the store, and said oh that's too much for me to handle, that's why you're here. In the end I just quit because I couldn't stand them as parents or people. They were so arrogant, always neglecting their children. The day I left, they wouldn't even let me say goodbye to their son, who was crying watching me from a window as I walked to my car. I guess they trained him not to say hi to me and give me nasty looks when I see them in town, because they'll go out of their way to avoid me if we make eye contact in town.
#12
Not a nanny but I used to work at a golf club in a very rich community and people would just drop their kids off at the club and we would end up essentially babysitting them in the restaurant. We had one kid who was probably 11 and he was so stingy. He would complain about any upcharge, how our meals didn't give enough for their price, and how what we sold was way cheaper at the store. (which obviously he was way too young to understand overhead costs)
One time after about 10 minutes of his ranting over how he had to pay more for milk than you would in a store I just pointed out to him "I get that its annoying, but we couldn't even buy one meal with an hours worth of pay before taxes"
The LOOK on this kids face was just shock. You could tell he had not true concept of money and earning it and that some people got vastly more than others. He never complained to me about cost again and would often tell them adult golfers how unfair it was that we weren't paid enough. (in his opinion)
Makes me wonder how affluent people teach their children about money beyond to complain about having to use it.
#13
My friend nannied for this family in Western NY and once she was invited to go their parents (so kids grandparents) house in the Hamptons for a week. There were other staff in the household, and grandpa called people by their role, not their name. "Nanny, come here." "Chef, more salt." The only food she was allowed to eat was the children's' leftovers, otherwise she had to go out to restaurants/stores to buy her own meals, which she didn't always get time to go do. She came home after the week and told the family never again. They were horrified that she wouldn't want to go back!
Just-4-2day 5 months ago
This is ridiculous. I would have asked "Chef" what the other staff ate and joined them or opened the fridge and ate what I wanted.
#14
My younger sister nannies for an wealthy couple, and she's mentioned a few things that really threw her off at first.
The biggest thing was how uninvolved they are with their daughter's life. She was born early in October, and by the end of the month, my sister was already spending 80+ hours a week with her. The husband has only been home one day since she started working for them and the wife is gone from 6am-9pm every day.
Then, it was how casual they are with money. They've offered to pay for work on her car countless times, and the wife gave my sister all of her Christmas decorations from last year. Most of them still had their tags on them. She spent $20/ornament and didn't even use them.
#15
Apparently Russians are happy to piss their money all over the place. A friend of mine got a job as a ski nanny for a Russian billionaire's ski holiday. Several were hired meaning there wasn't much work to do. My friend's only job? To put the kids' ski boots on in the morning and take them off in the evening. The pay? £1000 sterling a day. 7 days' work.
I don't know where these jobs are advertised, but I want to get involved. My friend just skied the rest of the day and was allowed to party of a night as long as he was on time each morning.
#16
Not a nanny but I was still involved in the day to day. Long story short, the daughter (younger than her more mentally stable and normalized brother) was having issues that are at least typical of a teenage daughter. So what do they do? Buy a house (a decent sized rancher in the city's nicest old money neighborhood) nearby and stuff the daughter in it with a full time caretaker who was given a SUV and a salary. Really nice girl based on my interactions with her, just probably felt the way many children of the super wealthy do. I have lots more stories and details but prefer not to reveal too much as I still respect their privacy.
#17
The family was great overall, but the kids didn't have a huge grip on how wealthy they really were. They didn't consider their family rich or their house large (that was what really got me--they lived in a three-story mansion and the bottom floor was literally empty. Like completely empty. Eventually after a couple years they put a couch and a TV down there, but that was it.). They were surprised when they learned I, a recent college grad when I started working for them, didn't have certain gadgets, or couldn't just buy a new car, or hadn't done much travel abroad. They weren't little jerks or anything, but there was a slight degree of entitlement and their baseline was so high and they didn't see it.
#18
I lived in a fairly wealthy suburb and nannied for several families with young kids. Feeding them was a huge pain, and always consisted of checking food labels to make sure everything was organic and natural and blah blah blah. One day the kid's mom came home from the store thrilled because she found graham crackers with no hydrogenated oils in them. Her daughter was 1, and I'd just seen her eat a massive amount of play dough so it was hard to get excited about those graham crackers.
I also taught special ed in a very wealthy school district. During a meeting with one set of parents, the mom asked me if I could teach her 10 year old son how to wipe his a*s because she didn't want to do it. This kid had no physical disabilities that would prevent him from doing this himself, he just didn't like it and the mom thought asking us to teach him was a perfectly reasonable request.
#19
A few things...
1. The drama that is just like TV. The dad in the family I nannied for had a secret daughter and other family for 5 years.
2. How money was just thrown around. A $500 rocking chair is the wrong shade of orange? Just throw it in the garbage and go buy a new one. Daughters are fighting with each other over their Barbie dream houses? Calm them down by taking them to the American Girl store for new dolls and then get them a blowout afterwards.
3. And yet, despite this, they forgot to pay their bills for three months and got the gas turned off in their house.
#20
I nanny for 2 different families regularly and I have tons of other family's I babysit randomly (date nights etc). Twice a week I babysit a little boy and girl who are so sweet and who I rarely have problems with (their parents are both servers at a restaurant.) The other family I also babysit twice a week and they have a boy and girl who I often have behavior problems with. Their dad is manager of a car dealership and the mom is stay at home (they have money). I love all four of them but I think it's interesting that the kids who don't have as much are far better than the kids who are rich. And that's been the case many times. A lot of the rich kids have been spoiled brats who never hear the word no. A lot of them aren't as excited to see me because I'm not always the "cool" babysitter who lets them get away with everything. Don't get me wrong, I know how to have fun with kids but I don't put up with brats.
With that being said I don't see as much discipline with wealthier families.
#21
I do tutoring for a wealthy family, and despite the fact that they seem to have come from fairly average backgrounds, they really have no concept of how normal people think of money. I was talking about visiting the library after a session, and they were confused by the fact that I didn't just buy all the books I wanted to read. They also pay me every six months or so, and seem confused that I want money so often - they're good for it, after all. They fly their kids home from their highschool sports tours (they play in tournaments all over the continent) to take a driving test and think nothing of it.
They're good people, but weird.
#22
I interacted with Dan Snyder briefly. his servants cannot make eye contact with him, even while speaking. holy. s**t. can you imagine?
#23
How incompetent they are. I worked as a nanny for a few months for a wealthy family with two kids to make extra money while in college. I had to get up every morning to get the kids ready for school and then walk them to school because the mom couldn't do it herself.
Also the mom wouldn't go anywhere without a nanny present for the kids. Play date at the playground with another family? I would go and watch her kids while she would just sit there and chat with the other parent. It was so weird.
Unsurprisingly I was one of 5 nannies they had coming around every week. They spent close to $1000 a week on nannies but didn't want to commit to getting a live in.
#24
I once nannied for a family who had a small room with board games/table top games lining the walls (as an indication of wealth) I was called in on weekends to spend time with the 6 year old and play games with him - basically do anything he asked of me. A majority of the time the mom and grandma were home and in their own room. Once the mom and dad were home and napping. I was basically being paid good money to play with the kid. Of course, the kid was incredibly bossy and fussy when he didn't get his own way.
I also received a text after my first few sessions saying that I could bring my own lunch and use their fridge; don't worry, no one has any allergies.
#25
I work for a middling-wealthy family, have been for two years. My girls don't think they're well-off because they don't have a tennis court or a rock wall, but they know kids who do. They just have no idea how much money they have. The younger one doesn't realize why it's inapproproate to joke about how much money she has stashed away for "chores." She doesn't realize that it's more than I earn in weeks, and that she didn't actually earn it.
Just-4-2day 5 months ago
Maybe it's time to help them learn the difference between "value and price".
#26
The woman played WOW all day and ate spaghetti-o's, the husband was always away, and she was never with her baby. Also, she had a surrogate with twins on the way! I never understood their family or why she wanted more kids.
#27
Most truly wealthy people prefer f/t live in nannies so you really don't have set days off even when you are supposed to. You're usually on salary and exclusive so you can't sit for anyone else even when you are off. The security checks for some jobs can be extreme and they can get really ticked if socialize with anyone you meet on the job. I met a guy while sitting who lived in the same building as my clients and they were more than a little put out that he wanted to date me. There's neighbors and then there's the "help" and I was the latter and in in their eyes I had no business talking to him let alone dating him.
They treated me pretty well otherwise but I wasn't too happy to be told that it was inappropriate for me to date a guy they didn't even know in the same building just because in their eyes he was ranked higher on the social scale than I was. It was so classist of them. I hated live in jobs and rarely took them. You had no privacy doing those jobs. One job they rifled my suitcase. I don't like having to be essentially available 24/7 just because I live in. It's just a little too much like indentured servitude for me.
The perks and the money could be nice but being a nanny to the rich and famous it can be a little degrading at times too. The good people they treat you like family. The not good people they treat you like furniture or like a servant and it's not so nice. You really have to be very discreet, a hard worker and have to able to let a lot roll off to be able to do that job well. Your dignity gets hit a lot. If the job is good, it's usually very good, but jobs like that can really be the pits too. Some rich people they are total snobs and think they're practically gods. There are a lot of nice rich people but too often wealth breeds a warped sense of entitlement.
#28
I used to be an au pair for a super rich family in China. The funny thing was that they already had a nanny. She was extremely poor and had to give a bratty kid everything she couldn't afford for her own kids. The kid even kicked her and she simply tolerated it.
The weirdest thing was that whenever we went somewhere as a family, she was the one taking care of the child while the mother was talking to others. She even slept in his room while his mom had her own bedroom.
Personally, I just couldn't deal with how spoiled and entitled the child was. They literally told me it didn't matter if he respected me, he just had to like me.
#29
My sister worked as nanny for a famous hollywood actress (married to a very famous british pop singer... can you guess the couple?) and she was always shocked by how cheap they were! For example, they took her to Hollywood while she was shooting a movie (they live in London). My sister was asked to babysit for 12-13 hours at a time (he contract was 40 hour/week, 8hour/day) while she was at the studio. The end of the month came and she didn't get paid for ANY overtime (which would amount to over 50 hours). When she asked what happened to that, she was put on a plane back to London and fired on the spot.
It had its perks too. I was insanely jealous when she told me that one day, she was in the car with the husband (pop star) and the 2 children. He started singing to the children his latest hit (featuring a female equally famous) and my sister suddenly realized: "Wait a sec... how many people IN THE WORLD have ever had a private concert like this? handful? less than that?".
Anybody cares to guess the couple?
Sinnsyk Jakte 5 months ago
I honestly do not care about being on the sideline of a private car concert if I'm screwed out of 50 hours of pay.
#30
I work in a rich town working with kids. I'm frequently asked to babysit. Some parents are awesome people who love their kids a ton, but they work a lot. Some parents are total f*****g a******s who probably only even had kids to impress the neighbors. The craziest part was this ultra wealthy couple, whose bedroom is about as big as my house, stiffed me my last pay check.
What do you think ?
Lorrie Rothstein 5 months ago
So basically being a nanny is nothing like what we see on Fran dreschers show
kelsischloe1986 5 months ago
Of course not silly goose! Great joke anyway. :-)
Load More Replies... Lorrie Rothstein 5 months ago
So basically being a nanny is nothing like what we see on Fran dreschers show
kelsischloe1986 5 months ago
Of course not silly goose! Great joke anyway. :-)
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