"Mary worked for our family from September 2023- April 2024. She took care of our now 9-month-old & 2-year-old. I feel morally obligated to write this review. Even though our family is no longer using a full-time nanny after this experience, I think it is importantfor anyone potentially hiring Mary to know her strengths and weaknesses. I want to be as objective and honest in my assessment of her work.
Strengths: Mary is extremely dependable. She shows up every day on time or early. She communicates her schedule very well. She worked for us weekdays, some weekends, some nights to include 2 long weekends where she kept our girls overnight. She exhibited incredible amounts of energy balancing an infant and toddler. Her biggest strength was her ability to bond with our children. She was loving and caring and it was obvious that she truly loved our kids, and they absolutely loved her in return. She also did a great job with appropriate disciplinary measures that any parent would appreciate. A fantastic skill she has is working with pets. We were concerned about our toddler’s lack of gentleness with our dog and were worried that our dog could eventually nip at the kids. Mary completely alleviated that concern by managing the kids and dog in the same space like a pro. She also took great care of our dog and often walked and bathed her, which was not part of her duties, but she volunteered to do it. Mary also cooks and comes up with fun activities for the kids.
Areas for Improvement: Mary started off strong and seemed – absolutely- too good to be true. However, over time her professionalism deteriorated. She is extremely passive aggressive. She habitually took it upon herself to do additional work that was not asked of her (which was great at first) but then later send emotionally charged accusatory text messages OUT OF THE BLUE claiming she was being over worked and resenting the work she was doing. We held several meetings with her to try to address her grievances and each time seemed to come to a resolution (in person) only to later receive derogatory text messages a couple days later with complaints and demands. Her professionalism when dealing with her employers needs significant improvement. She exhibits a behavior of an intrinsic belief that everyone is out to get her. This behavior, in my experience, caused her to step on her own foot and bite the very hand that was feeding her. It should have been a red flag to me when she claimed ill treatment by SO many previous employers. I wondered how this could be logically possible… but I started to conclude that perhaps there is a common denominator. However, parents will put up with a LOT when someone loves their children and the children love them in return; especially when that person shows up on time every day and you have a demanding job. There seemed to be additional stressors outside of her job and over time she became more and more chaotic. Her passive aggression started to manifest itself in inconsistency with the kids and lashing out irrationally at the very people trying desperately to treat her well. It became clear that whatever was happening in her life was starting to impact her decision making. In the end, we had to terminate the relationship after a security incident that put the kids’ safety at risk and she failed to acknowledge or apologize for. This was the line in the sand for us.
I think if you decide to hire Mary you would have a better experience if:
- Establish clear boundaries early on. Do not allow her to do work that is not in her contract because she will harbor resentment for it. When Mary says “no worries” … it doesn’t mean that.
- Establish a clear contract with the number of expected hours and then revisit that agreement on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. We had a contract and she agreed to a set number of hours. However, we went through a couple of months where the hours increased due to our schedules. She became accustomed to this. When we tried to scale back closer to the original agreed on hours, she accused us of “cutting her hours” and not treating her well. We then re-wrote the contract to include more hours and less additional duties in an effort to take care of her. She was fine at first but later demanded additional time and threatened to quit… essentially extorting us for extra hours outside of the 2 contracts.
- Don’t ask her to clean anything. Her profile says she does cleaning duties and we put light cleaning duties in her contract (which she will do) but later resent. Establish the boundary that she will not even volunteer to clean anything (not even put away kids’ clothes). Her sole focus should be the kids and kids only and everyone will probably be much happier.
- Routine is not part of her DNA. She shows up on time- yes. However, when it comes to following a very specific feeding and napping schedule for infant care she tends to want to push back because she seems more comfortable pulling audibles on a regular basis, and it would help if she were a little more self-aware in this department. I think Mary would flourish in an unstructured environment where there is a lot of change. She seems to thrive on variety and change and likes to come up with creative activities rather than routine.
- She may not be good in a marathon but is a rock-star in a sprint. A long-term relationship with Mary will take a great deal of council and maintenance. If you plan to hire Mary for more than a few months, you need to build that into your plan and work very hard to foster a relationship built on mutual trust.
In the end, we truly wish the best for Mary and hope that she finds the right family!
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