Conversations about money can be very difficult to have. But they can also be necessary — and learning how to talk about money effectively is an important life skill, as one nanny is demonstrating in a viral video where she shares examples of some of the conversations she’s had about pay with her past clients.
Sophia Pagliuca is a professional nanny using her social media platform on TikTok to share “simulated” text messages showing he she’s grown over six years in her career. In the first message, she shows how she responded to a family when she was just starting out and realized her paycheck was smaller than it should have been.
“I’m SO sorry and might be totally wrong, so please let me know if I’m incorrect, but I don’t think you paid me for all my hours. It’s totally, totally fine and I could be completely wrong!! So sorry!!!” the text reads.
In captions on the screen, Pagliuca writes, “This is how I texted in the PAST when I was fresh in the industry & thought people would be mad at me!! Like, why would people be upset with me for asking for MY money? I promise it’s not that deep.”
She then goes on to explain how she’s gotten used to having these kinds of conversations and advocating for herself, because she deserves to be paid for all the time she works — and how, usually, clients want to rectify the mistake as quickly as possible.
However, clients don’t always respond appropriately. In a later slide, she shares a simulated response from a different kind of client.
“Oh. Usually our other sitter gives us a discount if we use her for 12 hours since we’re giving you so many hours. [You] don’t do discounts??” they wrote.
In her response, Pagliuca texted back, “I understand that but no, I don’t do discounts! My full rate is in effect from the agreed upon time frame we discussed.”
She also apologized for any misunderstanding, but explained in the caption that wasn’t necessary. It was this particular family’s next response, however, that made Pagliuca’s “jaw drop.”
“Okay, I’ll have my husband Venmo you the $60… Don’t want to go back and forth over just $60! No big deal,” the next text reads. “Just wondering – did you see the laundry baskets that were full and clean? If you were expecting full pay, is there a reason u didn’t give full effort during the day? You had 1hr break for nap…”
Pagliuca stayed professional and explained that when it’s her first time working for a family, she often isn’t comfortable going through their laundry—and she didn’t even know that the laundry in the basket was clean. Plus, aside from spending a 12-hour day with three kids, only one of them napped, and during that time, she was playing outside with the other two. Classifying that as a “break” is not exactly accurate.
In terms of the response to her video, Pagliuca tells PEOPLE she received some pushback as “there are people upset I’m advocating for nannies to be paid a living wage because it means they can no longer get away with paying their nanny minimum wage—or even below.”
“It genuinely baffles me why anyone would want to pay the person caring for their child $2/hr,” shes says.
At the end of the day, Pagliuca received the $60 she was owed and also demonstrated how to set a solid boundary. And no matter what, after six years of caring for little ones, Pagliuca says her favorite thing about the job continues to be “the kids!”