You need the job. Your current position is ending, or you just moved to San Francisco, or you’re finally ready to leave a situation that’s been wearing you down for months. So when a family invites you to interview and they seem interested and the pay is decent and you really, really need this to work out, it’s incredibly tempting to ignore the little voice in your head saying something feels off.
We’ve watched this play out hundreds of times over twenty years. A nanny interviews with a family, notices things that make her uncomfortable, talks herself into believing it’ll be fine once she starts, accepts the position, and then finds herself three weeks later dealing with exactly the problems those early warning signs predicted. Or worse, she ends up in a situation that’s not just difficult but potentially unsafe, unprofessional, or so boundary-violating that she has to quit without another job lined up.
Here’s what we tell every nanny we work with: interview red flags exist for a reason. They’re your intuition plus experience telling you that something’s wrong, and ignoring them because you need work almost never ends well. The families who raise red flags during interviews rarely improve once you’re actually working for them. Usually, the problems get worse because you’ve now committed and they feel less pressure to present well.
Let’s talk about the specific warning signs that should make you seriously reconsider or walk away entirely, even if you really need the job.
The Money Conversation Goes Sideways
How families handle compensation discussions during interviews tells you almost everything about how they’ll treat you as an employee.
If they won’t discuss rates up front and keep deflecting your questions about pay, that’s a problem. Families who respect nannies as professionals understand that compensation is a legitimate first-conversation topic. When families act like asking about salary is gauche or pushy, they’re either embarrassed about offering below-market rates or they don’t view this as a real professional position. Neither situation improves once you start working.
If they low-ball you significantly and seem surprised when you push back, walk away. A family offering $22 per hour in San Francisco for someone with five years of experience either doesn’t understand the market or doesn’t value quality childcare. When you explain that your rate is $32 to $35 based on your experience and the market, and they act shocked or offended, you’re seeing how they’ll respond every time you advocate for yourself. That dynamic doesn’t get better over time.
If they want to pay under the table and pressure you when you say you need legal employment, that’s disqualifying. Any family that insists on paying cash, gets defensive when you mention tax obligations, or acts like you’re being difficult for wanting legitimate employment is setting you up for problems. You have no recourse when they don’t pay you, no unemployment insurance if they let you go, no documentation of your work history for future positions. Run.
If they promise vague future raises or bonuses instead of committing to solid starting compensation, be very skeptical. “We’ll definitely give you a raise after three months once we see how it goes” usually means they won’t. Families who genuinely plan to reward good work put it in writing. Verbal promises about future compensation made during interviews rarely materialize.
The money conversation should be straightforward, professional, and clear. Families who make it weird, defensive, or sketchy are showing you exactly how employment will feel.
The Job Description Keeps Expanding
Pay attention to how families describe the role and whether it stays consistent or keeps growing as the interview continues.
If they start with “we need help with our two kids” but by the end of the interview they’re mentioning meal prep for the whole family, running errands, managing the household calendar, and doing general housekeeping, you’re watching scope creep happen in real time. What you thought was a childcare position is actually a household manager role, but they’re probably not planning to pay you accordingly.
If they list fourteen different responsibilities but won’t prioritize which actually matter most, they don’t have clarity about what they need. You’ll spend every day trying to accomplish an impossible list while they’re frustrated that something’s always falling through the cracks. Good employers know their top three priorities and communicate them clearly.
If they keep using phrases like “we’re really laid back” or “we’re super flexible” but the job description includes rigid schedules and extensive requirements, those words don’t match reality. Families who are actually flexible demonstrate it through how they describe the role and their expectations, not through repeatedly insisting they’re easygoing while detailing extensive demands.
If they mention needing occasional evening or weekend coverage but won’t specify how often or how much notice they’ll provide, “occasional” is probably going to mean constant. Families who respect your time say things like “we’d need evening coverage approximately twice monthly, typically with a week’s notice.” Vagueness about schedule expectations almost always works in their favor, not yours.
The job description should be clear, consistent, and realistic for one person to accomplish during the hours they’re paying you to work. If it’s not, that’s a red flag.
Boundaries Are Already Getting Violated
How families treat you during the interview process predicts how they’ll respect boundaries once you’re working for them.
If they text you constantly between interview scheduling and your actual interview date, often about non-urgent questions they could save for the interview, they’re showing you what employment will look like. Unless you want texts at 10pm about whether you can switch your Thursday schedule or asking your opinion on preschools, this pattern is a warning.
If they expect you to do a working interview for multiple hours without compensation, that’s exploitative. Expecting a one-hour trial to see how you interact with kids might be reasonable. Expecting you to work a full day or even multiple days without pay while they “see how it goes” is them getting free childcare. Professional families pay for working interviews, period.
If the interview happens and one parent keeps interrupting, taking work calls, or clearly isn’t present, while the other apologizes for them, you’re seeing their family dynamic. The parent who couldn’t be bothered to focus during the interview won’t suddenly be respectful of your time or engaged with family matters once you’re employed.
If they ask invasive personal questions that have nothing to do with the job – your relationship status, whether you have kids, your plans to have kids, your living situation beyond basic logistics, your financial situation – they’re not respecting professional boundaries. Families who view you as a professional don’t need to know intimate details about your personal life.
If you say you’re not comfortable with something during the interview and they keep pushing or act offended, they’re telling you that your boundaries don’t matter to them. Whether it’s about your availability, your rate, or your approach to childcare, families who push back hard when you establish limits are showing you what employment will feel like.
The Parents Can’t Get on the Same Page
Watch how parents interact with each other during interviews, because their dynamic becomes your working environment.
If one parent keeps contradicting the other about expectations, schedule, or parenting philosophy, you’re about to become the person caught in the middle of their disagreements. One parent says bedtime is 7pm and the other says “we’re flexible about that” while looking annoyed at their partner. You’re the one who’ll take heat no matter what you do.
If they argue during the interview, even subtly, about how things should work or what they need, their inability to communicate with each other will become your problem. You can’t succeed when parents aren’t aligned on expectations because you’ll be unable to meet both sets of contradictory standards.
If one parent dominates the entire conversation and the other barely speaks, but you’ll be working for both of them, you have no idea what the quiet parent actually thinks or needs. Then you start working and discover the quiet parent has completely different expectations nobody mentioned during interviews.
If they make comments that suggest they don’t respect each other’s parenting approaches – eye rolls, dismissive comments, undermining each other’s statements – you’re walking into dysfunction that’ll impact you constantly. Kids pick up on parental conflict, parents use nannies as middlemen in their disagreements, and you end up managing adult relationship problems instead of focusing on childcare.
Functional families might not agree on everything, but they communicate respectfully, present a united front during interviews, and handle disagreements privately. Dysfunctional families show you their chaos right away if you’re paying attention.
The Home Environment Feels Wrong
Sometimes the red flag isn’t what families say but what you observe about their home and lifestyle during interviews.
If the house is chaotic in ways that suggest ongoing dysfunction rather than normal family mess, consider whether you want to work in that environment. We’re not talking about toys on the floor or breakfast dishes in the sink. We’re talking about genuine disorder – piles of mail and clutter everywhere, broken things not getting fixed, a sense that nothing’s maintained. That chaos becomes your working environment and it’s exhausting.
If you meet the kids and they’re completely out of control while parents seem oblivious or helpless, you’re about to be responsible for managing behavior issues without parental support. Kids who hit, scream, ignore all instructions, or show no respect for adults during your interview are showing you what your daily experience will be. If parents aren’t addressing it during the interview when they’re trying to impress you, they’re not going to magically start parenting differently once you’re hired.
If there are safety issues you notice – pool without proper fencing, medications left accessible, dangerous items within kids’ reach – and you mention it and parents are dismissive, they don’t prioritize safety. You’ll be constantly managing risks they won’t address.
If you’re interviewing for a live-in position and the private space they’re offering is inadequate – no lock on the door, shared bathroom, space that’s clearly not actually private, room that doubles as storage or office space – believe what you see. They’re not going to renovate before you move in. That insufficient space is what you’ll get.
Trust your gut about whether the home feels like somewhere you want to spend forty-plus hours weekly. If something feels off about the environment, that feeling won’t disappear once you’re working there.
Their Expectations Are Unrealistic or Unreasonable
Some families have expectations that are fundamentally incompatible with reality, and no nanny can meet them regardless of skill level.
If they expect their six-month-old to sleep through the night and believe you’ll “fix” that within the first week, they don’t understand infant development. You can’t meet expectations based on fantasies about how babies work, and you’ll be blamed when reality doesn’t match their unrealistic hopes.
If they expect their kids to love you immediately and seem concerned when kids are shy or hesitant during the interview, they’re not grasping that relationships take time. Kids need adjustment periods, and parents who expect instant bonding will be dissatisfied during the normal transition phase.
If they want you to implement parenting approaches you’re fundamentally uncomfortable with – letting babies cry for extended periods, physical discipline, anything that conflicts with your values or training – and they’re not open to discussion, you’re being set up to either violate your own standards or fail to meet their expectations.
If they want constant detailed updates throughout the day – texts every hour, photos constantly, detailed reports on everything – they don’t trust you to do your job independently. That level of micromanagement is exhausting and suggests they’ll be unable to let you actually do what they hired you for.
If they expect you to be available 24/7, including during your off hours for questions and schedule changes, they don’t respect that you have a life outside this job. Unless you’re live-in with that clearly negotiated in your contract, you’re entitled to off hours that are truly off.
Reasonable expectations can be met. Unreasonable expectations guarantee dissatisfaction regardless of performance.
The Interview Itself Feels Disrespectful
How families conduct the interview process tells you how they view you as a professional.
If they’re significantly late without apology or explanation, they don’t respect your time. If they reschedule last minute repeatedly, they’re showing you that your schedule doesn’t matter to them.
If they’re distracted throughout – checking phones constantly, allowing interruptions, clearly not listening to your answers – they’re not taking the hiring process seriously and they won’t take you seriously either.
If they don’t ask substantive questions about your experience, approach, or philosophy and instead just talk at you about what they need, they’re not interested in getting to know you. They want a warm body who’ll do what they say, not a professional with expertise.
If they make you wait excessive periods – sitting in your car for thirty minutes past the scheduled time, or waiting in their house while they handle other things – your time has no value to them.
If they make comments that suggest they don’t view childcare as real professional work – jokes about how “easy” your job is, or how you’re “lucky” to basically get paid to hang out with kids, or how they could do it themselves if they just had time – they fundamentally don’t respect what you do.
Professional families treat interviews professionally. They’re punctual, prepared, engaged, respectful, and they ask thoughtful questions because they understand they’re hiring someone whose work genuinely matters.
When Your Gut Says Something’s Off
Sometimes you can’t articulate exactly what’s wrong, but something about the family or the interview or the situation just feels off. Maybe nobody violated an obvious boundary or revealed a clear red flag, but you’re leaving the interview feeling uneasy.
Trust that feeling. Your intuition is processing information your conscious mind hasn’t fully registered yet. After years of working with families and observing relationship dynamics, you’ve developed instincts about what works and what doesn’t. Those instincts are usually right.
We’ve never had a nanny tell us “I had a bad feeling about that family but I took the job anyway and it turned out great.” We’ve had dozens of nannies tell us “I knew something was wrong but I needed work so I ignored it, and now I’m dealing with exactly what I feared.”
The need for income is real and we understand that walking away from job offers feels scary when you have bills to pay. But accepting positions with families who raise red flags almost always costs you more in the long run. You end up leaving within weeks or months without another job lined up, or you stay and it wears you down in ways that affect your whole life, or worst case, you end up in situations that damage your professional reputation or put you at genuine risk.
What You Deserve Instead
Professional families exist who respect nannies, communicate clearly, pay fairly, maintain appropriate boundaries, and create working environments where you can actually thrive. They conduct respectful interview processes, they’re aligned on expectations, they treat you as a valuable team member rather than hired help, and they recognize that quality childcare requires treating childcare providers as professionals.
Those families are the ones worth working for. They’re worth waiting for instead of accepting positions that raise red flags during interviews. Your expertise, your time, and your wellbeing have value. Families who recognize that show it through how they treat you from the very first conversation.
When you’re in an interview and red flags start appearing, it’s okay to say thank you for their time and walk away. It’s okay to follow up after the interview declining the position because it’s not the right fit. It’s okay to prioritize your own professional standards and boundaries even when you need work.
The right position with a family who respects you is worth holding out for. The wrong position with families who raise red flags during interviews is never worth accepting, even when you’re desperate for work, because those situations almost never improve. They usually get worse.
After twenty years connecting nannies with families, we’ve learned that successful long-term placements start with interviews where both parties treat each other respectfully, communicate honestly, and demonstrate through actions that they value the working relationship. Red flags during interviews rarely disappear once employment begins. They typically intensify because families who don’t respect professional boundaries during the hiring process won’t suddenly develop that respect once you’re hired.
Your gut knows what it’s talking about. Trust it. Walk away when you need to. The right family is out there, and they won’t raise red flags during interviews because they genuinely respect the work you do and the professional relationship they’re hoping to build.
