About Samantha

Reviewed on 6/3/2023

This is a tough review for me to write. I think Sam is one of THE BEST caregivers I have ever gotten to work with. She is a strong educator, energetically aligned with children, and has the stamina to hold the emotional space children need to navigate growing up. She has been timely and consistent. Sam worked with our family for just under a year and started with a Nanny Share with two two-year olds which I admired her capability to met both kiddos' needs and developmental stages. Both familles felt a degree of insecurity with Sam's scheduling and bandwidth projections. She committed to 32 hours guaranteed, but once we gave her a raise she wanted to drop Mon/Tue hours. We accommodated to the best of our ability, but she was still dissatisfied and felt our family was being unfair to her by not finding immediate replacement care for her. It felt like she lacked the introspective and emotional maturity to acknowledge the work we were putting in to accommodate her requests while still honoring a contract she signed. Once the nanny share ended, Sam continued to request Mon/Tue off, so I found replacement care, but then she wanted Tuesdays back on her schedule. Again, I felt some degree of distrust of her ability to accurately forecast her needs and bandwidth without any conscious consideration of the effort that required my family to coordinate. The end of our relationship came on June 2nd. Our son had been sick (which she has always expertly cared for him during illness) and she wanted to offer him bone broth. She gave him a boiling cup of broth in a sippy cup and naturally (as two year olds do) he tried to drink it as she handed it to him and it caused burns in his mouth, throat, and chest that required a visit to the ER. As my husband and I drove to the ER she texted us say "Today has shown me there is something not working in our relationship. Im sorry but i cant have this level of stress anymore. While it was never my intention to leave without notice this week has taken a serious toll on wellbeing. Today will have been my last day." We felt blindsided as not only had our relationship been strong and collaborative for almost a year, but the stress of the day was caused by her lack of attention to the boiling (literally) broth. She had only worked two hours the day before, so how this week was overwhelming stressful for her does not make a lot of sense to us. At the end of the day, we understand mistakes happen and we are not holding her responsible for the ER bill as we acknowledge that it was an accident, but the presence of the accident made me question her sobriety as her reactions were slow and incongruent with the risk to my sons well being. Furthermore, her quick response to making the situation about her (and still has not checked in on our sons' well being) made us feel like she was not herself which the only explanation would seem to warrant curiosity about her use of substances prior to arriving (I only suggest this because she has shared with me about her frequent use of substances.) Overall, Sam is highly qualified educator, capable multiple kid care giver, and trauma-informed provider. For our family, the lack of introspective ability to acknowledge her impact on the family she works with and the risk of her showing up under the influence and causing long-term health impacts is scary. I believe she has a lot to offer a family as she addresses her underlying maturity and health needs.