My Last Day as a Nanny

Dedicated to all my friends who love children, are mommies and those who want to be someday.

For most people life changes when you have a child and I don’t think an individual will ever understand what that means until it happens to them. For the past 11 months I've been the proud nanny to the most wonderful 5-year old boy, and although I've been a nanny in the past to the most precious little girls and boys something about this situation has been completely life altering. Maybe it’s because I’m at a different stage in my life, age and wisdom wise.

To some it may not seem like the ideal form of employment especially at 29, but honestly it’s been one of the best “jobs” I've had. But back to my point, many would describe him as special and not in the sense that a parent deems their child special because at the age of two they drew something that resembled a Picasso piece, but in the sense that medical professionals label children. The term “special” has been made into somewhat of a negative connotation or one that requires these individuals to have their own everything from schools to Olympics. But none-the-less he is special, in both ways, but more so to me.

The early years of his life up until now seemed like such a challenge and a struggle more so for his parents than for him. He really seems so content with his life and so happy, but I’m sure with an ivy league dad and very blessed mom it was hard to accept their child wouldn't have a normal life, whatever that is supposed to mean. I guess when you are endowed with so much and only know how to live that lifestyle it’s hard to transition into a different environment especially one you don’t know anything about. I don’t know how I’d react. I have however, had the fortunate circumstance to work with special needs individuals and coincidentally have had a great knack for it. Maybe it’s my gift of patience or just a genuine compassion for humans, but I connect with them and they are drawn to me. He and I’s relationship was no different. He came to me with ease and we enjoyed each other’s company. Listening to his mom’s stories about his early stages of development and what she went through to bring him to the level he’s at today was incredible. She spent a lot of time, energy, and money to make sure her child was growing into as normal of a child as possible.

He has speech deficiencies. His language isn't developed to much more than a 24-month old. He also has cognition delays and lacks the ability to send signals from his brain to certain motor functions. Oddly enough I still feel like he’s smarter than a lot of children his age. He’s sensitive and intuitive and that is a lot to ask from an adult let alone a five year old. I can just sense his level of understanding and know that he’s taking in a lot more than his test results and reviews can prove. What people label as slow shouldn't be a bad thing; shouldn’t taking your time be something we applaud? When he and I read a book he looks at the pictures so diligently as if he’s using those images to create the story in his mind. He looks at people’s faces and studies their eyes and mouth and expressions meticulously so that he can process his reaction.

Being with children is a second nature to me. I love kids. There are so many aspects of a child that makes me sad I had to grow up. It’s a definite Peter Pan syndrome. Once you’re old or older you lose that sense of creativity, naivete and general appreciation for everything. It’s like life makes you so desensitized to things that you just walk through it with general malaise. Don’t get me wrong not with everything, but at some point we feel that way about our jobs or relationships even ourselves and it’s hard not to. As adults we have the unfortunate inheritance of responsibility and that changes everything. A child lacks that and it makes their lives easy to some extent.  I've literally seen children stop and smell flowers and come up with the craziest stories all while smiling at you with these partially toothed grins and wide eyes. It’s hard to look at sometimes because you just think about how lucky they are to not understand war and money, but then it terrifies you and makes you worry about their futures and how we as adults now are completely responsible (there’s that word again) for creating their future. We are the ones molding and changing and building the world in which they grow up in. It’s freaky. So I get it. I understand how having a child changes your life, not only are you responsible to make sure it eats every day and is clothed and is comfortable, but also responsible socially, economically, politically, creatively, ethically, environmentally, whatever it is, in order to leave a mark on this world to improve their future world. Are we teaching them the “little things” we’re supposed to find important or appreciate? Until that moment happens to us we will continue to live in our self centered worlds and not worry about anyone else’s well being but our own, but as soon as we pass our genetics to that little version of ourselves it all changes. Children will perpetuate the human race and hopefully we'll continue to improve as humans. Yesterday was my last day with him and I hope I've impacted his life for the better because he truly has impacted mine.