1. "The drama is just like TV. The dad in the family I nannied for had a secret daughter and other family for five years."
2. "The biggest thing was how uninvolved they were with their daughter's life. She was born early in October, and by the end of the month, I was already spending 80+ hours a week with her. The husband has only been home one day since she started working for them and the wife is gone from 6 a.m.–9 p.m. every day."
3. "Money was just thrown around. A $500 rocking chair is the wrong shade of orange? Just throw it in the garbage and go buy a new one. Daughters are fighting with each other over their Barbie dream houses? Calm them down by taking them to the American Girl store for new dolls and then get them a blowout afterward."
4. "The clothes. The girls have numerous name brand clothing items: Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Vineyard Vines, Lilly Pulitzer, etc. The 6-year-old's backpack was $85. I get wanting your kids to have nice things to wear, but they're growing fast, and that shit is expensive. The 3-year-old outgrew her wardrobe last year, it was all replaced with the same expensive stuff."
5. "Once, I nannied for a family who had a small room with board games/tabletop games lining the walls. 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 rooms. Once, the mom and dad were home and napping. I was basically being paid good money to play with the kid."
6. "They really have no concept of how normal people think of money. I was talking about visiting the library, and they were confused by the fact that I didn't just buy all the books I wanted to read. They also paid me every six months or so, and seemed confused that I wanted money 'so often.'"
7. "Scheduling was weird. They wanted their children to be successful in life, I get it. But every day was something — piano, ballet, tennis, Chinese lessons, and squash. They had no time to play."
8. "I worked as a nanny for a few months for a wealthy family with two kids to make extra money while in college. The mom wouldn't go anywhere without a nanny present for the kids. Playdate 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."
9. "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."
10. "I work for a wealthy family. 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."
11. "The family was great overall, but the kids didn't have a huge grip on how wealthy they really were. They didn't consider their family rich or their house large, even though they lived in a three-story mansion. They were surprised when they learned I, a recent college grad, didn't have certain gadgets, or couldn't just buy a new car, or hadn't done much travel abroad. They weren't little jerks or anything, but there was a slight degree of entitlement and their baseline was so high and they didn't see it."
12. "The security checks for some jobs can be extreme and families can get really ticked off if you socialize with anyone you meet on the job. I met a guy who lived in the same building as my clients and they were more than a little put off when he wanted to date me. There's neighbors and then there's the 'help,' and I was the latter, and in their eyes I had no business talking to him, let alone dating him."
13. "It was weird to see how uninvolved the parents were with their kid's lives. I nannied in the US and lived with a widow whose late husband was a billionaire and had left everything to her and their two boys. Honestly, if she saw her boys 10 minutes every day, that would be a stretch. She had three full-time nannies to rotate every hour of the day, plus a cook, a driver, and a housekeeper. The driver drove the kids to school every morning and the nannies would be in charge of homework, meals, showers, and bedtime when they got back. She went out every night."
—Anonymous