New Mom Hires Amish Woman as Nanny. She’s Shocked by What She Does on Day One of the Job

Jaclyn Shaw grew up in California, where seeing someone living in the Amish tradition is rare. So when she and her husband moved to rural Northern Indiana during the COVID-19 pandemic, the sight of a horse-and-buggy on the road never stopped feeling surreal.

Her husband, who was raised in the area, was more familiar with the local Amish community. He’d even gone to school alongside Amish children, many of whom receive a more “traditional” education through about eighth grade. Shaw, though, was openly stunned each time they passed an Amish buggy.

“I was always fascinated, like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s an Amish person. How crazy,’” Shaw says years after the move. “I was like, ‘What in the world? I need to know more.’”

When the couple welcomed their first child — a daughter born in June 2022 — Shaw’s curiosity collided with a practical problem: childcare options in their small, close-knit community were limited. She hoped to enroll her daughter in daycare, but while they waited for an opening, some of her husband’s longtime friends suggested a solution Shaw hadn’t considered: an Amish nanny.

“They had Amish nannies for their children because they lived further out in the country,” she explains. “There were actual Amish people that were their neighbors, and that’s how they introduced that idea to me like, ‘Oh, we had that and they were great. They took great care of the kids. They learned all the ways of farming and things like that.’”

Shaw didn’t necessarily need her daughter to learn farm life, but she was open to the idea — and intrigued by how different it was from anything she’d grown up around. That’s how she met Rosanna, a 22-year-old Amish woman she hired as a nanny, an experience Shaw has since shared with her 33,000 TikTok followers across several videos.

Over time, trust built naturally. In a town where everyone seemed to know everyone, Shaw eventually felt comfortable letting Rosanna take her baby out — even without a way to stay in constant contact.

What surprised Shaw most wasn’t just the arrangement itself, but how much Rosanna understood about the outside world. Early on, Shaw admits she was careful — almost overly cautious — worried she might accidentally say something uncomfortable or unfamiliar.

“At first I treated her as if she was an alien a little bit,” she says. “I just didn’t want to say things that she didn’t feel comfortable with or that she didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Because Shaw worked from home, she walked Rosanna through the house and explained everyday things — including their Google Home device and how they used it to play music for the baby. But Shaw quickly realized Rosanna wasn’t as removed from modern life as she assumed.

Rosanna had recently finished Rumspringa, a rite of passage that allows many young Amish people to experience life outside their community before deciding what path they want to follow.

“The funniest thing that happened was literally the first day she was there, I had a keyboard in my house, just an electric keyboard,” Shaw recalls. “When my daughter was sleeping, Rosanna just whipped out the keyboard and just started playing hymns and singing on the electric keyboard. I was like, ‘What is going on?’”

Once Shaw understood how much exposure Rumspringa can bring, her curiosity only grew. She started asking Rosanna more about what it was like — and couldn’t help laughing at how different their experiences sounded.

“She told me a bit about hers, and I was like, ‘Girl, I can’t relate to you. I think you’ve done more things than I have,’” Shaw says with a laugh.