the good the bad and the ugly

Good, bad, ugly and everything in-between.  I think I've experienced more highs and lows in my years spent as a nanny than any other time period in my life.  Having worked for a number of families, I've had more experiences than I could ever count, not all good, not all bad.  One thing I learned early on was to really take advantage of each job/situation.  Being a young girl who knew that she wanted to have kids one day I committed myself to doing the best job that I could do and to learn something new everyday.  I guess you could say I was on a mission to find out what works. I realized along the way that a lot of what we believe and the person we have become is based on how we were raised.  I mean really...how can a young girl without even one child have such different parenting techniques than a mother of two? How can a young girl without even one child have parenting techniques at all? I was surprised by how strong my feelings were on certain subjects. Surprised that witnessing one short interaction between a Mother and child could leave me gritting my teeth for an entire afternoon.  Surprised to see how much power these children have over their parents and how much they get away with. There are parents out there whose parenting techniques are written in stone and those are the ones that we all had to follow, parents (Mothers usually) who have a favorite parenting book and raise their children word for word, and parents who understand that no one has all of the answers and are open to ideas and suggestions.  Here is the good the bad and the ugly of being a nanny in its simplest form: The good. You get to spend your days with the most interesting people (in my opinion) on the face of the planet...kids. You get to share laughs, inside jokes, fun outings and a special bond that they don't have with anyone else.  The bad. Raising children is not a walk in the park.  Depending on how often you're with the kids depends on whether you feel like you're raising or watching them. Consider yourself lucky if you and the parents are on the same page when it comes to the kids behavior (some parents are scared to discipline, and let their kids have the final say, while others actually do the work to set them straight), your life (days) will be much easier and stress free if you both feel the same way about a problem at hand (chances of this happening? about 50%). The ugly. Being a nanny can turn into an extremely ugly thing.  It can leave you feeling the furthest thing from human. It can make you feel inferior to all around you. It can make you feel like you're walking on eggshells 24/7....which shouldn't ever ever be the case.