Response from ErinMae
Responded 24 Jul 2018

In response to this review, I would like to add a little bit of context to the situation in question.

During my time working for this family, it became apparent to me that there were some ‘issues’ in the household that were not disclosed to me during the interview or ‘settling in’ period. Out of respect to the family, I will not go into specific details, however the many worrying things I heard/saw while living with them, combined with the information I later learned from other employees of the family made me extremely uncomfortable to the point where I no longer felt safe living in their home.

Not only did I feel that I had been unknowingly put in an uncomfortable and possibly dangerous position, I also felt that the children could potentially have been at risk as well, had things escalated further within the household when I had not been present. My eldest charge informed me on several occasions of the ‘arguments’ she had heard and seen in the household during the weekends when I was not around - the nonchalance in the way she spoke was a worrying sign that these were ‘normal’ things for her to witness.

On one occasion in an attempt to safeguard the children, I spoke with the parents about their volatile and aggressive behaviour towards each other (often in front of the children), highlighting the fact that I felt the children were being put in an extremely damaging position; however they did not take anything I said on board, and continued to behave in a way that was detrimental to the whole family. The situation continued to escalate throughout my final week in the household - something which eventually contributed to my resignation.

Because of these reasons, I felt greatly uncomfortable and unsafe in my position, and I therefore felt I had no choice but to resign without notice. A prevalent reason for my lack of notice was that I strongly believed that had I returned to the house after handing in my notice, the already awful atmosphere would be even more volatile and disruptive for the children. In short, I felt that I could no longer properly safeguard the children, as I did not have the parents’ help or understanding of how the situation was affecting the family.

I did, however, explain myself in great detail during the conversation with them regarding my resignation, and made it clear that I did not think they should employ anybody else to work/live in their home until things had been brought to light and resolved.

In terms of my ‘basic’ childcare and treatment of the children, I feel that I completely excelled in this position and tried my absolute hardest to ensure the children were safe, stimulated and nurtured to the best of my ability. The difference, especially in the older (6) child, between when I started and when I left was not only apparent to me, but also to several people who knew them, including the previous nanny, who (upon seeing the child a few months after she had left and I had started) said that she seemed far more happy, confident and well-behaved since I had started working with her. In fact, i’ve been informed by a reliable source that on a few occasions it was expressed by the parents how pleased they were with my help so far. What’s more, at no point during the 4 months that I worked for them did the family ever mention that my childcare methods were unsatisfactory. Had they done so at any point, I would surely have adjusted my behaviour accordingly to their specifications.

A formal contract was never signed or even provided to be signed after it was sent back to nannytax ‘for adjustments to be made’. The family never followed this up, and as a result I was left working for over 4 months with no formal contract. During my stay with the family I had a bedroom door that wouldn’t lock or even close fully (something that was acknowledged on several occasions but never fixed), the father slept in my bed on the weekends when I wasn’t around (I was not informed of this by the parents, but instead forced to find out from one of the children when she made a passing comment about the room actually being ‘daddy’s bedroom’) and my wages were often late by almost 24 hours.

Anyone who knows me (including the references I have) knows that I would never consider resigning from a position without notice unless I felt unsafe or at-risk. I urge families to try to be honest about their circumstances when employing a live-in nanny, as the things that can be witnessed while living in someone else’s home can put a huge strain on your nanny both in her level of comfort and her ability to do her job.

This position was an unfortunate anomaly in a sea of otherwise brilliant experiences, and I would urge anybody who is concerned about this review to contact me directly so we can talk about it further as I’d be happy to give more details!