Due to the never-ending pandemic that we live in, I’ve had a private nanny since #1 was eight months old. Frankly, sending my immunocompromised first child to regular daycare among children whose individual household dynamics were mysteries to us was out of the question, so the only option that my household was left with in order to have childcare while mythical wife and I worked our respective jobs, was to hire a nanny.
For the duration of a single-child household, it worked out great; one nanny with one child is pretty easy-peasy as far as the circumstances are considered. I could focus on my job, which was really helpful as it was deteriorating pretty rapidly throughout the start of the pandemic.
But then #2 came into the picture and things became a little more chaotic, as to no surprise, when the ratio of children balances away from 1:1, anyone’s attention becomes harder to divert between multiple children, and it’s just harder in general. I often times was away from my keys in order to help out the nanny, and it was always a balancing act to make sure that double duty was as minimal as possible, which is a little ironic considering just how often I am on double duty on a regular basis but I am their biological father so why wouldn’t I be?
Eventually, things ceased to work out with my original nanny, and they did leave us high and dry at a very inconvenient and critical point. Fortunately, we were able to bounce back fairly quickly and find another nanny to come in and take over, which brings us to current times that are somewhat more stable and if anything at all, I’m just glad that my kids have someone reliable to take care of them while I’m working.
However, to the point of this particular dad brog post, as nice as it is to have in-home care, and the peace of mind at knowing that my kids aren’t picking up every variant of coronavirus while at daycare and bringing it home, it’s not entirely perfect either. Namely, the part where if a private nanny calls in sick or is ever out for any particular reason, I’m the one who is getting boned and has to eat the time off work in order to cover. Mythical wife being a teacher and all, and teachers having extremely rigid and inflexible workdays, she can’t exactly turn on a dime and come home to take care of the kids at a moment’s notice, so that responsibility falls onto me.
I’m not going to sugar coat it either, it sucks. Royally. Every time that either of my nannies have called in sick, I’ve been the one who has had to take it on the chin and tell my jobs that I have to in turn bone my work, to where I’m either burning PTO, or I’m being a complete flake with my work, and then working in the evening to make up for the not working during the day.
The worst part is that as I’ve alluded to in the past, my kids are getting sick every month this year regardless of the fact that I have in-home care. I go to the office a few days a week, mythical wife works at a school surrounded by children whom we have no idea if their parents are vaccinated or not, and 2022 seems to be the year where all the colds, flus and other sicknesses that were avoided in 2020-2021 are coming back with a vengeance.
At this point, I’m kind of over the lack of accountability and being the only one punished when my childcare goes down, that I’m leaning towards sending my kids off to daycare. They’re getting sick all the same now, that I may as well start trying to get my children socialized and used to other human beings so they’re not complete social invalids growing up. If I’m already paying daycare prices for private care, I might as well be able to not have to destroy myself whenever something comes up.
I love having personalized childcare, but I’m disliking just a little bit more, the repercussions of when said childcare calls out sick. My work struggles, and as important as my kids are, I still need to have my job in order to support my family, and seeing as how I’m still within my first year, I don’t want to develop a reputation of being the guy that’s unreliable and constantly using his kids as the excuse.
