Nemo, 29, is a live-in nanny.
Just by looking at her appearance, it is difficult to associate her with the traditional impression of a nanny. She was small, liked to comb a crisp ponytail, had very white skin, wore round-rimmed glasses, and spoke with a rich expression and big eyes that kept flashing.
In college, Nemo studied music. After graduating from undergraduate, she traveled to Japan for a year and has been living in Beijing since her return. Like many urban youth, she enjoys shopping, traveling, skiing, and taking videos.
But unlike those young people who come and go in and out of office buildings, between the ages of 24 and 29, family life is Nemo's workplace. In this workplace, she spends time with her children and couples, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her children.
Nemo, courtesy of the live-in nanny/interviewee
At the age of 24, he went to work as a live-in nanny
On the day of the break, Nemo went to the hospital to check his body. She wore a long black down jacket, carried a backpack and rode a shared bicycle — looking like a normal college student.
Courtesy of the usual Nemo/Interviewee
But she is already a "senior" nanny. Over the past five years, Nemo has worked in 3 families. At her current employer's home, she has been working for almost two years, helping a couple take care of their 5-year-old daughter.
The employer had another aunt in the house who specialized in cooking and cleaning, so Nemo didn't have to do much housework, and her work was almost always about the children.
An ordinary day is like this: get up at seven o'clock in the morning, make breakfast for the child, comb his hair, and send the child to the kindergarten; do simple indoor cleaning at home in the morning and wash the child's clothes; at two o'clock in the afternoon, go to the kindergarten to pick up the child, accompany the child to practice the piano for a while, and then accompany the child to fencing and art class; help the child complete the homework and activities assigned by the kindergarten at night; bathe the child and warm milk before going to bed.
Nemo practicing with the child / Courtesy of the interviewee
Becoming a live-in nanny is a coincidence. In 2014, Nemo graduated from the music department of an undergraduate institution, majoring in vocal music and violin. After graduation, she did not want to do music-related work and went on a study tour to Japan. After returning from Japan a year later, she still couldn't find a suitable work direction for her.
Thinking about it, she felt that she might like the entertainment industry. In 2016, Nemo went to Beijing to learn makeup for a while and became a makeup artist, giving makeup to customers such as brides at weddings, cast members of the crew, and guests on variety shows. In the dressing room of a show, Nemo met a guest sister. Because they had a good chat during the makeup, the other party began a long-term cooperation with Nemo.
Then, at one point, the sister offered to go home and ask Nemo to help her with the children and be her live-in nanny.
Nemo didn't even hesitate and immediately agreed. "I don't have any worries at all, maybe I'm a bit of a 'biao' person, and I'm particularly bold." She said.
The first time he went to someone else's house to be a nanny, Nemo did enough psychological construction. She secretly decided in her heart that she would give herself 3 days to adapt to the life of other people's families.
The employer's sister and husband have two children. Nemo is responsible for caring for his 5-year-old eldest daughter, who earns $7,500 a month. Another aunt took care of her little daughter. There was also an aunt who was responsible for cleaning and cooking. Living in a home with 7 people is not an easy task.
In the beginning, being "scolded" is inevitable – for example, cooking occasionally "rolls over" and things are not well prepared. The employer and his wife used to go to bed late, Nemo's schedule was not with them, and she had been troubled by this for a while because of the shallow sleep. At the same time, because most of the nanny industry is an older aunt, it is difficult for Nemo to have too many common topics with them, and there will inevitably be a little difference in concept.
More than a year later, the employer's family emigrated abroad, and Nemo's first job as a live-in nanny ended. The whole process was pleasant, in her words: "There was no shadow left, so I felt that I could keep doing it." Nemo contacted the housekeeping company to continue his nanny job. And her parents in her hometown thought that she had been working as a makeup artist in Beijing.
"I feel very fortunate to work at my current employer's home." Nemo said. Her current monthly salary is around 15,000 yuan. In the employer's villa, a family of three lived upstairs. Nemo lives in a small bedroom on the basement floor, where she can use the bathroom and kitchen on a daily basis. Although it is the basement level, it still has plenty of light. The child got along well with her, and last Christmas, Nemo decorated his room with a festive theme, and the child excitedly said that he wanted to stay in her room.
Nemo began experimenting with posting short videos to update his work daily/courtesy of respondents
In October this year, after seeking the consent of her employer, she began to video her daily work and send it to a short video platform, named "Beijing Post-90s Live-in Nanny Nemo". Because of the contrast with people's traditional impression of a live-in nanny, likes and comments poured in instantly. The process of showing the video to netizens made Nemo feel that the job was recognized. She felt it was time to tell her parents too, so she carefully forwarded the video to her mother.
But Mom's reaction was strong. "I don't feel like it, I want to cry." Mom said on WeChat. She could not accept the picture of her daughter working in someone else's house for a while, and directly blacked Out Nimola.
Employers and nannies are a two-way option
Nemo has always stressed that he is a "not very normal person".
Nemo's hometown is in Dongying, Shandong, and the middle and high schools are boarding systems. In the closed school, she developed a strong ability to live independently, and also developed the habit of making her own decisions about everything. At home, although their parents were relatively conservative state-owned enterprise employees, they still gave Nemo a free family atmosphere. What Nemo wants to do, his parents will almost unconditionally support.
She did not have musical dreams, and became an art student in her second year of high school because of her poor mathematics, physics and chemistry. In college, she didn't like to dress up like other art students, and she didn't like to go out and party and drink with everyone.
When she graduated, after she proposed that she wanted to go to Japan, her father immediately brought back a lot of introduction materials for studying abroad, hoping to fully support her choice. But Nemo went to Japan just to experience, and instead of applying for graduate school as her parents expected, she went to a language school for a year— half-work and half-study, to experience life.
In her spare time, she folded clothes at Uniqlo, wrapped up book covers in the school's printing house, and cooked herself slowly in that year. At that time, Nemo watched an anime called "Dream Pastry Chef" and hoped to learn to make desserts in Japan, but in the end he could not find the right opportunity.
Nemo made each breakfast / courtesy of the interviewee
90% of her undergraduate students have become music teachers, and the rest are also examinations and editors. Like Nemo, it is an absolute exception to give up music completely after graduation, first travel abroad to study, and then do "strange" work in Beijing.
But these seemingly meaningless experiences enriched her on another level. Like cooking, cleaning, tutoring children to play the piano, singing, learning... Many of the skills required by these live-in nannies are constantly mobilizing Nemo's past experiences and accumulations.
The only thing that worried Nemo was that she had no experience with children and didn't like children much at first. But after a long time with the children, she felt the simplicity and sincerity of the children, just like her childhood friends.
Nemo described his relationship with his current employer's children as "loving and killing each other." In the "world-recognized problem" of tutoring children to learn and practice, she and her children can already run into each other well. They agreed that in the event of a conflict, they must "take a step back", and when practicing the piano, the child does not want to play, and the way for both sides to make concessions is to play only two lines, and no one will force anyone.
Going to Universal Studios with your child/Courtesy of the interviewee
But more often than not, they are like girlfriends, competing together to memorize the "Three Character Classic", playing the piano together with one hand, and going to Universal Studios together during the holidays. During the Chongyang Festival, the kindergarten let the children interact with the elderly at home, and Nemo, who was good at shooting, recorded the whole process with video. "It's really fun to spend time with kids, there's very little trouble." Nemo said. When the child's parents are occasionally away from home on business, they can safely hand over the child to her.
The long work experience allowed Nemo to summarize some of his own observations. For example, she feels that the most important thing in a family is not the parent-child relationship, but the relationship between husband and wife. Sometimes, in order to maintain the harmony of the other party's family, Nemo is more willing to take the initiative to take the role of criticizing the child. She wants the interaction between the child and the parents to always be joyful, and the "bad guy" can be her.
Employers and nannies are two-way choices, it is not easy to meet the right person for each other, and the sincere and easy-going personality brings Nemo a lot of blessings. On her last day off, she went to Fengtai with her employer's children's aunt to play go-karts and take Christmas photos together.
On the day off, Nemo went to take Christmas photos/images provided by the interviewee
"I've experienced family life indirectly"
In the video barrage of Nemo's daily work, there was a comment floating: "Isn't this a day for many housewives in the house?" ”
Comments under the video
Although most of nemo's classmates are married and have children, Nemo is a staunch unmarried person. She had never been in love, nor had she longed for a prince and princess fairy tale. Perhaps because of the early close observation of family life, in Nemo's mind, marriage became more and more of an unnecessary thing.
By some standards, the families Nemo worked for were indeed decent. These families have relatively favorable economic conditions, and the relationship between husband and wife is also very loving. In the past, she had thought that parents in such families would rarely have time to spend with their children, but on the contrary, almost every family would give their children as much companionship as possible while giving their children favorable conditions.
"But I don't envy this kind of family life at all, I feel like I'm happy now, and I don't want to be a mother in a family, because it feels very unfree." Nemo said, "I always think that the meaning of life is experience, and I have experienced family life indirectly." ”
Nemo was afraid of the feeling of being tied up by a family and of letting her parents live a life of helping her with her children in retirement. In her vision, her parents should travel around in a motorhome after retirement. The combination of family roles she imagined would always be daddy, mom, and herself, rather than being her wife and mother herself.
Nemo has a variety of hobbies/interviewees
Occasionally, Mom couldn't resist urging her to find someone, but Dad was very supportive of her whole idea. The liberal atmosphere of her native family made her independent and self-sufficient. Her own ideal life is also wandering: she has not saved money, does not want to buy a house, does not care about social security, and only pension insurance in the "five insurances and one gold" is forced by her mother to pay. For herself, she doesn't want to stay in Beijing all the time, she just wants to live freely and happily in different cities and experience different lives.
"Of course, having money is still very enviable." Nemo joked.
Even if her current job is a live-in nanny, she still doesn't want to trap her vision in family chores. She thinks it's pointless to worry about the trivial things every day. Now she can make a clear distinction between her life and work: when her children go to bed at night, she will work out in her small room, learn English, play the piano, and now have one more thing - shooting videos and editing.
In the comments below the video, people trapped in their own trivial lives praise her sobriety and freedom. Many people said they wanted a nanny like this, and some young people expressed envy for her job, and Nemo said: "Maybe they praised me too much." ”
Comments section of Nemo's video
In the near future, Nemo plans to take his parents on a trip to Hainan. Worried that she would not be able to save money, she decided to transfer 5,000 yuan a month to her parents for safekeeping. The second month that Mom blocked her, she "threatened" by saying, "The money will be transferred to Dad." "As soon as mom heard that, she immediately added her back.
Mom finally understood Nemo. That night they talked for a long time, finishing everything they hadn't said to each other in a month.
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What do you think of highly educated people as live-in nannies?
Author | Tris also
Original title | I returned from college and then became an excellent nanny
First published in New Weekly Issue 602
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