You’ve decided to leave your nanny position. Maybe you found better opportunity, maybe the working relationship isn’t sustainable anymore, or maybe you’re relocating for personal reasons. You’re ready to give notice, except the timing feels impossible because your employer family is dealing with something genuinely difficult – a parent just lost their job, someone’s been diagnosed with serious illness, they’re in the middle of ugly divorce, or a family member died recently. The question becomes whether you extend your departure timeline to help them through the crisis or whether you proceed with your original plan despite difficult timing. Both choices have costs. Staying longer than you planned might mean missing opportunities, prolonging situations that are bad for you, or enabling families to avoid addressing problems. Leaving on your original timeline means departing during genuine hardship when they legitimately need stability. After twenty years working with nannies across Los Angeles and nationwide, we’ve watched many struggle with this exact dilemma. Some extended their departures to help families and ended up trapped for months or years beyond when they wanted to leave. Others proceeded with departures during crisis and carried guilt for years about abandoning vulnerable kids. Understanding how to evaluate these situations helps you make decisions that protect everyone appropriately rather than sacrificing yourself unnecessarily.
Distinguishing Real Crisis From Perpetual Drama
The first question is whether you’re dealing with actual temporary crisis requiring flexibility or whether this family always has something making timing bad. Real crises are unexpected events that create temporary upheaval – sudden illness diagnosis, unexpected job loss, death in the family, house fire, serious accident. These situations genuinely destabilize families in ways they couldn’t have anticipated and reasonable people would acknowledge create difficult timing for staff departures. Perpetual crisis is different. It’s families who always have dramatic situations preventing normal life operations. There’s always something – ongoing marital problems, chronic health issues that never resolve, constant financial drama, regular family conflicts. If you’ve been waiting for stable period to give notice and you realize there’s never stable period, that’s information about this family’s baseline dysfunction rather than temporary crisis. Some families also create crisis around staff departures. The second you mention leaving, suddenly everything becomes catastrophic and they absolutely cannot manage without you. This manufactured crisis is manipulation designed to make you feel guilty about leaving rather than genuine situation requiring accommodation. If family has been stable for the year you’ve worked there and genuine unexpected crisis hits right as you’re planning departure, that’s different from family that’s been chaotic entire employment. You might choose to offer more flexibility during actual crisis than you would for families whose lives are constantly dramatic.
Assessing Whether Staying Actually Helps
Sometimes extending your departure during crisis genuinely helps families manage difficult transitions. Other times it just delays inevitable disruption without actually making situations better. Staying helps when your extended presence provides meaningful stability during defined crisis period. If a parent is having surgery and will need two months recovery, staying those additional two months gives them time to heal and then address childcare changes from more stable position. If family is moving and needs coverage through relocation chaos, staying through the move provides actual support during concrete limited timeframe. Staying doesn’t help when the crisis has no defined endpoint or when your presence is enabling families to avoid necessary changes. If parents are divorcing and custody arrangements won’t be clear for months or years, your staying indefinitely doesn’t solve anything. If a parent lost their job and can’t really afford to keep employing you but won’t acknowledge that reality, your staying prevents them from making necessary adjustments. You also can’t help if extending your timeline means you miss opportunities that won’t wait. If you’ve been offered specific position that needs to be filled by certain date, staying longer means losing that opportunity. If you’re moving for partner’s job or family obligations, delaying departure might not be possible regardless of employer family’s needs. Be honest about whether family is asking for defined reasonable extension or indefinite commitment to stay until crisis resolves. “Can you stay three additional weeks until my surgery recovery is complete?” is reasonable request during genuine crisis. “Can you just stay until we figure things out?” when there’s no timeline for figuring things out is trap that could extend indefinitely.
What Different Crises Actually Require
Different types of crisis create different legitimate needs from families, and understanding what’s reasonable helps you evaluate requests. Medical crisis involving hospitalization or surgery often has defined timeline. Parent needs four weeks recovery, family legitimately benefits from maintaining childcare stability during that specific period. Extending your departure by four to six weeks to help them through defined medical situation might be reasonable if it doesn’t create major problems for you. Job loss crisis is trickier because timeline is uncertain. Some people find new employment quickly. Others take months. If parent losing job means they can’t actually afford to keep employing you, staying longer doesn’t solve their problem. It just delays inevitable while creating expectation that you’re committed to helping indefinitely. Divorce and custody situations almost never have defined timelines. Legal proceedings take months or years. If you’re waiting for their divorce to settle before leaving, you’re potentially waiting indefinitely. These situations require families to figure out new childcare arrangements that work for their changed circumstances, and your staying postpones that necessary adjustment. Death and grief situations are legitimately destabilizing but also don’t have clear timelines. Families experiencing loss need stability but they’ll also need to adapt to functioning without you at some point. Staying a few additional weeks to help kids through immediate aftermath of family death might be compassionate. Staying indefinitely because family is grieving doesn’t actually serve anyone long-term. Illness that’s chronic or terminal creates impossible situations. If parent has cancer and treatment will take six months or a year, you can’t put your life on hold that long. If illness is terminal, there’s no timeline where your staying makes the fundamental situation better.
When to Offer Limited Flexibility
If you’ve evaluated the situation and decided you’re willing to offer some flexibility, make it very limited and clearly defined rather than open-ended. Offer specific extension rather than vague commitment. “I can stay four additional weeks to help you through your surgery recovery” is clear. “I’ll stay until you figure things out” is trap. Put the extension in writing with specific end date so there’s no confusion about commitment. During extension period, maintain your boundaries about the extension being temporary. Don’t take on additional responsibilities or significantly increase hours just because you’re helping during crisis. You’re providing stability by staying slightly longer, not taking on more than your original role. Be very clear that extension is one-time accommodation, not new pattern. If you extend once and then new crisis emerges right as extension ends, hold firm to departure. Otherwise you’ll get trapped in cycle of perpetual extensions because there’s always something making timing difficult. Also understand that offering any extension changes your leverage and might make actual departure harder when extension ends. Families sometimes interpret flexibility as sign you’re not really serious about leaving, and they resist your departure even more strongly when extension ends.
When to Proceed With Original Timeline
Sometimes the right answer is proceeding with your original departure plan despite family crisis because staying longer genuinely doesn’t help or because costs to you are too high. If the crisis has no defined end point and family can’t tell you when things will stabilize, proceed with original timeline. You can’t put your life on hold indefinitely waiting for their situation to resolve. If staying longer means losing opportunities that are genuinely important to you – new position with set start date, relocation for partner’s job, educational opportunities with enrollment deadlines – prioritize those commitments. Your career and life plans matter as much as their crisis. If family’s crisis is actually chronic dysfunction that won’t improve, staying longer just delays inevitable while subjecting you to more chaos. Leave on your timeline because there will never be good timing in dysfunctional households. If you’re already at the point where you’re mentally checked out or the situation is damaging your mental health, staying longer doesn’t serve anyone. You can’t provide good care when you’re miserable and resentful about still being there. If family has treated you poorly throughout employment and is now asking for flexibility during crisis, you’re not obligated to accommodate. Flexibility is gift you offer to employers who’ve treated you well, not obligation you owe to families who haven’t valued you.
Managing the Guilt
The hardest part of leaving during crisis is often guilt rather than practical concerns. You care about these kids and you don’t want to add to family’s difficulties during genuinely hard times. Remember that guilt is feeling, not obligation. You can feel guilty about timing while still making decision that’s right for you. Feelings don’t have to dictate choices. Also recognize that family’s crisis isn’t your responsibility to solve. You’re childcare provider who’s giving appropriate notice about employment ending. You didn’t cause their crisis and your departure isn’t what’s making their situation difficult. The crisis is doing that. Kids are resilient and they adjust to transitions with appropriate adult support. Your departure during difficult time won’t permanently damage children. What damages kids is adults who stay in situations that make them increasingly resentful and bitter until they finally leave under worse circumstances. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is proceed with departure so family has to address their situation rather than relying on you to hold things together indefinitely. Your presence might actually be enabling avoidance of necessary changes. You can also help during notice period in ways that ease transition without extending employment. Connect them with other nannies in your network. Help them create documentation about kids’ routines. Be available by phone for brief questions during first week after departure. These gestures ease guilt while maintaining your boundaries about actually leaving.
What You Actually Owe During Notice
Regardless of family crisis, you owe them professional completion of your notice period with continued good care. You don’t owe them indefinite employment or sacrifice of your own opportunities. If you’ve given two weeks notice and family is dealing with crisis, work those two weeks excellently and help set up whatever transition is possible. Document routines, answer questions, be reliable and professional. That’s what you owe. If they ask for extension and you’re genuinely able to offer it without major cost to yourself, consider limited defined extension. But you’re not obligated to offer extensions just because timing is difficult for them. If they become hostile or guilt-tripping during notice period because you’re leaving during their crisis, maintain professionalism but don’t absorb their anger or let it change your departure plans. Their feelings about timing don’t obligate you to stay longer. If they fire you immediately upon notice rather than having you work notice period because they’re angry about timing, you’ve learned that their crisis didn’t actually require your presence as desperately as they claimed. People who genuinely need help accept help that’s offered even if it’s not unlimited help.
Families’ Responsibility During Crisis
Families experiencing genuine crisis still have responsibility to treat employees fairly and to manage their own situations rather than depending entirely on staff accommodation. If family truly can’t afford to keep employing you after job loss or other financial crisis, they need to acknowledge that and let you go with appropriate severance rather than hoping you’ll stay indefinitely at reduced pay or unpaid. If their crisis creates genuinely impossible working conditions – parent’s serious illness means household is chaotic and your job becomes unmanageable – they need to acknowledge that environment isn’t sustainable for employees rather than expecting you to endure indefinitely. If custody situations or divorce create constant schedule chaos and instability, they need to figure out childcare arrangements that work for their new reality rather than expecting you to accommodate infinite flexibility. Families who handle crisis while still treating staff fairly acknowledge that their employees have lives and needs that exist beyond the family’s current difficulties. They’re grateful for whatever flexibility staff can offer while understanding that flexibility has limits. Families who handle crisis poorly treat staff as resources to be consumed during hard times with no consideration for employees’ own needs or wellbeing. They guilt trip, manipulate, and create expectation of unlimited sacrifice.
The Bottom Line
Deciding whether to extend departure during family crisis requires honest assessment of whether extension genuinely helps, whether you can offer it without major cost to yourself, and whether family has earned your flexibility through how they’ve treated you throughout employment. Sometimes offering limited defined extension is kind and appropriate response to genuine unexpected crisis. Sometimes proceeding with original departure timeline is necessary to protect yourself or because extension wouldn’t actually help anything. Both choices can be right depending on circumstances. What’s never right is indefinite extension where you’re trapped by guilt hoping crisis eventually resolves. If family can’t define what they need or when they’ll be able to manage your departure, proceed with leaving because waiting for perfect timing means staying forever.
After twenty years watching Los Angeles nannies and nannies nationwide navigate departures during family crisis, we know guilt is powerful motivator but terrible decision-maker. Make choices based on realistic assessment of situation rather than trying to eliminate all guilt, because some guilt is inevitable when you’re making transitions that inconvenience people you care about. That guilt doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It just means you’re human person making difficult choices in complicated situations.
