In many households,nanniesare 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 theultra rich, as sharedon Reddit, to catch a glimpse of said life, entailing the good, the bad, and the ugly.This post may includeaffiliate links.
In many households,nanniesare 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 theultra rich, as sharedon Reddit, to catch a glimpse of said life, entailing the good, the bad, and the ugly.
This post may includeaffiliate links.
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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I interacted with Dan Snyder briefly. his servants cannot make eye contact with him, even while speaking. holy. s**t. can you imagine?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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When I nannied for a wealthy family. Mother was a head pharmacist and the father was the NW superintendent for Intel. They made A LOT of money. Basically i would show up at 7am every day and leave when the parents got hone at 10-11pm. I would wake the girls, feed them all their meals, take them to dance lessons, pick them up, bathe them, everything. The parents would even pay for my entertainment while the girls were at dance lessons. They would give me extra money to see a movie or get a manicure and s**t while waiting for the girls. I basically raised those kids for them.
The little beast kept throwing her toys on the floor and telling me to pick them up. She would say “oops” every time she “accidentally dropped the same doll"I quit that same day while her mum begged me not to quit.
I used to nanny for a family where the dad was a well-known screenwriter and the mom was a lawyer for a high-power law firm in the city. They had one daughter, who was 10 when I first started nannying for them. The strangest thing was that they expected me to serve as almost a parental “role model” for their daughter. As they were gone for work all day, they didn’t have much time to discipline her or instill good morals in her– so all of that fell to me. I just found that extremely strange, probably because my childhood was full of my parents teaching me how to behave, etc.Also, they had no regard for throwing around money like it was no big deal. When I moved to a new apartment and mentioned that I needed to go buy a new bed, they just bought me a new bed frame and mattress from IKEA, no questions asked. Same thing when my car got dented. I was just in awe of how someone could spend so much money without having to worry about paying the bills or getting food on the table.
I worked as a nanny for a wealthy couple with two kids. They had five nannies, plus an au pair. They scheduled us so that 2 people were working any time the kids were awake and 1 person was working overnight (just in case a kid woke up). The parents were nice, but only wanted to be involved with the “fun” stuff. They would go with us to the zoo, aquarium, museums, etc, but never put the kids to bed or changed a diaper.
My sister nannied for a wealthy family for a time. The husband didn’t do anything on the domestic side of things. In fact, he wouldn’t even let his wife iron his clothes. He would gather up all his clothes every few weeks and take them to his mother’s where she would iron them all for him.
I have a close friend who was a nanny for a couple years. She routinely called me to vent about the parents. She was paid well and had many perks but she was a live in so she was always there and was frequently asked to help on her days off.A couple situations that stand out in my memory.I flew out to visit her for her birthday weekend for birthday shenanigans. She had previously asked her employers if she could have that Friday off seeing as she had company coming in. They gave her this huge guilt trip then refused. The dad ended up having the day off and spent it alone up in his study then proceeded to go to the gym and meet friends while I helped my friend watch the kids.Once the parents wanted to take a family vacation (my friend included) to Florida. Only the parents decided to go to one place and flew my friend and the kids to the grandparents just a couple hrs from where they were staying. There reasoning was they didn’t want to feel guilty for not doing things with the kids…..When my friend quit she gave them 2 months notice. The mom flipped out, slamming doors, crying, cold shoulder. Gave her a whole speech about 2 months was not enough time to find someone new and that she was essentially leaving them high and dry. Later the mom came to her all sad faced and apologetic and asked her if she would consider staying longer if they hadn’t found a replacement in time. My friend refused and she got the cold shoulder again.Her replacement showed up a week before she was leaving and was a super sweet girl who she kept in contact with after the fact. Apparently a couple months later the replacement was fired because she had a Spanish accent and the mom didn’t want her youngest (4) to develop one as well…..My friend says watching ‘The Nanny’ with Scarlett johansson is so spot on it hurts. It’s such a shame because those kids were so incredibly sweet and their parents are going to ruin them.
My mom used to nanny for a decently wealthy family so I would normally tag along for the rest of the day after school ended. The mom was a doctor and I don’t remember what the dad did. They had a 4 year old son and a 7 year old daughter. The parents, mostly the mom, definitely made some questionable and horrible decisions.I think one of the more insane moments was when over the span of a week the girl started getting pretty sick and the mom knew she was sick. She had a fever that just got worse and worse and would throw up occasionally. One of the days I was playing barbies with her and she started to look worse, flopped on the bed and started talking about and to things that weren’t actually in the room. She was running a horrible fever and when my mom called the woman to explain her daughter needed to be taken to the hospital she demanded that we shouldn’t because she was letting the sickness “run its course”. I remember the next day she called us laughing about how the little girl had continued to occasionally hallucinate and vomited everywhere the rest of the night.My mom quit shortly after that and when the payments started coming in weeks late.She also kept the girl on some horrendously strict chicken and vegetable diet with an occasional fruit drink and the kid would cry hysterically when someone gave her sweets because she knew she couldn’t have it. The mothers explanation was she didn’t ever want to put up with her daughter complaining about being fat. The 4 year old was still breast feeding and had not started being taught how to use the toilet. I still sometimes wonder how those kids are doing now.
My sister nannied for a couple who got rich owning race horses, but both of their dream was to be jockeys. They lived in a crazy nice trailer near the racetrack. They never ate, to keep their weight down for work, my sister was there before he got up, so she fed him breakfast and lunch, and was expected to feed him dinner before they got home, so they didn’t have to handle any food and get tempted. They were always at the track tending to their horses, training or racing. They paid $25 an hour, $35 for overtime, and this was back in 2010, all under the table. My sister hated it, but made so much freaking money that summer.
Nanny here, I worked for a super rich family and they were so odd. They would just be home doing housework or sleeping and paid me to organize their closets and buy things from the container store. Their kids were wild, and both parents had no idea what either of them liked. I quit when it was the middle of Covid (not a vaccine in site,) and she flew all of her friend’s over from all over the world & I walked in at 9 am to see them all passed out in the living room, the dad drinking, and the kids fighting eachother….
I had a friend who did this and one thing that was weird is that the family had a car that was just for the nanny to use. They made her live there at their house as well.
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Dominyka
Ieva Pečiulytė
Gabija Saveiskyte
Work & Money
