Nanny Shares 4 Things She Doesn't Allow When Working During Her Clients' Date Nights'—'It's Disrespectful Of My Time & Experience'
Her rules and boundaries prevent her from being taken advantage of and help her maintain a good relationship with clients.
pixelshot / Canva Pro A good nanny, childcare provider, or babysitter can be incredibly difficult to find, so when you do come across one who's a great fit for your family, you want to do everything you can to keep them.
To that end, Terrie, a nanny known as @theknownanny on TikTok and Instagram, shared a list of things some parents do that make her job harder than it needs to be — and which she has set firm boundaries on with her clients.
The nanny shared 4 things she doesn't allow when babysitting on parents' date nights.
"If you're a nanny, you probably do date night babysitting," Terrie said in her video. "I also do a little bit of date night babysitting, but the way that I do it now is very different from the way I've done it in the past."
With 15 years of childcare experience under her belt, she knows a thing or two about what can make or break a nannying or babysitting relationship with parents. She shared four boundaries she sets that both help nannies early in their careers and also help parents maintain a pleasant and respectful working relationship with their childcare workers.
1. She does not allow parents to stay out later than they originally said.
"We don't do this anymore," she said. "If we've agreed that you'll be home at midnight, then I need to see you coming in the door at midnight. None of this texting at 11:30 that you would just like a few more hours."
This was controversial with some parents on TikTok, but Terrie has good reasons for this rule. She's had several incidents where she's had to "chase [parents] down for a couple of hours of extra work" or continuously extend the time they're coming home by hours and hours.
As she put it to a mom who pushed back on this rule, "In what other industry could you tell someone… 'your hours are from six until we tell you you can go home.'" Hard to argue when you put it that way
2. She doesn't allow parents to tell children they can stay up as long as they want.
"Please don't … tell your children that you don't have anything planned for the next day so they can just go to bed when they feel like it," Terrie said. "I know a tired child when I see one, and I will determine, as the person who's left in charge, what time that child will go to bed, OK?"
The reasons for this are obvious — "overtired children lead to bad behavior often," Terrie said. But it also, of course, means that she doesn't get a break if the kids are up running her ragged all night!
3. She doesn't allow kids to have a friend over.
When the kids' friends come by, that basically means she's providing free childcare to other people's kids, and that's hardly fair.
"We don't do this anymore," Terrie said, "or we can arrange that in advance, and you can pay for the additional child … If I show up at this time at six o'clock, it's time for Susie to go home." Most of us would never be willing to take on extra work for free at our jobs, so why should nannies and babysitters?
4. She does not reduce her rates for older children.
"This is one that I am just so tired of discussing," Terrie said of parents who think their kids' teen years mean they are self-sufficient.
"I haven't met a child yet that just basically takes care of themselves," she said before stating the obvious: "If you need an adult legally in that home, then you're going to pay my rate. I am not reducing it."
After all, if the kid were really self-sufficient, you wouldn't need to hire a babysitter in the first place!
Terrie says she sets all of these rules for one simple reason: It's all too easy for parents, even if unintentionally, to treat childcare workers like "the help" and expect flexibility that they likely would never ask of anyone else.
As she put it, "Too many think it's OK to be disrespectful of a nanny's time and experience." Childcare is a difficult job that requires expertise. Treating it as such will go a long, long way to maintaining a positive relationship with the people you trust to care for your kids.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.