The tension between your employers has been building for months. Maybe you saw it coming or maybe it hit suddenly, but now they’ve separated and you’re watching two people you work for navigate one of the most painful experiences of their lives while you’re supposed to maintain normalcy for their kids. You’re getting pulled into conversations you shouldn’t be part of. You’re fielding questions from kids you don’t know how to answer. You’re watching your stable job potentially fall apart because nobody knows what the custody schedule will look like or whether both parents will even keep employing you.
Working for families going through divorce is one of the most challenging situations nannies face. You’re in an intimate position during a crisis that brings out the worst in people. You care about the kids and you want to support them through upheaval, but you also need to protect yourself professionally and emotionally. The family dynamics you navigated successfully for months or years suddenly don’t apply anymore, and you’re trying to figure out new rules while everything’s chaos.
After twenty years placing nannies with New York families and watching many navigate employer divorces, we know this situation tests every professional skill you have. Some nannies manage it successfully and maintain employment through the transition and beyond. Others get caught in crossfire, quit or get fired, and leave situations that become untenable despite their best efforts. Understanding what you can control and what you need to protect helps you navigate this impossible situation more successfully.
Your Job Security Is Actually at Risk
The first thing to understand is that your employment is genuinely threatened even if both parents reassure you that nothing will change. Divorce restructures households financially and logistically in ways that often make continuing current childcare arrangements impossible.
When one household splits into two, both parents now have separate housing costs, legal fees, and the financial burden of maintaining their previous lifestyle with reduced efficiency. The nanny who felt financially manageable when costs were shared across one household might not be affordable when each parent is covering their own rent, utilities, and living expenses.
Custody arrangements might not support full-time nanny employment. If parents are splitting time 50-50, neither parent needs a full-time nanny anymore. Or one parent gets primary custody and the other doesn’t need childcare during their limited parenting time. Your forty-hour-per-week position might become twenty hours with one parent, or it might disappear entirely if neither can afford full-time help independently.
There’s also the reality that parents going through divorce are often functioning at reduced capacity themselves. They might not be able to manage employing household staff competently when they’re overwhelmed by legal proceedings, emotional crisis, and life reorganization. Even well-intentioned parents sometimes let nanny employment slide into problematic territory during divorce chaos.
Don’t assume your job is safe just because parents say they want to keep you. Circumstances change rapidly during divorce, and what parents intend at the beginning often isn’t what actually happens. Protect yourself by updating your resume, staying connected to your professional network, and being prepared to search for new positions if necessary.
Staying Neutral Is Non-Negotiable
The cardinal rule of working through employer divorce is maintaining absolute neutrality between the parents. The second you take sides, you make yourself expendable to the other parent and you put yourself in the middle of conflict that will destroy your ability to do your job.
One or both parents will try to make you allies. They’ll share information about the other parent’s failings. They’ll ask leading questions about what the other parent said or did. They’ll make comments designed to get you to agree that they’re the reasonable one and their ex is being difficult. Don’t engage with any of it.
Your response to attempts to pull you into taking sides is some version of “I’m not comfortable discussing this. My job is supporting the kids during this difficult time.” Repeat it endlessly. Don’t elaborate, don’t explain, don’t offer opinions about whose perspective seems more reasonable. Just maintain that you’re not part of the parental conflict and redirect to your actual job responsibilities.
This is harder than it sounds because you probably do have opinions. You might genuinely think one parent is being unreasonable or difficult. You might have strong feelings about parenting decisions being made. But sharing those opinions makes you part of the problem rather than someone helping kids through crisis.
You also can’t secretly side with one parent while pretending neutrality. Kids pick up on subtle alliances, the other parent eventually figures it out, and your credibility as a neutral caregiver disappears. If you genuinely can’t maintain neutrality because one parent’s behavior is too problematic, that’s information about whether you can continue this employment, not license to take sides.
Supporting Kids Without Undermining Parents
Your primary job during family divorce is helping kids feel safe and maintaining routines that provide stability during chaos. That’s easier said than done when kids are asking questions you can’t answer and expressing feelings about parents that put you in impossible positions.
When kids ask why their parents split up or whose fault the divorce is, you’re not the one to explain. Your response is something like “I know this is really hard and confusing. Your parents love you very much and they’re the ones who can best answer your questions about what’s happening in your family.” Then you loop in parents so they know the questions their kids are asking.
If kids say negative things about one parent to you, don’t agree even if you share their perspective. Don’t disagree either, which implies they’re wrong to feel how they feel. Validate their feelings without reinforcing judgment of the parent: “It sounds like you’re really angry at your mom right now. Divorce is hard and it’s okay to have big feelings about it.”
Maintain routines as much as possible even when everything else is changing. If bedtime was always 7:30pm with specific rituals, keep doing that even if parents are completely disrupting everything else. Kids desperately need something predictable, and you can provide routine stability even when you can’t provide family stability.
Watch for signs kids are struggling beyond normal divorce adjustment. If they’re regressing developmentally, showing signs of anxiety or depression, acting out in concerning ways, or expressing thoughts that worry you, you need to communicate that to parents even though parents are overwhelmed with their own crisis. Kids’ mental health matters more than avoiding difficult conversations.
Handling Schedule Chaos and Custody Transitions
Custody schedules during separation and divorce are often fluid, confusing, and subject to sudden changes. Your work schedule that was predictable for months or years suddenly becomes impossible to plan around because parents are fighting about who has kids when or arrangements keep shifting based on legal proceedings.
Get everything in writing. Every schedule change, every agreement about hours and compensation, every adjustment to your responsibilities. Parents in the middle of divorce are stressed and their memories aren’t reliable. Written confirmation protects you when memories differ about what was agreed to.
Be exceptionally flexible in the short term while establishing clear boundaries about what you can sustain long-term. During the initial separation chaos, accommodating last-minute schedule changes might be necessary. But you can’t function indefinitely without predictable schedules, and you need to communicate that clearly once the dust settles slightly.
Custody transitions are often the highest-conflict moments. Kids move between households, parents interact when dropping off or picking up, and emotions run high. Stay completely out of any conflict that happens during transitions. Your job is getting kids ready for handoffs, not managing parental interactions. If parents argue during transitions, remove yourself and the kids from the situation if possible.
You might also end up working for both parents in separate households after divorce. This creates weird dynamics where you’re seeing both of their post-separation lives and hearing both of their perspectives. Maintaining absolute confidentiality about what you see in each household becomes critical. What happens at dad’s house stays at dad’s house. Mom doesn’t get details about dad’s new girlfriend and vice versa.
When Parents Try to Use You as Messenger or Spy
Parents sometimes want nannies to serve as go-betweens or to report on what’s happening in the other parent’s household. Don’t do it. This role destroys your neutrality and puts you in the middle of conflict in ways that are professionally and emotionally untenable.
If one parent asks you to pass messages to the other, redirect them to communicate directly. “I’m not comfortable being a messenger. You’re both adults who can communicate directly about parenting decisions.” This might irritate them but it protects you from getting stuck in the middle.
If parents ask you to report on the other parent’s household, new relationships, parenting choices, or anything else, refuse clearly. “I’m not comfortable sharing information about either household. My job is caring for the kids, not monitoring their parents.” Expect pushback and hold firm anyway.
Sometimes parents frame information-gathering as legitimate concern about kids’ wellbeing. “I just need to know if he’s drinking around the kids.” Your response is still refusal: “If you have concerns about your children’s safety, you should address those through your lawyers and the custody arrangement. I can’t be part of that process.”
The exception is if you witness actual abuse or neglect of children. That’s reportable and you have ethical and often legal obligation to protect kids. But parenting choices you disagree with or household management that seems suboptimal isn’t abuse. The bar for breaking confidentiality is genuine threats to child safety, not ammunition for custody battles.
Dealing With Parents Who Bad-Mouth Each Other
Parents going through divorce often say terrible things about each other in front of nannies and children. You can’t stop them from venting, but you don’t have to participate and you can protect kids from exposure when possible.
If one parent starts bad-mouthing the other while kids are present, you can try redirecting kids to another activity so they’re not listening. “Hey kids, why don’t you go play in your room while I finish talking with your mom?” This isn’t always possible, but removing kids from exposure to parental conflict when you can is valuable.
If parents vent to you about each other when kids aren’t present, listen without agreeing or disagreeing. Don’t offer opinions about who’s right or sympathize with complaints about the other parent. A neutral “That sounds really difficult” acknowledges their feelings without co-signing their perspective.
Remember that anything you say can be used in legal proceedings. If you make statements about either parent’s fitness or parenting or behavior, you might end up being asked to testify or having your statements referenced in court documents. The less you say about either parent, the less you can be dragged into legal proceedings.
Knowing When to Leave
Some divorce situations become so toxic or dysfunctional that continuing employment isn’t tenable regardless of how much you care about the kids. Recognizing when you’ve reached that point protects you from situations that damage you professionally or emotionally.
If parents are actively trying to turn you against each other or using you as weapon in their conflict, that’s probably unsustainable. If the schedule chaos never resolves and you’re constantly accommodating last-minute changes without compensation or appreciation, you can’t function long-term that way. If the emotional intensity is bleeding into your own mental health to the point where you’re constantly anxious or upset, the job is costing you too much.
You also can’t continue if your employment becomes part of the custody battle. If parents are fighting about you specifically or using your presence as leverage, you need to remove yourself from that situation. Once you become part of the legal conflict rather than someone helping kids through it, your ability to be useful disappears.
Leaving feels like abandoning kids during crisis, and that guilt is real. But you can’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. If the situation is destroying you, leaving isn’t failure. It’s protecting yourself from employment that’s become professionally and emotionally dangerous.
What Families Going Through Divorce Owe Nannies
Families who want to keep excellent nannies during divorce need to protect those nannies from the worst of their conflict and treat them fairly even when everything’s chaos.
Pay on time and correctly even when you’re overwhelmed by legal fees and household reorganization. Your nanny’s livelihood doesn’t pause because your personal life is imploding. If you legitimately can’t afford to keep employing her, be honest about that rather than letting payment become inconsistent or problematic.
Don’t make the nanny choose sides or expect her to be your emotional support. She’s your employee, not your therapist or friend or ally. Process your divorce with appropriate people, not with the person who’s there to care for your children.
Understand schedule impacts and try to minimize chaos as quickly as possible. Short-term flexibility is reasonable to expect. Indefinite chaos isn’t sustainable for anyone, and your nanny needs predictable schedules to function.
If you’re reducing hours or ending employment because of changed circumstances, handle that professionally with appropriate notice and severance when possible. Your nanny didn’t cause your divorce and she shouldn’t bear the full cost of your life changes without compensation.
The Bottom Line
Working for families through divorce is incredibly hard. You’re supporting kids through one of the most difficult experiences of their lives while navigating adult conflict, schedule chaos, and potential job loss. You care about the kids but you also need to protect yourself professionally and emotionally.
The nannies who navigate this successfully maintain absolute neutrality, set firm boundaries about their role, support kids without undermining parents, and protect themselves by documenting everything and preparing for potential job loss. They also recognize when situations become untenable and they’re willing to leave rather than destroy themselves trying to manage the unmanageable.
After twenty years watching New York nannies and nannies nationwide work through family divorces, we know this situation brings out both the best and worst in everyone. Families who treat nannies fairly during crisis often maintain those working relationships through transition and beyond. Families who exploit nannies or drag them into conflict lose excellent caregivers they desperately need during upheaval.
If you’re working through family divorce, know that protecting yourself while supporting kids isn’t selfish. It’s the only sustainable approach. You can’t help anyone if you’re getting destroyed by trying to manage impossible situations or getting pulled into conflict that isn’t yours to resolve.
