39 year old nanny - weird?

My DSSs had an older nanny (50+) as their first nanny, who arrived when DSS1 was born in 1995 and left in 2002 ie nearly seven years and another baby down the line. Everyone talks about her with stars in their eyes. Her only qualification for the job was having had four children and a nanny of her own!

I've read lots of posts slating 'young nannies' who are not commited to the job and are more concerned about social life! Im under 25 and have been a nanny for 4 years already, I ALWAYS put my heart into my job, am loyal and do everything i can to make the parents happy and give the children top notch care. My current family i have been with for over 18 months, and plan to be with them untill next sept AT LEAST (barring anything out of the ordianary happening) My point is, AGE should not be a matter for concern, i am sure the OP would be a wonderful nanny - wether she is 19 or 39! Yes i can see how life experience can be a fantastic attribute to a nanny, but young nannies can be just as good. My first nanny family told me when i was leaving(kids going to school) that they nearly didnt hire me because i was 20, but they were very glad that they did!

Butterflybows i agree with the others, you will be snapped up :)

I am a mature nanny and have no trouble running around after my young charges I try to get jobs where the parents have similar veiws on childcare but I would never presume to comment if the parents had a different style of parenting and yes I am reliable rarely if ever sick and take my job very seriously.

I have known at least two younger nannies who only took the children out to places they could chat with their freinds and ignor the children they were supposed to be caring for. I'm sure this is not true of all younger nannies but experience and proffessionalism often come with a mature nanny.

At the moment I wouldn't because the older nannies I spoke to weren't very accepting of our parenting style and I felt a younger nanny would be more mouldable. Plus I wouldn't have the weirdness of employing someone who was at secondary school when I was in nappies myself!

That said if we had less definite ideas and actively wanted someone to provide experience and advice you'd be ideal.

Don't let the agency put you off too much. I would have thought that with your experience as a TA and as an LSA there will be plenty of families that would employ you.

Have the agency put you on their books? If they haven't because of lack experience then check out some other agencies and look for private ads - childcare.co.uk, nannyjob.co.uk, gumtree and netmums.

I am 35years old and still nannying .Knees are alittle creaky but still going . ;)

a lady that comes to group is a nanny this is her first nanny job the children were 1 and 3 when she started and she is nearly 60yrs old

Im a nearly 50year old nanny and have worked for my family for over three years now . I can still do all the same things a younger nanny can , although the knees are not as flexible these days . Today we (my charge who is nearly 4) collected acorns and i had to climb part of a tree and then piggyback him home , because he was too tired after our long walk. why do employers think we can't do these things after all most grandparents have no problem doing active things . Good luck to you and with your experience i'm sure you will find a job soon.

My friend has a nanny who is a granny and she is brilliant as my friend is so completely overwhelmed by what to do (not that she is a useless mother but she is very much in need of guidance for her own sanity and control! - I love her anyway but sometimes get a bit meh about her taking what the nanny says as gospel ) so this really works for her, she also trust her implicitly with regards to the shopping/driving etc aspect of things.

For me, a 22 yo wouldn't cut it (sorry!) but you definitely would and the fact that you haven't been a career nanny would mean to me that you would probably be good value for money (not the career nannies aren't but some of the ones I interviewed were just expecting more than I could pay them sadly) with the prospect of earning more in the future too. My bugbear would be if you have your own school age children/young children who you want to bring with you. I looked at a couple of these too but didn't feel confident that my two would be the most important children during her working day which was important to me. Sadly I couldn't find the ideal person for me so have gone down the nursery route - however this isn't ideal for me but needs must currently! If you are down south pm me as I am still looking.........

I positively looked for a mature nanny to look after my gang. She has been brill and v reliable and always understands why we employ her, iykwim!
One thing I would echo in an earlier post is that she does think her way is the right way, and while she will do things our way I know it is grudgingly. She tries to hide that though, as a "career nanny" maybe she's better at dealing with her differences to our methods!
Good luck!

No way. We had a nanny for a year or so. She was in her early 40s and was fantastic.

Butterflybows - two of my friends who are qualified teachers both nanny as they get paid so much more nannying. Both are my age (36). With a degree you'll be snapped up.

Just a note of caution to bear in mind. You need to acknowledge in discussions with potential families that there is a great deal of difference between being a career 'nanny' and going into nannying after your children have grown up, and that you are sensitive to this and it won't cause issues.

When I took on a nanny who was 43 (3 years older than me at the time) I was very concerned about this (like you she had spent time working in a nursery, had done a degree and shown herself to be reliable in terms of holding down responsible jobs), but we thought the benefits of experience and reliability would outweigh any downsides. In reality however though, the whole relationship did not work out at all, mostly because the nanny wasn't ever able to accept a parenting style different from the one she had employed on her own children - if we told her to do something in a different way or explained to her why little Johnny wasn't allowed to do X,Y and Z, we knew that she would follow our instructions to the letter, but we could see that she loathed doing it (just as I would loathe being told that my own methods of childraising were wrong) - it led to a lot of awkwardness, and eventually the whole relationship broke down - she started becoming more vocal and it was awful.

Whilst I do not for a minute think that would apply to you (esp as you have previous nanny experience and an obvious passion for childcare), if I were interviewing you I would have that on my radar and would expect you to have considered differences in views on childrearing and how to deal with it, because I think there is a fundamental difference between having decades of experience as a nanny and having decades of experience as a parent.

What blondes said re it paying better than shop work is right- I didn't hire someone who had been made redundant from an unrelated job partly as if was crystal clear she would dump us the minute something else came along.

I wouldn't have an issue with older nanny and if you had recent refs that show experience that woud cover the gaps.

Why would a nanny be a young person's job? If you choose to do it because you like it surely you are likely to continue liking it? In the old days they kept going until retirement-generally being nanny to the first lots DCs.

I feel you would need to sell the plus points of your past work. Many parents I expect would be very happy to employ a nanny who has a mixed range of past experience, both in childcare work and non-childcare.

The age of your children may be an issue... have they both left home? If not, how dependent on you are they? Would they cope coming home from school/college to an empty house?

I know someone who is still nannying at almost 60+ and has people trying to poach her.

No - if I were looking for a nanny, I'd prefer someone a little older and more mature

I have a nanny who is much older than you!!!

however nannynick has hit the nail on the head - I love the fact she has many years of experience/has worked in a hospital/nursery and been a nanny.

She is a member of our extended family.

Another older nanny here at 42

I had a 15 year gap in between, but it was filled with 3 years at a nursery/creche, a couple of years maternity leave and 10 years as a childminder.

I found jobs really easily - parents valued my age, experience, that i had brought up my own children and that I wasn't likely to be going on maternity leave

I'm a nanny in my early 40's and I'm still fit, never late,etc and think that I have alot of experience and understanding. I've had my children also, that are grown up, and wouldn't be leaving due to pregnancies etc. I have a good response from parents, so any older don't give up on being a nanny