What It’s Like to Be a Celebrity Nanny

You will find a solution sport of “Where’s Waldo?” going on between celebs. Occasionally it truly is recognizing a hand, other periods, component of a uniform. But any time everyone catches a glimpse of digital camera-shy Connie Simpson — much better regarded as Nanny Connie — in a photo, she promptly starts getting texts from her previous households.

For just about four many years and above 300 customers, the caretaker from Mobile, AL, has become a single of the most in-demand nannies floating between renowned family members. Consumers contain Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, Amal and George Clooney, Matt Damon and Luciana Barroso, and Jessica Alba and Dollars Warren.

Simpson, who wrote the 2018 reserve “The Nanny Connie Way: Insider secrets to Mastering the Initial Four Months of Parenting,” served look at her cousins as a teenager and went on to review early childhood education and learning in advance of nannying for people all over the world.

“Babysitters have that internal contacting to want to be a lot more, but if it really is your enthusiasm, you are likely to by no means be equipped to get absent from it. That was me,” she tells PS from Maui, where by she’s at the moment doing the job. “It was a thing I beloved doing, and 40 a long time afterwards, it can be like, wow, I’ve been undertaking this a lengthy time.”

It was Simpson’s southern upbringing that aided ingrain the most essential lessons of loved ones dynamics in her. “Back then, you set your family 1st — the generational residence was certainly important in the ’60s and ’70s,” she suggests. “Which is exactly where I have gotten all of my know-how from.”

In our large-tech, speedy-paced life these days, so considerably of that household cloth has unraveled. “But it is really so needed,” Simpson suggests. “It really is a thirst we need to have to quench, and we will not even know how to mainly because we’ve misplaced the blueprint.”

Simpson enters popular residences with this homegrown point of view, and leaves as aspect of the family members. Under, she speaks to PS about her ordeals nannying young children to the stars.

PS: How do you create a good basis when you first start off doing the job with a new family members?
Connie Simpson: Conversing with the two of the moms and dads is truly important. I like to join, particularly with eye make contact with, and by telling the moms and dads, “Congratulations on having to this place. This is your most prized possession.” That concentrations the actively playing subject between spouse and spouse or associates. I am there to help give them the tools they need and the empathy that’s likely to support them show up better. There is no e-book, so to give them the to start with three pages of the 1st chapter is golden. It’s like successful the lottery.

PS: How did you start working with high-profile shoppers?
CS: It is really in no way been intimidating for me. I’ve labored in the a person-percent planet all my life. My moms and dads were being each in the provider sector — my father was a postman, my mother was a nurse. The way I was raised, you never see a man or woman in specific, you see a human becoming. I can disarm a particular person as powerful as [billionaire businessman] T. Boone Pickens to, say, speak about dwelling cooking. When you get on that identical taking part in industry, now you have created them human.

I’ve been in numerous houses of great writers and phenomenal scientists, and they never permit me know who they were. They just needed to request information from me, and then I come to find out they had a “PhD” after their past name, but I did not know that. I was becoming analyzed. That created my self confidence to know that I can hold with individuals from Harvard, Yale, and Columbia College, and they will be educated by me just as a great deal as me currently being educated by them.

PS: How substantially time do you typically devote with a client?
CS: I test in a working day, sometimes two, before the baby gets there. I continue to be 24/7 — I do not go away your household. When I am in your residence, I’m there to notice what is actually going on, see in which I can support, and see how I can enable you exhibit up better. Then I depart six months, a yr, or 5 decades afterwards. There have been some who have saved me because they wanted to make positive I was there for the following one particular. It can be been an remarkable journey.

PS: What is a typical working day like in the daily life of a movie star nanny?
CS: My target is to intertwine true lifestyle with their glitzy environment. I want to know their timetable, so I can support them demonstrate up in their schedule for their kid. If they’re likely to be on a shoot, I’ll say, “Alright, you’ve acquired to leave in this article at 8:00. Do you want to do the early morning feed or do you want us to arrive to the shoot?” I will make the preparations to display up, so that the parent can be with the baby.

I will not want them at any time to really feel disconnected from the parenting earth, and I do that in these a loving and smooth way. I’m not attempting to pat myself on the back, but they feel so comforted mainly because their jobs are so demanding and parenting is so demanding.

PS: What are some of the approaches you bridge that disconnect?
CS: I get up early in the morning with them. I will deliver images in the course of the day, and I will go, “Hey mother, I was thinking about you. I spit up all around Nanny, but I can’t wait to get house so we can have time together.” That does amazing points to the ego of that mom who experienced to go for a 4 a.m. shoot and is not going to get home until eventually 7 p.m. All those are the little driblets that you do to make a mom really feel like, “I did the correct factor. I am going to be Alright on my journey as a mother or father and in my profession.”

I also get performing dads to aid the thoughts of the mother for the reason that a large amount of instances, they don’t talk. But I see it, so I help them. I’ll say, “I want you fellas to go out to supper this Thursday night. There’s no speaking about the baby.” They occur again and go, “Nanny, I did understand how crucial that was, and we talked about you a lot more than we talked about anything at all.”

PS: Are there additional stresses with superstar customers?
CS: There is a lot of additional tension with the paparazzi and the surrounding men and women taking photographs. They want to see much more failures from them than successes. So we exercise before we take the little ones out. I give them an at-household tutorial. I am a pitbull in a way mainly because I will strategically location myself, so that mother does not sense uncomfortable when she requires the child out of the stroller. If we go out to lunch, I will have us sit at a specific desk, so I can block the view.

It is significant for them to observe remaining out. I you should not experience like I have correctly done my job until finally I have touched all of their bases in their lifetime: going to the supermarket, how to take the automobile seat out, how to do the stroller, mother and dad currently being collectively in the motor vehicle, the window remaining up, the carrying of the small harness, all of people factors. Individuals are significant.

PS: The life of these celeb kids have to be so unique. How do you deal with that?
CS: I take care of them just like day to day kids. They you should not know no diverse. They get the exact Nanny Connie as their moms and dads: With Justin [Timberlake], I was like, “Son, you should not check with me none of your audio, due to the fact I know none of it.” When I commenced with Matt [Damon], everyone in my loved ones was like, “Wow, you might be going to do the job for Jason Bourne.” I was like, “Yeah, but I ain’t watched none of that!” But you want to inquire me about “The Proficient Mr Ripley?” He blew the doors off of that one. That was a hell of a film.

You would not feel how many folks just want to be highly regarded on that each day stage. For the kids, I give them the exact same. I am going to notify them, “You keep it up. You are gonna appear to my hometown in Mobile, and we are gonna conclusion up performing yard operate.” I make the more mature kids do things all around the house and fold apparel. I hold them ordinary. The dad and mom want them to have that typical existence — they you should not want their daily life to be a curse to them.

PS: Jessica Biel known as you component of the Timberlake family members. How does that degree of bonding type?
CS: There are definitely intimate times that transpire. I’ll cook for them for the reason that I want them to have a residence-cooked meal. I you should not want it to occur from Uber Eats or some thing. I’ve performed Thanksgiving dinners with them, and I’ll say the blessing. In our family members, we say, “Increase Peter,” and the family’s response is, “Slay and try to eat.” Which is from the Bible. A ton of mothers and fathers would like to have that uniqueness arrive into their residence, but they never know how to since they are so caught up in the tinsel world.

I hover, but I really don’t force. I give adore and regularity. I can see the have to have for humanity to have a lot more empathy, and I consider that is what’s produced my relationship with so lots of of them.

PS: John Krasinki in specific claimed you’ve got adjusted his life. How does that make you sense knowing you’ve been so instrumental?
CS: I truly feel that we all have a contacting in life. Parenting is the closest point you can get to the heavens. To assistance a mother or father locate their wings and their footing, gives me great joy. It presents me wonderful joy.

When John will come to me, or Matt comes to me, or George [Clooney] arrives to me, or Justin will come to me, and they set their arms about me and tell me how a great deal I’ve impacted their lifestyle, I am so honored. That is a section of my coronary heart that I left with you, that gave you additional than any of what you could have gotten in your industry.

PS: What do you want mothers and fathers would talk to extra?
CS: They do inquire me so several questions. I’m quite intrigued that so quite a few fathers, even next time fathers, are inquiring me all those inquiries about pores and skin-to-pores and skin get in touch with. I’ll clearly show them simply because kid’s initially language, their like language, is this sense of touch. When you contact a child, they’re having a reading through from you, like a pulse oximeter. They are finding how tranquil you are. They’re receiving your panic. They’re finding all of that. Now you happen to be setting the pace for them.

Pores and skin-to-skin is not just trending parenting — it really is a journey. It’s permitting them hear your heartbeat when they’re upset, so they master to regulate by themselves, and that aids with their panic. That allows with slumber teaching. Skin-to-skin is the complete initial in teaching your young children how to navigate their feelings and their feelings.

PS: What’s the a person suggestion you would give to a new mother or father?
CS: There are heading to be issues. As you might be planning for a little one, you’re seeking to make all the things fantastic, but there is certainly so a great deal imperfection in parenting. I am not likely to say, “give on your own grace,” mainly because that is bullshit. That’s just a fairly way of stating it. I want you to be mindful that there are landmines out there that are going to blow you out the drinking water each day. And if you make it through a working day and you don’t get blown out the drinking water, depend your blessings. You’re doing it suitable.

Rachel Chang is a journey and pop lifestyle journalist and a magazine editor (Us Weekly senior editor, J-14 editor in chief, CosmoGIRL! enjoyment editor) turned freelance writer. She’s a normal contributor to Condé Nast Traveler and Vacation + Leisure, and has penned for PS, New York Instances for Youngsters, Wall Street Journal, Lonely Planet, and United’s Hemispheres, among others.