I Never Meant to Be a Nanny

I wasn’t one of those girls who dreamed of looking after kids.

I never played house for fun. Never imagined myself waking up early to pack someone else’s lunch or sitting cross-legged on the floor explaining how fractions work.

So when I walked up to that house on a quiet Thursday afternoon, clipboard in hand and heart racing, I kept reminding myself: This is temporary.

Rent was due. My options were few.

And being a nanny? It wasn’t the dream job. It was the job I could get.

The front door opened with a soft creak.

Warm yellow light spilled into the porch, and I stepped in, instantly wrapped in the smell of something baked earlier—maybe banana bread? Or chocolate chip cookies left behind by memory.

A woman—mid-40s, professional smile, kind eyes—ushered me inside. “They’re upstairs,” she said, with a mix of amusement and warning.

I looked up and saw them.

Three pairs of eyes peering down the staircase.

The eldest—12, arms crossed, skeptical.

The middle—10, clearly the mischief-maker, smirking behind the bannister.

The youngest—8, barely visible, just a tiny hand waving from behind her sister.

We stared at each other for a long second, all of us unsure of what this was supposed to be.

I remember sitting on the couch after the interview, wondering what I’d just signed up for.

“Only for a year,” I told myself.

Just long enough to figure out what I really wanted to do.

But a year has a funny way of becoming more.

Especially when a child who barely said a word to you on your first day comes running in a week later and yells, “Look what I made!”

Especially when the oldest—who had perfected the art of ignoring—starts casually leaving her book on the counter so you’ll ask her about it.

And especially when the 10-year-old smirks a little less and starts opening up a little more.

I didn’t expect to become someone’s safe space.

I didn’t expect to know the rhythm of three little lives—their breakfast moods, their after-school tantrums, the inside jokes whispered over pizza on Fridays.

But over time, I started seeing pieces of myself in them.

In the way the youngest reached for my hand when she was unsure.

In the way the middle one covered sadness with sarcasm.

In the way the oldest kept asking questions she pretended she didn’t care about.

And maybe that’s the most unexpected part of all:

They weren’t just growing up.

I was, too.

There were days I wanted to scream.

When no one listened.

When someone spilled juice again.

When I was so tired of trying to balance patience with discipline, hugs with boundaries.

But there were also moments.

Tiny, quiet, powerful moments.

Like the time I caught them whispering about what to get me for my birthday.

Or when the youngest slipped a note into my coat pocket that said, “You feel like sunshine.”

Or the afternoon the eldest broke down crying in the kitchen, and I realized she didn’t need answers—she just needed someone who’d stay.

Three years.

That’s how long I stayed.

And during that time, the children didn’t just grow taller—they grew into people.

With opinions, worries, dreams.

With songs they loved, shows they binged, heartbreaks they didn't yet have words for.

And I… I grew into something, too.

Not just a nanny.

But a listener.

A guide.

A friend.

A woman learning how to love children who weren’t hers with a kind of fierce, protective softness she didn’t know she had.

Now, I’m 26.

I’ve finished my contract.

The goodbye hugs were tight, the tears real, the promises to visit sincere.

And as I stand on the edge of something new—ready to build my own family, to create a home of my own—I realize that everything I learned about love, patience, and chaos came from a job I never even meant to take.

It’s strange, isn’t it?

How we sometimes find the best parts of ourselves in places we never planned to be?

I became a nanny out of necessity.

But I left with more than a paycheck.

I left with memories stitched into my heart.

With three kids who will always feel a little like mine.

And with a version of myself I’m proud to be.