rogue

Parents share unconventional requirements for $125,000 a year nannying job.

 

There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for $125,000. Especially if it came with a place to live, 28 holiday days, and time in lieu.

But it turns out there are two children in Leicestershire in the UK, aged seven and nine, who I would not nanny for that price. Ever.

A job ad recently posted to UK childcare job site childcare.co.uk asks for a full-time, live-in nanny. “Our last nanny left us because of our children’s challenging behaviour, and because they just didn’t get on with her,” the ad begins, which for future reference, is a truly terrible way to get potential applicants interested in an employment opportunity. Maybe add that your kids can really thrive in the right environment, or that the previous nanny just wasn’t a great fit – not the suggestion that your children are literal devils who drive away people who try to care for them.

But, you know, whatever.

“To make sure that we find someone perfect, we decided we’d let the kids tell us exactly what they wanted,” the ad continues, “and this is what they came up with.”

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What a nice idea!

But, no. The kids have six rules, and they are as follows:

“1. We want to play football and other stuff with them.”

Fair enough. I can play football.

“2. I want them to play Fortnite and FIFA with me.”

Okay. I’ve watched my brother’s playing Fortnite and it’s pretty funny how you can get the characters to do weird little dances so I’m cool with that.

“3. I want them to be fun and not have any rules and we want to stay up to whatever time we want.”

Oh. Oh honey, no. That’s not how life works. On special occasions rules can be bent but we can’t always…

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“4. We want to make cakes every day and have pizza for dinner all the time.”

That’s…. I mean, same. Obviously. But I think that would be bad for kids. You’re probably meant to eat a variety of things for your brain/body and we can have pizza every now and then but all the time seems… excessive.

“5. We don’t want them to be angry with us ever.”

But, um, what if you burn the house down? Or eat all the pizza? Or break your sibling’s limb during football? Aren’t kids meant to be disciplined so they don’t turn into humans who THINK THEY CAN DEMAND CAKE AND PIZZA CONSTANTLY.

“6. They have to do all of our homework and I don’t want to do any chores.”

I don’t… want to do your homework. And if you don’t do any chores that means… oh my God.

“If they’re nice to us we promise not to be naughty or prank them and we’ll always be nice to them,” the kids added. “But if they shout at us or are mean, then we’ll be naughty and get upset.”

Riiiiight.

“We have such demanding careers… so we just really need a committed and open-minded nanny who can cater to our children’s needs whilst we’re away,” the job ad continues.

“As outlined above, we’ll… need you to help the kids with their homework/do it for them.

“We know that letting the kids do what they want isn’t a conventional way of parenting, but we’d much rather them be happy and content whilst we’re away.”

This job sounds like the plot of a horror movie I don’t want to watch, let alone be in.

It does, however, offer a salary of £70,000 – the equivalent of over $125,906 a year.

But can you really put a price on having to live with a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old who refuse to have any rules? Personally, I don’t think so.