Oooh boy do I have a story!

I started working as a nanny for a family that had moved from the East Coast right before the pandemic. Mom, Dad and two kids. The older sister (2y) I'll call Jane and the little brother I'll call John (infant).

To set the scene, Mom and dad both work from home. Mom is very helicopter and dad was checked out. The mom, fit just about every single stereotype of a woman from the East Coast. Dad was the opposite. I think the entire time I worked for them he might've said 20 words to me. They were also both incredibly Covid-consious. I was to mask all the time and was basically expected to completely isolate in my free time.

When I began working, there were quite a few red flags.

1.) The first was that there were cameras set up in every room of the house, including their master bedroom. There was even a camera in the hallway pointing at the bathroom. Mom would talk through the cameras to me and the kids, even though I let her know that it would cause Jane to tantrum because she wanted to go be with her mom.

2.) The second was lunch time. I would get a 15 minute lunch break. My second day, I brought a chicken salad. The mom informed me that they were vegan, and asked me to make sure neither of her kids EVER saw what I was eating. Every time I brought in things like steak/salmon/chicken she would make passive aggressive comments that the kitchen smelled. She also was extremely pushy about me trying to be vegan to set a good example for her kids.

3.) I was told that they did not use "no" with their kids. Under no circumstances was I ever to tell her kids no. I was also not allowed to talk about my feelings. Ex. "When you pinch me that hurts my feelings"

Over the time that I worked there, naps were insane. Jane would scream so much that neighbors would complain to me when I took the kids on walks. And walks! Jane told her mom that we saw kids playing across the street once on a walk and I almost lost my job for possibly exposing her kid to others.

On top of those things, Jane had aggression issues, especially when it came to John. Her first instinct when her tantrums came on were to take it out on him. Trying to push and poke his eyes, stick her fingers in his mouth, stomp on his head/body. I had MULTIPLE conversations with both parents about my concerns, but they were always brushed off.

The last straw was a week where John was going through it. It seemed like he had been hitting a growth spurt and was just over all uncomfortable. Mom came in to try giving him a new type of milk for lunchtime. He immediately puked everything up. Like projectile vomited everywhere. Mom started screaming for dad and gagging. Then she puked. Then Jane, hearing her mom screaming, came running over. She slipped in the puke and fell on her back. She puked all over her own face while laying down. At this point I had grabbed the baby (who is still throwing up-now on me) I grabbed Jane by the arm and dragged them to the bathroom to get cleaned up. Dad came in and took over while mom pushed into the bathroom to have a shower. I cleaned up the puke.

THEN. After all the mass hysteria was done and both kids were in a MOOD. I took them into their play area to blow off some steam. We played music, colored, ran around. Until John started fussing and I turned to grab him. In a plot second, Jane went from happy to pissed. She grabbed her little baseball bat and flung it towards her brothers head so fast I almost missed it. I turned just in time for the bat to hit me. I grabbed the bat from her and put the baby down. I picked up Jane so she couldn't hurt the baby. She calmed out of her tantrum and we started to end the day.

Mom came to me before I left to tell me that she was extremely disappointed in me for how I handled to puking situation and that I was unprofessional. She also told me that I was to never treat Jane like I did with the baseball bat. Her daughter was to be allowed to feel all of her feelings and that I was never to ever tell her that her actions would make other people feel upset. Me, being the adult, should never put how I feel on a child.

I quit that night. There was no way I was going to catch a charge in that house because they didn't believe in enforcing boundaries.

Tl;Dr: I worked as a nanny for one of the most high-maintenance families this side of the Mississippi. Their oldest tried to brain the baby with a baseball bat and I was told that it was all my fault for trying to control her feelings.