Summer, as we all know, gives students about three months of complete free time. Whether students spend all their time at the beach, working, traveling, etc, is completely up to them. This summer in particular, several York students chose to spend a good amount of their summer nannying, i.e spending all day, five days a week, with children of varying ages. Children can be completely unpredictable, just like every other work environment. Like every job there are some days where you absolutely love it  and some days where you wonder why you spend your summer doing this job. A few York High School students have shared their experiences as summer nannies. In order to protect the student’s identities and the families, names have been changed.

Student A: worked about 18 hours a week, for a salary of $235 per week. He nannied three children, two of whom were seven year old twin boys and the oldest was an 11 year old boy. This student said that the kids behavior varied on a day to day basis, “sometimes they were nice, but more often than not they would be rude to me and people in public.” As a nanny, he was essentially responsible for these kids manners, and them being rude to strangers made him very uncomfortable. On the other hand, while nannying, Student A doesn’t only have to deal with kids but also with parents. Overall, student A says that his experience with these parents was good. His only strict instruction was to keep them off all electronics. He said that “they sometimes kept me longer than they said my hours would be and that was annoying” but the family made up for it by paying him pretty well. This student has mixed emotions about taking this type of job again; overall he liked the family but wanted more free time in his summer.

Student B worked various hours throughout the week, ranging from half days starting at 6am until 12 or starting at 6am until 8pm. She made about $14 an hour but there were three kids and she had to drive them around for most of the day and 14 hours of nannying is a long time. In her particular situation, these kids were super busy. She had to drive not only them but they were also a part of a carpool. She drove them multiple times throughout the day with her own car and she had paid for her own gas and was not reimbursed for gas money. The kids were all in grade school, one was in middle school, but this nanny describes the kid’s behavior as being very dependent on her and one thing that bothered her was they never really said please or thank you. As for the parents, she said, “the mom was very strict…the dad openly admitted he wouldn’t be able to do what I do all day long.” This nanny had to cook them breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner. In addition, she had to prep the kids for school.  For example she had to, “ help them with 15 minutes of math per day as well as 20 minutes of reading, one science experiment per day, and one writing assignment per week.”  Sometimes when the kids had playdates she would be watching up to six kids at a time. She had to clean their house, and do the kids laundry. These household tasks are a lot for any mom to handle much less a high school student. Even with these difficulties this student said she would take this job again if she made more money and got reimbursed for gas.

Student C worked about 24 hours a week and made $15 an hour. There was four kids total, the youngest being five and then a six year old, a seven year old and a nine year old. But sometimes this student only would babysit two kids at a time because of what their schedule was during the day. This student describes the kid’s’  behavior where, “one of the kids acted up often but not to the extent where I had to tell their parents. It  was a very good summer job and I’d do it again. I liked playing with the kids and taking them to do fun things in town.” One funny story, that this nanny can recount is where “one time a girl  asked me if I was going to pass away soon while we were walking on a sunny day through Wilder park,” Kids can really say the weirdest things sometimes. Being a nanny is a job that has little room for error, but everyone makes mistakes and one time this nanny had accidentally given a kid who was semiallergic to peanuts a peanut butter cookie. She tells the story as “Later he said he didn’t feel well and threw up on the rug. I called his mom and gave him an epi pen,” C says she was very nervous but the mom was reassuring about the whole situation. When asked if she would take this job again, C responded with “definitely! Love the kids and the parents and good money!”

Any summer job is a hard trade off. The decision between having all day to do whatever you want or to spend some days working and making a little extra money is a challenging one. As for these nannies, there are several different spectrums of what a nannying job looks like, and it is definitely not a job that just anybody can do. It is also a job full of life lessons, like learning how to deal with difficult bosses, or being responsible for another human being. Kids and parents are completely unpredictable and as a nanny you can never truly know exactly what their family dynamic is like, and it takes a lot out of a person to handle this responsibility, but it is one that everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime. Nannying and babysitting is a lot more than being paid to watch kids, watch TV, it is a challenging and rewarding job that takes several skills that few high school students have.