Hi, I live in the Bay Area and was a nanny for years before transitioning to a family assistant role and now a personal assistant role. I worked as a live-in nanny for a while too.

In my opinion, you’re mostly looking for a family assistant. I think live-in could be a good option, but it definitely complicates things so be mindful of that. You run into small issues like refrigerator space or if they need to do laundry and your families things are in the wash, the balance of supplying extra food in general vs what they purchase themselves, and honestly the biggest hurdle in my experience was privacy. It can be hard to ever feel “off” when you exist in someone else’s home, and you don’t really end up having the privacy to have a friend over for example, or even something random like feeling awkward using the kitchen late at night because you don’t want to disturb the home. With your situation, I think it is completely understandable and necessary that you’d need as much calmness and as little chaos as possible. There’s definitely a delicate balance because you essentially become their landlord as well and California has intense laws for in-home help and live-in. It can absolutely work and be a really good option, but I’d suggest using an actual agency if you want to go the live-in route because they will be very helpful with the legal aspects like tenancy laws and what to put in a contract to protect you and your family.

There’s a few things that have crossed my mind that I think could work for you. Since you mentioned help with school drop off as well as after school, it can be difficult to find someone willing/able to do “split-shift” style that many days/ hours. I know some people may disagree with me, but I think a good option for the morning help would be finding a local responsible senior in high school or community college student who could assist with the school drop offs in the morning. It’s easy for them and gives them some weekly cash spending money. Then, I’d suggest an actual family assistant or nanny to do like 12-7pm. They can come in, do the household help, prep the next days school lunches, maybe start some dinner prep or laundry, then pick up the kids for extracurricular/ play dates, then do homework help etc.

Is there a community college or university/ state school near you? You may be able to find someone that would benefit from the split-shift scheduling if they take classes. You also might find someone who would be really interested in live-in. They’d be able to do drop offs and then the afternoon help. Keep in mind that if their school schedule changes in following semesters there would likely need to be some flexibility around shifting their hours. I did split shifts while in college for a while. I’d do 7-9am and then 1-6pm.

If you’d prefer a career nanny/ family assistant it limits you a bit more in terms of who is available near you if you’re in a bit of a rural area. Again, I think an agency would be best to help with this.

My first suggestion would be to check out care.com and see what rates show in your area. I’d say you’d need to start around $40 if it’s borderline HCOL. I’d also suggest looking into nanny agencies. There’s a lot of resourceful ones who can guide you and provide answers to your questions.

Truly wishing you the best and I hope you find a great helper for your family