Hello all, first post so sorry if it's a little long. I'm a 25 year old with a background as nanny/mothers help, including a longterm live out (but full-on) job with a lovely big American family in London which I loved and made me realise I wanted to continue as a nanny. I don't have formal qualifications but first aid certificate, CRB, and I have 2 degrees, with a background in tutoring kids for exams/UK curriculum. I'm also from a huge family myself and was always going to be a nanny or teacher, just love it really.
Anyway! After my lovely job finished a couple of months ago (they moved back home), I had 2 interviews for then got offered what seemed like a great job with a VERY high profile family (not something i had any experience of incidentally). Nanny to one little boy who seemed like a cherub on my trial (2 hours with the kid, mum was there for about 1/2 an hour). It was made clear in the interviews that mum was into a VERY "holistic" parenting style including a 'parenting mentor', following specific guidelines in a book etc, which nanny had to be sympathetic to. I stressed my lack of training in this area but it apparently wasn't a problem. I was to be paid £8net ph (in central London, live-out position) which was actually a sizeable pay-cut from my last role, but the family seemed like an interesting one to work for (needless to say they could MORE THAN afford to pay a higher rate! ).
Anyway it turned out to be a 10-hour-per-day role, and there was no handover or any guidelines provided whatsoever. Mum was barely around but I just assumed I had to hit the ground running. I was pretty shocked at the little boy's extraordinary attitude issues even at such a VERY young age. Very superior to the household staff who he described as 'servants', refused to walk even short distances eg. to the park down the road, taking the tube etc was out of the question - "I only take taxis"- (despite us being sent out on a lot of outings which required transport across London, I was never given any kitty money whatsoever for snacks, taxis, etc). He also screamed and cried whenever his friends wanted to play with his toys, and on my 5th morning on the job he greeted me at the door by throwing a dart directly at my eye (!!)- it missed by literally an inch. I was pretty shaken just out of the shock, and went to the bathroom as composed as possible to dry my eyes. By the time I came out he had worked himself into a frenzy, Mum magically materialized and called me into the next room, and proceeded to say she didn't think she felt I had been on top of things this first week. She didn't seem remotely worried about her little boy aiming darts at faces, which disturbed me a little. Anyway she had decided to let me go effective that evening (but could I still stay til late as normal, because she had an event that night and needed the little boy sorted....) Cheeky, I thought, but stayed til the bitter end. And then never looked back... until now really. My confidence got pretty knocked I guess, and I really did freak out after that horrible day wondering whether she was right about me. Thing is she was literally hardly there and I felt every day that I'd done a genuinely good job- healthy meals, lots of outings, making up millions of stories, doing about 3 huge Lego projects, playdates, a birthday party where he needed some handholding. There were some MUCH older adult siblings in the house who seemed to be living off mum and dad's largesse and would sit and watch me play with the little boy, which made me a bit uncomfortable. The whole parenting mentor/program thing actually never came up, which surprised me- the job seemed so much less structured than she described it, but i really did think I did OK. Certainly a 5 day trial seemed a little short without evidence of gross misconduct or something, which there clearly hadn't been.
And I guess I wonder if it sounds like she was being unreasonable. I really thought I could have a future in nannying even without getting formal qualifications. I had no experience of that celeb type "world" and still have no idea if her decision was a normal one. If I'm honest I really have lost confidence and not sure how to feel about starting nannying again. Argh! Any thoughts on the situation? Thankyou so much for any input!