In many households, nannies are more than just hourly workers. Looking after the little ones on both the lego-playing-cartoon-watching-snack-eating days and the temper-tantrum-total-destruction-don’t-want-to-talk days, they become so enmeshed in the family’s day-to-day, it might be difficult for its members to imagine a life without them.
Being a part of the family typically also means living the same lifestyle as they do (even if only while working), no matter how lavish or meager it is; and today, we’re focusing on the former. If you’ve always wondered what the life of wealthy families is like, continue scrolling to find firsthand accounts of nannies of the ultra rich, as shared on Reddit, to catch a glimpse of said life, entailing the good, the bad, and the ugly.
#1
How tight they were with money. I would even go so far as to say selective rather than stingy.
They were wealthy because they knew how to budget. I was always to look for free activities to do with the kids. I can tell you that the Peggy Norbert nature museum in Chicago has free entry for Illinois state residents on Thursdays, the pool closest to their house has free child swim for two hours every Friday, little beans cafe and play place has half price Monday’s, the Chicago Cultural Center has a monthly music program called the ‘Juice box’, and to keep an eye out for discounted and free entry days for Chicago residents at the area museums. The zoo is always free and picnics and park days were encouraged. The mom was always on Groupon and the children were never lacking for something to do.
While they might not have been SUPER wealthy they were certainly up there. What surprised me most of all is how much they truly loved their kids. There were a few times I woke up to texts saying I had a paid day off because the weather was beautiful and they wanted to take their children to play at the lake. Or how they preferred to pick their kids up from school themselves so they could hear all about their day. I miss that family so much but I’m still in contact with them and get texts and calls from them so I can be a small part of the kids’ lives.
Image credits: Alisha33
#2
A good friend of mine is a nanny for a very wealthy couple. They own and live in an entire brownstone type building. I think they’re both lawyers. He is the source of the wealth, which is largely inherited. He has a job, but it’s the kind of job where he never has to show up or do much work at all and it pays him hundreds of thousands a year.
Every day, the wife goes to her job. The husband goes to his floor of the house that nobody is allowed to bother him on. He spends the day smoking pot and lazing about like he’s Jeff Lebowski.
That’s it. That’s all he does. But he doesn’t want his kids bothering him, so he locks himself away to pretend he’s still in college or something and pays my friend to raise his kid for him.
They’re nice enough people. My friend likes her job. But I’ll never be able to have much respect for a dude who has all the time and money in the world and he uses it to sequester himself away from his own kids, get high, and watch movies all day.
Image credits: MidasVirago
#3
I nanny for a girl in Japan, and her parents primarily work for their own real estate company. One of the craziest stories was when the girl wanted to make a flower garden. They already have a huge beautiful garden at their mansion, but the gardener didn’t want her to mess it up.
The girl saw a plot of land next door and asked me to make a garden there. When I told her that we couldn’t because that’s not her house, she said she would ask her mum. The mum called the owner of the land and offered to buy it. They told her that they weren’t selling the land – so the mother bought the whole apartment building, along with the land, just so her daughter could make a garden next to their house.
Image credits: anon
#4
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.
Image credits: sydthesquid18
#5
My friend’s son is an exceptionally well paid banker in NYC. His grandchild (just one) has 4 nannies. At 2 this child couldn’t walk because it gets carried everywhere, can only speak Spanish because that is the only language it hears. The walking thing is a problem because if the kid can’t stand up properly how on earth is it going to learn to ski?
Image credits: ChopsNZ
#6
I briefly worked with a wealthy family a few months ago before I had to leave the job because it was just unbearable. They were pretty nice to me, but terrible to their kid. The kid was 6, for context. These things were more sad than crazy. The saddest thing I saw was how much money they spent on themselves and paying me, and how little they spent on their kid. I was being paid pretty well (enough to almost match what I was making at my primary job while working half as many hours), the parents would be buying new iPhones, new clothes, wine, etc. Their kid however, had clothes that didn't fit, broken toys that were "too expensive to replace", wasn't enrolled in any after school activities either because it "cost money". Some other things I noticed was how uninvolved and bad at parenting they were. The kid was 6 still wearing diapers because he hadn't been fully potty trained. When I asked about it, they said "oh we just never fully got around to it, he's scared to go to the bathroom because one time we spanked him because he peed on the floor". He was completely undisciplined and whenever I told him no, he would try and hit me, scream at the top of his lungs, try and bite himself. One time I was with the mom and him in the store, and he tried to take a bunch of candy from a shelf and eat it, and I said he has to wait for his mom to pay for it first, and he LOST it. Tried knocking over shelves, ran around screaming, tried hitting OTHER people, and swearing up a storm. His mom LEFT the store, and said oh that's too much for me to handle, that's why you're here. In the end I just quit because I couldn't stand them as parents or people. They were so arrogant, always neglecting their children. The day I left, they wouldn't even let me say goodbye to their son, who was crying watching me from a window as I walked to my car. I guess they trained him not to say hi to me and give me nasty looks when I see them in town, because they'll go out of their way to avoid me if we make eye contact in town.
Image credits: Rickayy_OG
#7
My friend nannied for this family in Western NY and once she was invited to go their parents (so kids grandparents) house in the Hamptons for a week. There were other staff in the household, and grandpa called people by their role, not their name. “Nanny, come here.” “Chef, more salt.” The only food she was allowed to eat was the children’s’ leftovers, otherwise she had to go out to restaurants/stores to buy her own meals, which she didn’t always get time to go do. She came home after the week and told the family never again. They were horrified that she wouldn’t want to go back!
Image credits: anon
#8
My younger sister nannies for an wealthy couple, and she’s mentioned a few things that really threw her off at first.
The biggest thing was how uninvolved they are with their daughter’s life. She was born early in October, and by the end of the month, my sister 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 6am-9pm every day.
Then, it was how casual they are with money. They’ve offered to pay for work on her car countless times, and the wife gave my sister all of her Christmas decorations from last year. Most of them still had their tags on them. She spent $20/ornament and didn’t even use them.
Image credits: IslandoftheMoths
#9
Not a nanny but I was still involved in the day to day. Long story short, the daughter (younger than her more mentally stable and normalized brother) was having issues that are at least typical of a teenage daughter. So what do they do? Buy a house (a decent sized rancher in the city’s nicest old money neighborhood) nearby and stuff the daughter in it with a full time caretaker who was given a SUV and a salary. Really nice girl based on my interactions with her, just probably felt the way many children of the super wealthy do. I have lots more stories and details but prefer not to reveal too much as I still respect their privacy.
Image credits: anon
#10
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 (that was what really got me–they lived in a three-story mansion and the bottom floor was literally empty. Like completely empty. Eventually after a couple years they put a couch and a TV down there, but that was it.). They were surprised when they learned I, a recent college grad when I started working for them, 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.
Image credits: ChuushaHime
#11
A few things…
1. The drama that is just like TV. The dad in the family I nannied for had a secret daughter and other family for 5 years.
2. How 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 afterwards.
3. And yet, despite this, they forgot to pay their bills for three months and got the gas turned off in their house.
Image credits: pinkpanda24
#12
I nanny for 2 different families regularly and I have tons of other family’s I babysit randomly (date nights etc). Twice a week I babysit a little boy and girl who are so sweet and who I rarely have problems with (their parents are both servers at a restaurant.) The other family I also babysit twice a week and they have a boy and girl who I often have behavior problems with. Their dad is manager of a car dealership and the mom is stay at home (they have money). I love all four of them but I think it’s interesting that the kids who don’t have as much are far better than the kids who are rich. And that’s been the case many times. A lot of the rich kids have been spoiled brats who never hear the word no. A lot of them aren’t as excited to see me because I’m not always the “cool” babysitter who lets them get away with everything. Don’t get me wrong, I know how to have fun with kids but I don’t put up with brats.
With that being said I don’t see as much discipline with wealthier families.
Image credits: nevergettingoutofbed
#13
I do tutoring for a wealthy family, and despite the fact that they seem to have come from fairly average backgrounds, they really have no concept of how normal people think of money. I was talking about visiting the library after a session, and they were confused by the fact that I didn’t just buy all the books I wanted to read. They also pay me every six months or so, and seem confused that I want money so often – they’re good for it, after all. They fly their kids home from their highschool sports tours (they play in tournaments all over the continent) to take a driving test and think nothing of it.
They’re good people, but weird.
Image credits: Alsadius
#14
How incompetent they are. I worked as a nanny for a few months for a wealthy family with two kids to make extra money while in college. I had to get up every morning to get the kids ready for school and then walk them to school because the mom couldn’t do it herself.
Also the mom wouldn’t go anywhere without a nanny present for the kids. Play date 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.
Unsurprisingly I was one of 5 nannies they had coming around every week. They spent close to $1000 a week on nannies but didn’t want to commit to getting a live in.
Image credits: anon
#15
I once nannied for a family who had a small room with board games/table top games lining the walls (as an indication of wealth) 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 room. Once the mom and dad were home and napping. I was basically being paid good money to play with the kid. Of course, the kid was incredibly bossy and fussy when he didn’t get his own way.
I also received a text after my first few sessions saying that I could bring my own lunch and use their fridge; don’t worry, no one has any allergies.
Image credits: nerdcamper
#16
I work for a middling-wealthy family, have been for two years. 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. The younger one doesn’t realize why it’s inapproproate to joke about how much money she has stashed away for “chores.” She doesn’t realize that it’s more than I earn in weeks, and that she didn’t actually earn it.
Image credits: 847362na
#17
The woman played WOW all day and ate spaghetti-o’s, the husband was always away, and she was never with her baby. Also, she had a surrogate with twins on the way! I never understood their family or why she wanted more kids.
Image credits: hussy_trash
#18
I used to be an au pair for a super rich family in China. The funny thing was that they already had a nanny. She was extremely poor and had to give a bratty kid everything she couldn’t afford for her own kids. The kid even kicked her and she simply tolerated it.
The weirdest thing was that whenever we went somewhere as a family, she was the one taking care of the child while the mother was talking to others. She even slept in his room while his mom had her own bedroom.
Personally, I just couldn’t deal with how spoiled and entitled the child was. They literally told me it didn’t matter if he respected me, he just had to like me.
Image credits: Njoerun
#19
My sister worked as nanny for a famous hollywood actress (married to a very famous british pop singer… can you guess the couple?) and she was always shocked by how cheap they were! For example, they took her to Hollywood while she was shooting a movie (they live in London). My sister was asked to babysit for 12-13 hours at a time (he contract was 40 hour/week, 8hour/day) while she was at the studio. The end of the month came and she didn’t get paid for ANY overtime (which would amount to over 50 hours). When she asked what happened to that, she was put on a plane back to London and fired on the spot. It had its perks too. I was insanely jealous when she told me that one day, she was in the car with the husband (pop star) and the 2 children. He started singing to the children his latest hit (featuring a female equally famous) and my sister suddenly realized: “Wait a sec… how many people IN THE WORLD have ever had a private concert like this? handful? less than that?”. Anybody cares to guess the couple?
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Image credits: Letusso
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