Our Nanny

By Caroline McIntosh

"My name is Robert, I am five years old. I have a three year old sister called Polly. We live in Canada. We have an English nanny looking after us, when my parents go to work; she comes in and cares for us, then she leaves at the end of the day.

I like my nanny, her name is Caroline, and she is funny and takes us to lots of fun places, like the museum and the library. Sometimes my sister and I do things that make her mad.

Caroline has told us about England. She once told me she went to a very good nanny school in England. It was a really long name, sounded like Norland Nursery Training College. At school, she learned to look after children. It took her two years and she learned to cook and do fun stuff with children. She has looked after loads of children before coming to our house. I asked her if she loved them more than me. She smiled at me and said, "No, I could not love any children more than you and Polly."

One time we went to the zoo, in the car and another nanny said she had read a magazine article and most nannies got between $450 and $550 a week. The other nanny said she doesn't get as much and most of it goes towards room and board, which means she gets about $320 left a week. The nanny then asked my nanny how much she was getting. Caroline didn't answer; she just looked out of the window.

My nanny and my parents had a chat before she started looking after us. My mum told me one time, that she wants someone who is trained and has experience. Caroline has been trained, that's when she went to the special school. Not all parents want their nannies to be trained or to have looked after other kids. I know that my mum wants us to have the best care and she is willing to pay the big bucks for a nanny. I didn't really understand what that means, 'cos I've never seen big bucks. They always seem to be the same size, when I see them.

Caroline looks after us, but doesn't do the cleaning. We have a cleaner. Caroline told me she used to clean for other people, but most nannies who went to that special school don't clean. They just look after the kids and play with them or take them places.

She knows someone who went to school and now teaches English to kids in Saudi Arabia. They have a nanny and a cleaner. Her friend is there just to teach English. We looked at a really big map of the world and she showed us where Canada and England are. Then she showed me France and a place called Swiz-a-land; she told me, she went to these places on an areoplane, to talk to families who wanted nannies, before coming to Canada. She also said she knew people who worked in America looking after famous people's kids. I asked her who, but when she told me, I didn't know the people. Danielle Steele, I think, and Dustin Hoffman. Caroline said that Dustin Hoffman was in a movie as Peter Pan, but I don't think so. I told her she is getting mixed up with someone else. She just smiled.

My nanny says caring for me and my sister is fun. She says it is a portable career. I asked her, "Wots portable?" She said, "Well, you can do it anywhere. Remember Mary Poppins packed up her stuff and just floated into Jane and Michael's lives……and then she floated out of them?" I nodded. "That's what I mean by portable." Then she said, "Come on, let's go read a story. Which one would you like to hear today?""

Resources
The Au Pair and Nanny's Guide to Working Abroad
Susan Griffith and Sharon Legg
Published by Vacation Work http://www.vacationwork.co.uk
This great book is packed with information about training, agencies, finding work and ideas for what to do with the children.