When you look into your child’s eyes for the first time, you are overcome with love. Your heart surges. You realize that you’ve never felt an emotion quite like this. You’ve transformed from a conventional human with regular emotions and typical responsibilities into a superhero of sorts.
You do more. You feel more. You are inexplicably connected to your greater purpose.
You learn how to do every mundane task with one hand. You can even do your not-so-routine duties with a child in your arm. You wear more hats than ever before, and you can do 1500 things at once. Being a superhero demands this of you.
Anyone who raises a child is a superhero. Those little bundles of joy are adorable, inspiring and cherished. However, they can also be challenging little devils that suck every ounce of energy and power from the universe.
At some point, you will need more superheroes to join your team. After all, Batman couldn’t do his job without Robin.
It’s scary to hand over your child to a stranger for the first time. You wish that you could simply remove your cape and transfer your superpowers to the person to whom you’re entrusting your child. However, the human part of you recognizes that that’s impossible.
Parents who hire nannies to care for their children know that bringing another superhero onto the team involves a sense of connection and trust. Parents who take on a caregiver have to have confidence in the nanny’s own strengths.
They need to nurture and guide their nannies while simultaneously letting go and letting them shine in their own right. A nanny comes with her own cape. However, the family for which she works helps her tweak her abilities.
As a parent, the first time that stranger appears on your doorstep, you have so many questions. To be precise, you want to know her superpowers.
You go through the motions. You hold multiple interviews. You ask all the right questions.
At some point, you follow your instincts. You can identify a superhero when you see one.
The next test occurs when your child meets the nanny. Children have strong superhero radar. They’re tuned into the secret undercurrent of kindness, generosity and bad-guy-nabbing might.
Superheroes may be created overnight, but their potential may take time to unravel. Their full capabilities become visible when they’re met with the right combination of opportunity, match, trust, guidance, and mentorship.
Before long, that stranger who appeared at your doorstep is standing in full costume. That may be because your child forced her to squeeze into a stretchy rayon pantsuit with an emblem on the chest. However, there’s true strength beneath the colorful exterior.
Your nanny has to save your child’s world from scary villains, like monsters in the closet and mean kids at school. Your nanny gets to bring your child along on a miraculous journey every day and deliver your little one safely to you every night.
At the end of the day, your nanny might take off the cape. She may go home, put her feet up and take a deep, relaxing breath. Although her duties are done for the moment, she never gets to completely shut down.
Every book that she read, every bump and bruise that she kissed, every letter of the alphabet that she helped your child outline and every character she played during the day will always be with her. They help make her the superhero that she is.
There is a reason why superheroes operate in teams. Helping little lives navigate through a complex world is a task that requires assistance. It’s amazing what happens when you combine your powers with your nanny’s. The best part is watching the way that this teamwork, this effort, these sacrifices, and this strength help your own child’s superpowers take hold.