What do you want to be when you grow up?

Peter (6) wants to be a paleontologist. Rudy (8) dreams of being a soccer player or architect. Charlotte (11) is thinking about being a chef/baker, or a singer. The answer can change as kids grow into adults and face pressure to get a “real” job. Their mom, Meghan Squires (42) wanted to be a hairdresser, but became an auditor. Lynn Noordam (46) “wanted to be a ballet dancer, and then a teacher, and then a writer.” She is now a nurse practitioner, and loves it. Her son Malcolm (9) wants to be an inventor, while Anneka (13) lists veterinarian, Broadway star, or activist. Margarita Rodriguez (23) always knew she wanted to work with children, and that’s exactly what she’s doing now.

Spilt Milk Nannies’ infancy

Erin McDonald (31) didn’t know what she wanted to be when she started college at the University of Washington 11 years ago, but soon found a niche for herself in service clubs, volunteering with the Deaf community, and a fledgling company called Spilt Milk Nannies (SMN). “I saw the ad for Spilt Milk Nannies in the UW Daily, promising a flexible childcare position with vetted families. I found I fit really well into the model as I love working with kids and the parents became role models to me as I considered my future.” That future came sooner than McDonald expected, when SMN’s founder, Alicia Arnold, asked her to take over the business when she graduated. “I was 20 years old and a junior in college! I nannied all the time, did all my school work after the kids went to bed, and worked hard to learn how to run a business in my spare time. I was nervous about the responsibilities but I knew the service had a lot of potential.” That it did. Under McDonald’s leadership, SMN’s membership grew from 40 to 200 families, and beyond. Satellite branches were launched, most of which also thrived.

Staying small

The idea of connecting supply with demand is not unique to Spilt Milk Nannies. A cursory Google search reveals dozens of businesses with a similar business model. So what sets Spilt Milk Nannies apart? Squires came to SMN in August 2020, through a friend. She’d tried another online babysitting platform and found the volume of uncurated responses “overwhelming.” Her favorite thing about Spilt Milk Nannies—aside from her actual nanny—is the care Erin took in finding a good fit for her family. Squires “was lamenting to [a friend] about how hard the start of the pandemic had been in our house, and she told me that she had a fabulous nanny that helped her family through the spring. I asked, ‘where do people find their fabulous nannies?’” It’s a common story. According to McDonald, “A lot of people say finding great sitters is hard, let alone reliable and trusted sitters. Many businesses or people have tried to solve this with an app or a website. But the issue is that childcare needs to be personalized and vetted by a human. “I do not think that multimillion dollar large businesses can truly know their customers. Childcare is not a product like toothpaste or even taxi rides.”

At Spilt Milk, every nanny and family is personally vetted by McDonald. Nannies are required to have CPR certification and at least two childcare references, and both nannies and families must pass a background check. McDonald interviews each potential nanny. “One of my favorite questions is asking the nannies how they’ve grown as a babysitter. I look for a response that recognizes they aren’t just there to hang out with kids, they are there to stick to routine, follow family rules, and engage with the kids all the while having fun.”

Rodriguez has been a nanny with SMN since late 2018. In that role, she sees herself as “a big sister, a friend, a companion, a safe space, a teacher, a mentor, a counselor, a tutor, and a big little kid.” The personal approach has allowed SMN to outlast some well-funded competitors, like the Poppy app that operated from 2015 to 2018. Despite being popular with its users, owner Avni Patel Thompson shut down the company, telling GeekWire that “The economics weren’t sustainable to not only continue, but to scale, which is important for us as a venture-backed company.” Poppy made the bulk of its revenue by pocketing a few dollars per hour as the money flowed from families to sitters, who ranged in cost based on their experience and the number of children cared for.

In contrast, SMN families pay their nannies directly, and because they are all held to the same high standards, they all earn the same wage. Families pay a quarterly fee for access to the scheduling software. “I love SMN’s website and booking system,” raves Lynn Noordam, a long-time member. “I feel it stands far above other companies.”

David Young has been using SMN since 2018. He and his wife spent a long time online comparing local babysitting services, but most required a large annual fee that they weren’t sure they’d recoup. “When we found Spilt Milk Nannies, we clicked with the philosophy Erin laid out on the website, and she made the signup process really easy,” Young says.

McDonald abides by “the cliché, quality over quantity. We only grow as much as we can reasonably handle.” Her business grows primarily by word of mouth. “Erin makes the service very personal,” Young said. “She gives you her phone number and email, she's on the roster of nannies herself, and she personally arranges for substitutes if a nanny has to cancel. It doesn't happen often, but once we had a nanny cancel at late notice, and as I was typing Erin a frantic text (we had dinner and concert plans for the evening) she sent me one: she'd already fixed us up with another nanny who was on the way!”

Spilt Milk Nannies turns 10 this year, and like so many recent birthdays, the celebration of this one will be somewhat different than previously envisioned. McDonald and the owners of SMN’s five other Pacific Northwest branches would have gathered for a spring park party with some of the 1,200 families and 100+ nannies they’d brought together at the companies’ peak. But then COVID-19 happened.

Sick days

It’s no surprise that even as the pandemic brought a childcare crisis to many families, it also wreaked havoc on businesses providing childcare. “Every branch lost half our families in 2020, and even more nannies,” McDonald says. Despite common associations with the word “nanny,” prior to the pandemic most of SMN’s Seattle families used the service for occasional needs rather than daily childcare: date nights, doctor appointments, daycare closures, or even visiting the gym or going shopping. Suddenly no one was doing any of those things, and the last thing anyone wanted was another human coming into their home. But those who remain swear by SMN.

“The day Seattle Schools closed I was on the SMN website booking nannies,” says Young. “It was clear that with my wife and I both working, we couldn't care for the kids every day and both keep our jobs. “After the panic of the first few weeks, we talked through how much childcare we could do ourselves by working evenings and weekends and the risk/benefits of continuing to use a nanny service, and settled on a single nanny who has come in two to three days a week most weeks ever since. She has been a godsend.”

Squires tells a similar story. “It was wonderful to have SMN pivot from matching families with shorter-term gigs to some longer-term arrangements. Our longer-term arrangement—helping three elementary-aged kids manage online school and have fun action- and laughter-filled breaks between classes—was just what our family needed this year.” Nannies and families are following a stricter sick policy and a looser cancellation policy these days, and nannies are limited to one booking per day. The nature of the relationship has changed too.

According to Rodriguez, “We're masked up. We're washing and sanitizing our hands to death. We're not going out nearly as much, as there is not much to do outside of home. Our conversations are very different.” “I have always stressed that having strong relationships and communication skills is how I run my business,” McDonald adds. “COVID-19 literally just made that stronger.”

Squires says “We talked about [COVID-19] with our nanny when we hired her, talked about our precautions and how we might handle a possible COVID-19 exposure situation. This was helpful for getting on the same page.” They’ve continued to talk about the risk of various activities and vaccine status as the months have gone on. Childcare workers are now vaccine-eligible in Washington State, and without exception SMN’s nannies and owners are lining up for that protection.

Growing up again

Taking things in a stride is part and parcel of the Spilt Milk Nannies philosophy. SMN founder Alicia Arnold named her company with the motto in mind of “don’t cry over Spilt Milk, we will find you a sitter!” After McDonald rebranded the company in 2014, she kept the name but adjusted the meaning to the idea that SMN provides a kind of nourishment (milk) that kids need. The logo consists of three old-fashioned milk bottles, representing the families, the sitters, and the community.

The pandemic may have knocked over the bottles, but in 2021 and beyond McDonald intends to pick them up and fill them with even better milk. “I’m already seeing an uptick in inquiries,” McDonald says, as spring and increased vaccine access bring hope for the future. “Until COVID-19, all I did was scoot by. I wasn’t thinking big picture, because I was so busy,” she says.

This time she and the other owners have the opportunity to prepare for the increase in business they know is coming. “We’re going to try new things this year. I really do feel like we’re going to come out stronger.” McDonald feels lucky to be sitting at the center of the community she’s built—as owner, she meets every sitter and every family, and knows how powerful that network can be.

Rodriguez knows it too. “I have had more opportunities open up with SMN than I could've ever imagined. I had never flown out of state with a family before but got the chance to do so and also sat in first class! I've had the opportunity to teacher assist in a beautiful Spanish immersion preschool through an SMN mom who owns a preschool. I am doing things I have never done before. I love seeing how different each family is. I love meeting new families and laughing with them.”

Ultimately, McDonald’s dream is to share that feeling with everyone in the network, connecting even nannies and families that will never work together directly.

Becoming what you want

When David Young (early 40s) was young, he wanted to be a civil engineer. “I dragged my parents all over the country visiting dams and bridges. That lasted up until my first year of engineering at college, after which I switched to economics.”

His son Joshua (10) wants to be a lawyer, “because he has the gift of the gab and loves to argue a point.” Damien (7) doesn’t know what he wants to be yet. But odds are good that a Spilt Milk Nanny will be there as he figures it out. One of the joys of being a nanny is being present for all that growth. “I've seen babies at 6 months old who don't know how to talk or walk turn into running little motor mouths,” Rodriguez said. “Hearing them say my name for the first time is unexplainable. It's been the best experience ever.”

McDonald points out that nannying isn’t always seen as a “real job.” She recalls going home for Christmas just after graduating from college and taking over Spilt Milk Nannies, and still being asked that question. She wonders why running this business didn’t count as “real.”

“It could have been because SMN is best run by a young woman or it could have been because it is unreal for a small-town girl to run a successful business in the huge city of Seattle. Or it could have been because I didn’t work 9 to 5 at a desk. Instead I played hide and seek for two hours at a time and dance partied to Disney music most evenings before bed.” Spilt Milk Nannies shows how beautiful growing up can be. Young is an energy economist now, “but I still visit dams occasionally on a professional basis.” “Sometimes even I don’t see this as a real job,” McDonald says, “because I genuinely love what I’m doing.”