(Warning: This post contains snark. And plenty of self-righteous boasting. Sorry.)
I'm part-time nannying for as many families as I can this summer, which means I'm going to as many interviews as I can.
I like interviews usually. They're fun little games that test your ability to read people and react accordingly in a split second. But these nanny interviews are getting old. This week I went to one that left me fuming. So I thought I'd rescript it, and the nanny interview in general, the way I wish it could have gone.
First, I walk into a gorgeous suburban mansion with a view of a private pond draped in weeping willows. Three people live here, and one of them is only six months old. I remember my family's house when I was growing up, how even closets and bathrooms became bedrooms or music practice rooms. I count three pack n' plays here, with a full changing station in each one.
Then the interview begins:
The Mom: Describe your qualifications.
What I Want To Say: How about you describe /your/ qualifications. Because I've been caring for children for 15 years, and you look like you just started six months ago.
Of course I really say something about being a certified teacher and studying early childhood development in college and participating in foster care for 10 years.
Which leads to some confusion in these parts:
TM: Foster care? What's that?
WIWTS: Seriously?
TM (after I /actually/ explain): That's really interesting! It sounds kind of like a foreign exchange program.
WIWTS: It's /exactly/ like a foreign exchange program. That is, if your foreign exchange student was born only a few miles from you and is now an underfed three-month-old who has 15 fractures in her body because her teenage father slammed her legs into a table when she wouldn't stop crying and now she's being returned to her birth family way too soon because the system is overloaded with too many children. Then it'd be just the same.
TM: My child can get fussy sometime.
WIWTS: Trust me, I can handle it. Your child is easy. No broken bones. No fetal alcohol syndrome. No drug withdrawal. Not premature. No attachment disorder. No sensory processing disorder. Easy peasy.
TM: If you took my toddler twins to the park I would want to come with you because sometimes they run in opposite directions
WIWTS: In high school I routinely fed a baby and watched a toddler while I taught myself a math lesson. In college I worked at a daycare where I cared for 10 two-year-olds. After college I watched 25 eight-year-olds all day every day for two years. I'm pretty sure I can handle two children at a playground.
TM: What other services do you offer?
WIWTS: I can tell by looking at your child exactly where he is developmentally. I can burp a baby without hurting his broken ribs. I know when and how to introduce solids, which ones to introduce first and how to make sure no allergies exist. I can teach your child to read in both English and Spanish. I can potty train. I know where in Piaget's four stages your child is and can introduce activities that are higher in Bloom's Taxonomy. I can talk intelligently with your child's therapist. I can change lots of diapers really fast too.
Of course I don't say any of that stuff, because I want as many jobs as I can get and I need the money. But someday when I'm rich and famous and can afford to be insufferably know-it-all, I may just go on a nanny interview and say exactly what I want to say.
