Crazy Mondays

[Anonymous]

Mondays are so hard for me as a nanny. My employers are chaotic by nature and messy. My charge's drawers and closet will look like a bomb went off in them, nothing will be where I left it (I'll go searching for his hair brush, tooth brush, sippy cups) and his dirty clothes will be in weird bunches with everything inside out and his underwear attached like they peeled his clothes off him. I have to leave on Monday mornings to stop at the grocery store because they will not have lunch for him - no matter how much I buy for him on Thursday (I don't work on Fridays). The playroom will be a mess. His hair will be dirty and snarled (he has long hair). And my charge will be very clingy to his mother at first and then very clingy to me.

I love my job, I love my charge, and I really like and respect my employers - but my dread of Mondays is wearing me down a bit.

Is it like this for all nannies or is this something I should address with my employers? I feel like it is the nature of the job on one hand but I don't like dreading work on the other.

I am not going to quit - it is a well paying position with an enormous amount of freedom. Perhaps I just need some perspective.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mondays are so hard for me as a nanny. My employers are chaotic by nature and messy. My charge's drawers and closet will look like a bomb went off in them, nothing will be where I left it (I'll go searching for his hair brush, tooth brush, sippy cups) and his dirty clothes will be in weird bunches with everything inside out and his underwear attached like they peeled his clothes off him. I have to leave on Monday mornings to stop at the grocery store because they will not have lunch for him - no matter how much I buy for him on Thursday (I don't work on Fridays). The playroom will be a mess. His hair will be dirty and snarled (he has long hair). And my charge will be very clingy to his mother at first and then very clingy to me.

I love my job, I love my charge, and I really like and respect my employers - but my dread of Mondays is wearing me down a bit.

Is it like this for all nannies or is this something I should address with my employers? I feel like it is the nature of the job on one hand but I don't like dreading work on the other.

I am not going to quit - it is a well paying position with an enormous amount of freedom. Perhaps I just need some perspective.

Thanks!

MB here. Bring it up, but in the context of offering a solution. I would be unlikely to change much about our weekend routine, but I would happily pay you more for Monday, add hours to your week (if you wanted) to do some of this work, or eliminate some responsibilities from the routine. Potentially, they could also hire someone else to do some of the housework, do more themselves, or some other solution I haven't thought of. Ask them, or offer some ideas yourself.

I know it's frustrating, but so are aspects of my job. I got a lot happier just accepting them and the fact that I like 85% of my job, and just need to get the other 15% done. That might end up being your solution, too.

[Anonymous]

What I find most disturbing is how the war zone home environment affects their child. My charge is routinely stressed out and anxious on Mondays. Why don't the parents care about their own child? What's wrong with them?

[Anonymous]

They're not being respectful of your job but I'd let it go.
They're not going to change for you. You're an employee that they pay. I'm sure they don't care they add you chores.

Nanny.

[Anonymous]

I do think it is the nature of the job, OP. And I feel the same way on Monday mornings. By noon. The world is back in ouder!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They're not being respectful of your job but I'd let it go.
They're not going to change for you. You're an employee that they pay. I'm sure they don't care they add you chores.

Nanny.

It'd be nice if they would work on improving themselves (their lack of tidiness) for the sake of their child. Isn't good parenting supposed to be the hardest job? Yes, it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is the nature of the job, OP. And I feel the same way on Monday mornings. By noon. The world is back in ouder!

+1

I've been a nanny for many years and walking in to a big disaster on Monday is typical. I have worked with a couple of families that somehow managed to totally destroy the whole house in the 12-14 hours I was gone every single night, so I try to remind myself that at least my current family usually only leaves a big mess for me one day a week.

My last family had twins and they would give them snacks (goldfish, Apple slices, juice boxes, sippy cups of milk, etc) and let them run around the play room and living room with their snacks every evening after dinner, and never even attempted to pick up the mess afterwards. I walked in every morning to at least a dozen half chewed goldfish ground into the carpet, and then had to search, through every toy bin, between couch cushions, in every hidden nook and cranny, for sippy cups full of curdled milk, half full juice boxes which had been dripping juice all over toys and the floor all night, and fuzzy shriveled up apple slices hidden inside the doll house furniture.

That was in addition to: high chairs left uncleaned from dinner, last night's diapers piled up on top of the changing table (Whyyy??), kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, and of course, toys everywhere. That was at 8am and I left everything spotless at 5pm the day before. Every. Day.

My current NF is world's better, thank heavens, and usually Tuesdays through Fridays I walk into a relatively clean home. But Mondays are a bit of a different story. I just do my best to get things back in order on Monday, and try to remind myself of my last family and be thankful that at least the rest of the week isn't so bad.

[Anonymous]

Same here, OP. I walk in every Monday to a sea of MB’s and my charge’s shoes in the front hall. How they can get her underwear so tangled up in her pants is beyond me. Every bath tub toy she owns is in the bath tub molding. This morning I had to look all over the house for my charge’s toothpaste which I just bought last week so I knew she didn’t run out... and I finally found it in her underpants drawer. Why? How?

[Anonymous]

PP again and I forgot to say that I think it is the nature of the job, too. If everything else is great, just grin and bear it.

[Anonymous]

To some extent it is just the nature of the beast, but some families are legitimately tidy people where is some people are slobs. Also some families are more aware of their slovenliness and more willing to compensate you for the additional work. In my current job I am legitimately excited to see the kids every Monday and while there is often a little bit of extra work as I try to find where all of their stuff is or figure out what we are going to eat for meals that day, it is nowhere near on the level of what you are describing. The only way to know whether they would be willing to work with you is to figure out what kind of accommodations would help you deal and then ask for them. But you should know going in that asking them not to be slobs on the weekend is going to get you nowhere.

[Anonymous]

So how is it that these slob parents care for their children during our absence?

[Anonymous]

Gosh I hope my nanny doesn’t write something like this about me. I try very hard to have a clean house Monday am. Certainly no dishes or dirt anywhere. I am guilty of leaving my dds laundry for the nanny to do during the week but that’s about it. We are routine sticklers though and do the same thing on weekends as weekdays with lunch, snacks, clothes and bath so it’s not a dramatic change for dd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gosh I hope my nanny doesn’t write something like this about me. I try very hard to have a clean house Monday am. Certainly no dishes or dirt anywhere. I am guilty of leaving my dds laundry for the nanny to do during the week but that’s about it. We are routine sticklers though and do the same thing on weekends as weekdays with lunch, snacks, clothes and bath so it’s not a dramatic change for dd.

You don't sound like a problem. What do you think of those parents who obviously are a major problem?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gosh I hope my nanny doesn’t write something like this about me. I try very hard to have a clean house Monday am. Certainly no dishes or dirt anywhere. I am guilty of leaving my dds laundry for the nanny to do during the week but that’s about it. We are routine sticklers though and do the same thing on weekends as weekdays with lunch, snacks, clothes and bath so it’s not a dramatic change for dd.

You don't sound like a problem. What do you think of those parents who obviously are a major problem?

I don’t think they respect their nanny as an employee and their child probably has a harder time than they could have in a more chaotic world. However sometime more chaos is a lot more fun than my systematic scheduled existence (I just happen to find it’s easier for me and keeps my toddler in a good mood 95% of the time).
I am also an employer in my corporate job and see people who don’t respect their direct reports and admin the same way and if they are my direct report, they tend not to stay around long as they seem to not get things done as efficiently and productively as they could.

[Anonymous]

Um, this is definitely particular to your family. Our house is clean, there's always food in the house, and our kids were bathed Sunday night, clothes for Monday laid out.