How To Handle Awkward Nanny Scenarios | Nanny Parent Connection

Every nanny-family relationship runs into the occasional awkward moment, and how you handle those moments often matters more than the situation itself.

For this article, we partnered with Michelle Kelsey, founder of The Nanny Solution, an established nanny agency based in Canada, to talk through an unusual but important topic.

Below, we walk through real awkward nanny scenarios our team has run into over the years and get Michelle’s reactions and advice on how to handle each one. With 20 years of experience in the industry, she offers a practical, grounded perspective you can use the next time something unexpected comes up.

Sit back, relax, and we hope you take away something useful (and maybe have a laugh along the way too).

For this conversation, we sat down with Michelle Kelsey from The Nanny Solution to talk about awkward nanny scenarios and how to handle them. The catch: Michelle had no idea what these scenarios were ahead of time, so her reactions and advice are completely candid. Here’s how each one played out.

Scenario 1: The nanny’s DUI. A dad needed to move the nanny’s car, and the nanny said he couldn’t because she had to blow into the ignition interlock. She had gotten a DUI fairly recently, so it’s unclear whether this happened before or after a background check would have been run. The nanny was already working, didn’t disclose it, and now the family knows only because the father couldn’t move her car without blowing into the ignition first. How would you handle this?

Michelle: Oh my goodness! Okay, so, are these little scenarios where you place the nanny?

These are just scenarios, not placements.

Michelle: Okay. In this case, I would guess they didn’t do a background check, that would be my first guess. So that first thing always is you always have to do a background check. I think in one of my videos I talk about a friend who hired a nanny, had her driving for her children and same thing they had a DUI, or didn’t have a driver’s license. And so, the car was towed and she had to go pick up her children from the side of the road, so it does happen and this was a friend of mine who didn’t do it. So, the first thing always is do a background check, and then the second thing is you have to decide if you want someone in your household. At our agency, we do not allow nannies who have DUIs or anything on their driving record, their driving record has to be clean, and our belief is that it shows families their responsibility.

Now, if they had a speeding ticket 10 years ago, we do understand things happen, not saying no one speeds, but it does go to their moral compass, their ability to follow rules, and how they perform in life, and so we don’t accept that. So, the family has to decide if that’s okay with them, because for some families if they don’t drive with the children in the car, maybe they’re okay with that. At our agency it’s not okay, so yeah, they have to decide for themselves, but my guess is they didn’t do any kind of background check.

Our take: if the nanny was already employed, maybe she didn’t pass a background check in the first place. But if this DUI happened while she was employed with the family, she should have said, “I need to talk to you, this happened, how do we proceed from here?” At least that would show that she’s accountable for it. We all make bad decisions, but if you need your kids to be driven, this is a tough one.

Michelle: My guess is, most nannies who get a DUI are never going to disclose that, that’s going to be my guess.

Michelle: It’s a tough one as the parent, but if it was me, I would let them go, because it shows a lack of good decision making.

Scenario 2: Leaving early with tasks unfinished. This family has a Ring camera, as many families do, and they noticed their nanny leaving a little early from some household assisting duties, and those duties were not done. So not only was she cutting out earlier than agreed, but the job wasn’t getting done either. How would you handle that as a parent?

Michelle: Right, so, I think the first thing I always say is communication is key, and in this case that’s the same thing. I don’t think they have to disclose that they have cameras, but first of all, most people do, and we do suggest that families disclose if they have cameras in the home. So they could disclose that they see the nanny leaving, but the other thing would just be to sit down and say here are the tasks that we had for you, they’ve not been done. Just communicating that, and then potentially communicating that we have the Ring camera, and we can see you leaving and you’re not supposed to leave till 5pm, but you’re leaving at 4:15pm, whatever it is. Now me personally, if an employee is getting all their work done, it doesn’t matter to me that they leave 15 minutes early. I’ll pay them till 5pm if they get all their tasks done. The issue here really is that they’re not getting the tasks done. So communication, sitting down with them, maybe find out if it’s too many tasks in a day, is there something else going on, why they’re not getting done.

Scenario 3: “Light housework” and the dishwasher. This one piggybacks on job duties a little bit. This person said their nanny contract states light housework is part of the job duties and responsibilities, and this family’s expectation was that loading the dishwasher was part of that. She’s asked her nanny several times about it, but the nanny will not load the dishwasher. So how would you handle it? Our first thought was that it needed to be a duty listed explicitly, but here we are with this potentially not listed explicitly on the contract. How would you handle this?

Michelle: Right, so I agree with you. The first thing I would say is light housekeeping is not task-oriented, so everyone feels that light housekeeping is different things, some people might feel it’s vacuuming, another nanny might think that’s insane, that’s not light housekeeping. So, I would say each task needs to be listed. Emptying the dishwasher, I think at this point, it is a challenging scenario, because if the nanny doesn’t want to do that task and never had any intention of doing that task, then it’s too late for the mother to add that task, because it wasn’t clear in the beginning. I know light housekeeping is considered different, but unloading the dishwasher does fall into light housekeeping, I would say. It’s nothing deep, but ultimately it’s up to the parent to have a conversation with the nanny. If the nanny is not willing to do the task, whether it’s light housekeeping or tidying up the child’s bedroom, then maybe it’s not the right nanny for you.

Scenario 4: The cash-only shakedown. This one is interesting, and the nanny market plays into it a little bit. This family said: when we started with our nanny, we were very clear that we would only pay on the books. After a year, she is insistent on moving to all cash and wants to avoid paying taxes. I’ve told her we will pay cash but we will pay our taxes and withhold hers and she is free to do what she wants. However, she says that won’t work. I feel this is a shakedown, but in this market I’m well aware that she can walk down the street and get a job. Is the only route to pay both of our taxes, so there’s no liability?

Michelle: I don’t know the liability part, that’s not really how it works here. Again, I’m in Canada.

For context, NPC is based in the United States, so the tax mechanics differ by country.

Michelle: So in Canada, when you withhold the nanny’s taxes, it goes straight to the government. So the nanny is paying their taxes, and the parent has to pay their taxes, and it goes straight to the government every month. So there’s no way to withhold to attempt to save money on taxes. I mean, we always say you have to pay on the books. If they’re saying they want cash and they don’t want to pay tax, do you really want a nanny whose values go against your own? And it could get the family in trouble, but at least in Canada back taxes, penalties, all of those kinds of things could happen. It is a tight labor market, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Could they give her a slight raise? Are they willing to keep her? If they give her a slight raise, that would be better, and maybe she’d be more comfortable with that. Yeah it is a shakedown, but if you’re asking to change the contract, it’s not very ethical. You know they’re very different things, a DUI and asking to be paid in cash as a nanny, but these are ethical decisions, and it shows a lack of ethics.

Scenario 5: A nanny share breakup. This next one is about nanny shares, a nanny share breakup to be exact. In this scenario, there was a share and the other family had a second baby recently, the mom was on maternity leave, but the first family was also due with their second baby, and they’ve agreed at this point that four kids is way too much for a nanny share, so they’ve decided to go their separate ways. However, they are now fighting over the nanny. Both families want to keep her. Family “A” says, we’ve been the host family for two years, and we believe we’re going into labor any minute, and it’s unreasonable for us to find another nanny at this point. Meanwhile, the second mom is on maternity leave, and there’s all the worry about having to scramble or whether a new nanny would fit. So, what do you recommend, and how would you approach it?

Michelle: Okay! So, I don’t know if you do as an agency, but we do not help with any shares. We have found that there are so many scenarios that happen during nanny shares that are just so hard to predict, this is one of them, I’ve actually never heard this scenario before. I think bottom line it comes down to the nanny, does it not? The nanny has a choice about which family she prefers to work for. So, ultimately it’s up to the nanny, and what they’re offering. This happens all the time between families, we have multiple families who want one nanny and then there’s a bit of a bidding war so to speak. And whichever family offers the most with the best job description that the nanny likes, that’s where the nanny goes. So, I think in this case it’s that. Ultimately it’s not up to the parents, it’s up to the nanny.

We’ll also share that the nanny had told the families, “love you guys, I would be happy in either scenario,” so she wasn’t really taking sides. Here’s what happened: they went back to the contract, which we recommended doing, and the contract actually stated that whoever made first contact with the nanny held the rights. It turned out the first family who met the nanny, interviewed her, and reached out had the rights.

Michelle: I like that in the contract, that’s very smart. It’s a good add, so yeah, we don’t deal with nanny shares. I know there are a lot of them, but I’ve seen so many go wrong. We get people emailing us asking for opinions on so many different nanny share scenarios that have gone wrong.

As a result, some nannies just know that they don’t want to work with two sets of parents.

Michelle: Yeah, a lot of nannies say they don’t want to work with shares, because ultimately they make no money. So, if nannies are experienced in it, then it can work quite well.

Scenario 6: The toddler’s sandwich. We saved the best for last. This is the weirdest thing we’ve ever heard, and it really happened to a family we worked with. We both were scratching our heads and couldn’t find a rational explanation for it. The family was at the park doing a trial with a nanny (they ultimately did not hire her). The mother had the infant, and the nanny was in charge of the toddler, and they were all at the park together, and the family had brought a picnic lunch for the toddler. It’s not clear where the nanny’s own meal fell into it if she was just there for a few hours. So what happened was, mom was away with the baby and the toddler was playing, and the nanny was at the picnic table. The nanny picks up the toddler’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich, takes a bite out of it, and puts it back. The mom sees all of this, the nanny doesn’t know she’s been seen, and when the mom asked the nanny about it later, she completely denied it.

Michelle: Oh my gosh! I’ve never heard that, especially on a trial. I would say especially on a trial, which is supposed to be your best behavior, any job, doesn’t matter nanny or any job you’re applying for, when you’re on your first-day or first-week trial you’re supposed to be on your best behavior, that’s supposed to be the best you will ever be. That is a little bit out there, I mean I hope she didn’t hire the nanny, I guess that’s the first thing. And then, lying is really bad, and eating the toddler’s food. Again we don’t know the whole scenario, how long the nanny was there for, if it was going to be over lunch, all sorts of things. I will tell you we have had several scenarios where nannies have contacted us to complain that they were at a family’s house for eight, nine, ten hours, when they were only supposed to be there for four. They were starving, they took a banana, the family wasn’t happy. There have been other scenarios like that over the years, and so maybe the nanny was like “I don’t know, I was going to be out at the park without my lunch, I’m starving, I’ll just take a bite.” Still, even in these times these things happen.

For what it’s worth, this one happened in March of 2020.

Michelle: Ok, so yeah, like we’ve all learned this is not appropriate behavior anymore and that’s an old one. But I have heard the other side where clients have complained, called us to complain that the nanny ate a banana, or ate something out of their fridge when they weren’t invited to, which is not acceptable. But at the same time the nanny is like, I was supposed to be there for four hours, they kept me for nine, I was starving, I didn’t bring any food because I thought I’d be home by 1pm, so it can work that way. And then the other thing we do say to families is, although providing meals is not a requirement of hiring a nanny, it is industry standard for the nanny to be able to go into your fridge and make themselves something to eat. So, if you’re not offering that, making it clear to the nanny to bring their lunch is important.

It really goes back to communication, which is so important.

Michelle: Yeah, communicate all your expectations, and people think it’s really simple things like a meal, and families will say to us, well of course the nanny is going to bring their meal, I wouldn’t expect anything else, and we’re like, “No, the families they worked for before you provided their meals.” So, I think it’s just a lack of understanding of what to communicate, and being really clear about it.

It’s also worth pointing out that if families are working with a nanny for the first time, they don’t really know how it works, whereas experienced nannies have worked with many families and have a better sense of the norms than the family does.

Michelle: And we do tell nannies that too. We tell nannies, you may have to be the one who educates the family on this one, make suggestions, ask for sit-downs so you can have communication once a week. Sometimes the nanny has to lead that, unfortunately!

In the end, we couldn’t figure out a logical reason the nanny would take a bite out of the toddler’s sandwich and then deny it, but there’s clearly more going on than we’re aware of. So if you ever find yourself in a similar scenario, now you have some context.

The takeaway from all six of these scenarios is that there are many iterations of each, and they’re not unique to any one family. These things happen, and many families simply don’t know that until they’re in the middle of one. So if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, we hope this gives you some helpful context.