Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2002-08-23 11:27 am
azurelunatic) wrote2002-08-23 11:27 am
The Hardest Job in the World
I've been seeing the Friday Five asking what the hardest job in the world is. I've seen people answering "Mom".
Having never been one, I would argue that being a nanny, which I have been, is more difficult.
Being a mother, you generally love your children, as they are yours. Being a parent, you have authority over them, as well as responsibility.
Being the ten hour/day, 5 day/week caretaker of children (especially at not an age to be a mother quite just yet in any sane iteration of US society), you get to see their good and bad sides, and get to spend quite a bit of time with them. Given the children, you may or may not love them. Given the caretaking situation, you may or may not have much authority, being limited in choice of reinforcement methods.
(My favorite nonviolent method of stopping a four-year-old's giggle-tantrum [she was lying on the floor refusing to get dressed, giggling, but still staging a strike] was the glass of water. Water, poured on the face from above, will shock the giggler into a mood far more receptive to orders.)
You have all the responsibilities of taking care of these kids, one-on-two, for the hours of the day that you are there. They will drive you nuts. They're not yours. Yet you're responsible for them, for the duration of the job.
I have also been a full-time Auntie, one step down from stepparent, for the last year and a half. Yes, it's difficult, hair-raising, and wonderful; it's not half as hard as watching those two kids was, back in the summer of 1996.
(This is the night before the job started. Not an auspicious beginning.)
Having never been one, I would argue that being a nanny, which I have been, is more difficult.
Being a mother, you generally love your children, as they are yours. Being a parent, you have authority over them, as well as responsibility.
Being the ten hour/day, 5 day/week caretaker of children (especially at not an age to be a mother quite just yet in any sane iteration of US society), you get to see their good and bad sides, and get to spend quite a bit of time with them. Given the children, you may or may not love them. Given the caretaking situation, you may or may not have much authority, being limited in choice of reinforcement methods.
(My favorite nonviolent method of stopping a four-year-old's giggle-tantrum [she was lying on the floor refusing to get dressed, giggling, but still staging a strike] was the glass of water. Water, poured on the face from above, will shock the giggler into a mood far more receptive to orders.)
You have all the responsibilities of taking care of these kids, one-on-two, for the hours of the day that you are there. They will drive you nuts. They're not yours. Yet you're responsible for them, for the duration of the job.
I have also been a full-time Auntie, one step down from stepparent, for the last year and a half. Yes, it's difficult, hair-raising, and wonderful; it's not half as hard as watching those two kids was, back in the summer of 1996.
(This is the night before the job started. Not an auspicious beginning.)
Full-time Auntie.
How old is your neice/nephew?
Re: Full-time Auntie.
Sometimes, it's almost as if I am a stepparent. I probably am cut out to be a parent myself, as I evidently do well with children; I may wind up adopting, though, because babies are far, far, far too demanding. Yes, they're larval humans, and yes, subjectively some of them are sweet... I begin to get on with children somewhere around four or five, or perhaps three, depending on the kid.