5 Ways your Nanny might Breakup with you

Break ups are hard. The hardest break up for a Mum has to be the breakup with the nanny.

A split with the woman who plays the very fundamental role of keeping things in check at the home front so a mother can worry about other things. Sometimes you see a breakup coming and sometimes you don’t. Here is a look into ways your nanny might breakup with you this season;

Hooking up with your friend – The women on the popular television show Devious Maids live by the saying, ‘Stealing my man is rude but stealing my maid, that’s unforgivable’. It happens, that friend that is always over at your house might steal your nanny. Sometimes though, your nanny might choose your friend over you. That is how Lillian who has been a nanny for three years now got her current job. One weekend, her employer sent her to help a friend prepare for visitors and she liked the other house better.

“It is nothing personal. It is a job and I am raising a child. I take the best job that I can get,” she says.

2. She will not come back from Sunday off “Most live in nannies have Sundays as their off day. Should you let you nanny go on Sunday and she is not back come Monday afternoon, she has broken up with you,” says Kaari, 24.

Kaari should know this because she has done it. It is how she got off of her previous job as a nanny. She is now in between jobs. But why not just ask to leave? I pose.

“I couldn’t talk to my employer. Her husband was harassing me and I just wanted to go quietly. She was a good woman. I didn’t want to cause chaos for her,” she says.

Looks like its time you opened up the communication channels with your nanny.

3. She will ask for a ridiculous raise – If your nanny asks you for a ridiculous raise this season, like if she asks you to add her more than half her pay, she may be trying to break up with you. This is a break up tactic she might use if she doesn’t want to get into the real reason for the breakup. Sharon Mumbua who has worked as a nanny for three families shares the reason she opted for this tactic when she was leaving her first employer, “I felt like I had been deceived about the amount of work that I was expected to do in the house. I was afraid that if I spoke out my thoughts, I would appear lazy so I asked for a raise I knew she couldn’t give me.”

4. She will ask to come with her three children– If your nanny is a mother and she starts hinting that her three children back home have no one to watch them, pay attention. She may be trying to break up with you. If she opts for this breakup method, she may be just trying to protect your feelings.

By putting you in a position where you have to let them go, you end up feeling like they were the problem, not you.

“I had a gotten a new job but I wasn’t sure about it. With that, I wanted a situation where I could come back if things went south. I hoped I could come back and say that I had found someone to watch my children. Fortunately the new job worked out,” says Mary Wanga, 30.

5. She might go mute – Sometimes though, your nanny will not say anything. She will just leave for the holidays and not show up on the agreed date. This is especially likely if the two of you have a frosty relationship.

Violet Auma, 20 left her employer’s house a week ago for the Christmas break and she shares that she isn’t going back. She doesn’t intend to inform the employer either.

“We never really spoke for the eight months I worked for her. She seemed short tempered. I am not sure how she would have reacted had I told her.”

It looks like how your nanny chooses to break up with you is dependent on the communication between the two of you. Keep the communications lines open and you are unlikely to find yourself alone on a Monday morning, straddled with the children at home when you should be at work.

Related: 3 Ways to Motivate your Nanny