Wow, I'm A Bit Disturbed By This Pair Of Care.Com Ads

[SilverSabre25]

I was a nanny for a pair of doctors when I was in college. Let me share my experience.

- I was one of 4 nannies. They needed every minute covered in case they were both called into work at the same time
- The reason for 4 nannies vs. just one live in was for financial reasons. They paid us legally. Any time over 40 hours was time and a half. It was cheaper to pay 4 nannies for 40 hours each. (The additional 2 hours each week was covered by the overnight nanny -- she as the lowest paid)
- I was paid for 40 hours a week (8am - 6pm Monday to Thursday) but only worked about 25 on average.
- The parents had a lot of free hours and worked nearby. They often came home to play with their child, take her on walks or to the park, or read to her. The dad came home most days to eat lunch with her and put her down for her nap. Mom was home most evenings to eat dinner with her.
- They were incredible parents and spent more QUALITY time with their child than any parent I have ever seen (I am including myself in this). When they were with her, they were WITH her. They hired out any chores they could -- cooks, gardeners, and house cleaners so that every free moment they had was spent with their daughter.

Moral of the story -- don't judge until you have walked a mile. The reason for doctors to have 24/7 coverage is LITERALLY a life and death situation.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. That really does shed a different light on it and I dearly hope that this family is the same way.

[Country Kids]

I was a nanny for a pair of doctors when I was in college. Let me share my experience.

- I was one of 4 nannies. They needed every minute covered in case they were both called into work at the same time
- The reason for 4 nannies vs. just one live in was for financial reasons. They paid us legally. Any time over 40 hours was time and a half. It was cheaper to pay 4 nannies for 40 hours each. (The additional 2 hours each week was covered by the overnight nanny -- she as the lowest paid)
- I was paid for 40 hours a week (8am - 6pm Monday to Thursday) but only worked about 25 on average.
- The parents had a lot of free hours and worked nearby. They often came home to play with their child, take her on walks or to the park, or read to her. The dad came home most days to eat lunch with her and put her down for her nap. Mom was home most evenings to eat dinner with her.
- They were incredible parents and spent more QUALITY time with their child than any parent I have ever seen (I am including myself in this). When they were with her, they were WITH her. They hired out any chores they could -- cooks, gardeners, and house cleaners so that every free moment they had was spent with their daughter.

Moral of the story -- don't judge until you have walked a mile. The reason for doctors to have 24/7 coverage is LITERALLY a life and death situation.

What did the nannies do then when the parents were at home. Did you get to leave or did you have to stay there in case they were called back to work?

Please don't take this the wrong way but they had the means (because of education and jobs) to spend that quality time with their child. They were giving that child a life that most parents would like to but can't realistically. I would love to even have dishwasher to free up 45 min a night so that I could spend that much more time with my children helping them with homework and such. To have someone do all the cleaning, cooking and gardening-I probably wouldn't know what to do with myself!

[Ariana]

I was a nanny for a pair of doctors when I was in college. Let me share my experience.

- I was one of 4 nannies. They needed every minute covered in case they were both called into work at the same time
- The reason for 4 nannies vs. just one live in was for financial reasons. They paid us legally. Any time over 40 hours was time and a half. It was cheaper to pay 4 nannies for 40 hours each. (The additional 2 hours each week was covered by the overnight nanny -- she as the lowest paid)
- I was paid for 40 hours a week (8am - 6pm Monday to Thursday) but only worked about 25 on average.
- The parents had a lot of free hours and worked nearby. They often came home to play with their child, take her on walks or to the park, or read to her. The dad came home most days to eat lunch with her and put her down for her nap. Mom was home most evenings to eat dinner with her.
- They were incredible parents and spent more QUALITY time with their child than any parent I have ever seen (I am including myself in this). When they were with her, they were WITH her. They hired out any chores they could -- cooks, gardeners, and house cleaners so that every free moment they had was spent with their daughter.

Moral of the story -- don't judge until you have walked a mile. The reason for doctors to have 24/7 coverage is LITERALLY a life and death situation.

Ah! Thanks for explaining the reason for so many nannies!! Makes total sense.

[dave4him]

Reminds me of the movie The Nanny Diaries

[JenNJ]

I lived less than a 5 minute drive from my employers home, so I often just went home when they were home. If they went to the park, I would go to the park with them and go for a run myself or to the local mall and hang out in case they were called in. Sometimes I would hang out with the live in overnight nanny. I would meet my boyfriend (now husband for lunch or a smoothie. It was nice.
forin
Yes, people who are doctors, work that many hours, and have a life of being on call have a lot of money. But there were things they could never do with their own child. No hayrides for instance. They wouldn't be able to get into the city fast enough if they were in a field in the farmland.

[2ndFamilyDC]

Makes you wonder why they ever had kids. These kids are being brought up by nannies, not mom and dad, how sad.

[Unregistered]

You don't know that. I mean, for all we know, they only work 40 hours per week but those hours are unpredictable. We don't know how much they love their child or how much time they spend with them. Maybe they work most of their hours at night and can spend large pcs of the day with they child? We can't judge based only on this ad so maybe everyone should back off.

[Unregistered]

I agree why even have kids, there is no excuse and on craigslist? Wouldn't you at least go through a dependable service.

Once I had two eye doctors, and the wife wanted to bring her child with croup claiming she didn't want to miss any appts. omg!

[MarinaVanessa]

When I was younger I also worked as a nanny part-time for a couple that were both doctors 5 days a week caring for a set of twins. They had another daytime nanny that came in at the same time that I left (i worked mornings). They also had 2 alternating nightime nanny's. The husband was an OB and the wife was an emergency room doctor. The dad would get paged at random times of the day of course for a patient that suddently went into labor and the mom worked evenings and nights alot and was on-call many times. They both just had crazy hours but they wanted to make sure that someone was home for their twins just in case one was at work and the other got called in suddently. While I was there it was common for both parents to be there with me and they both spent a lot of time with the twins and I was really only there to change diapers, help out and do small household tasks like help with the kids laundry, dust, vacuum and play with the kids. While I was there the parents did the cooking, the bathing, the dressing etc. I was really there for back-up. Sometimes one would be at work and the other would get called in and then I'd take over completely. They also had literally every single minute of the day covered. It's actually pretty common here in my area for Dr couples in similar situations to have nannies cover all the time they could potentially be called in to work even if most of the time they are there with the nanny.

Hopefully that's the case in this scenario.

[Unregistered]

What I find off, is if they are that well off, why not hire a professional Nanny service to find a Nanny.

Why have kids? Really? Anyone with a profession that is not 9-5 should not have children? They are doing what they feel is best for their children and they have the ability to do this. Not everyone is built or wants or has to be 100% hands on parenting. I think there is a lot of other things that goes into making a great parent. It doesn't make you a good parent because you are stuck up your child's bleep 100 percent of the time and so dazzled by your creation of work. Blah! Gag me. Some parents choose to have a career and a family and they make adjustments to make it work for them.