What is the difference between a nanny and a babysitter?

Wow, I am going to say that you probably just made a lot of hard-working women extremely angry with your question...because I know I am.

As a professional, full-time nanny of two pre-school aged children, I take offense to your "glorified babysitter" comment. As a nanny, I do not work solely on Friday or Saturday nights nor am I a high-school student who's parents stopped giving her an allowance so now I need to watch some adult couple's kids while all my friends are out having a good time.

As a nanny, I feed the children three healthy meals a day, dress them, take them out for a fun day, put them down for a nap, bathe them and sometimes read them a bedtime story. I am responsible for their safety, for their learning, for their creativity. I am responsible for making sure that they are well-rounded, polite, happy, good kids.

I wish I was simply a babysitter some days...you know, when it's hour 10 of a 12 hour day and I've already worked 40+ hours in 4 days and I am not sure when I will get to go home to my fiance. I wish I was simply a babysitter so that I would feel no guilt about giving them ice-cream and letting them watch TV. Sometimes I wish I was simply a babysitter so that I could quit at any time and not feel as though I let these little girls down, that they don't miss me like crazy, that I wasn't pretty much a member of the immediate family.

I hope this clarifies this difference between a nanny and a babysitter...