Ex-nanny details Kate Gosselin's strict, literal 'rule book'

By now, few people would be surprised to learn that former TV star Kate Gosselin is a little, ahem, strict with her children. But as a former nanny recently revealed, that demanding behavior extends to the Gosselin family's employees, as illustrated in an employee manual that "illustrated her pet peeves."

The unnamed ex-nanny goes on to detail Kate's rules, which include vacuuming only at certain times of day, not slamming doors, and "not putting anything on the ground." And, on top of that, the nanny told E! in an exclusive, by the time 9 pm rolled around, "everything was done."

Before everything stopped at 9 pm, though, the nanny says that her list of duties for any given day would run the gamut from regular cleaning tasks to more social ones, including "eavesdropping when the kids would talk to their father, Jon Gosselin."

As per the ex-nanny's interview:

"When Jon called the kids on the phone, Kate said to us nannies, 'You are Kate, so always listen in on the phone calls,'" she recalled how her former boss would want the nannies to put themselves in her shoes and do as she would.

"We always had to keep an ear and eye on what was going on. Kate would say she had no problem with the kids having a relationship with Jon, but it always felt like a façade to me." 

And then, of course, there are the childrearing horror stories that much of public has come to expect the mention of the Gosselin name. Those horrors, from the former nanny's perspective, included pulling weeds as punishment, and being denied the treat of a gingerbread house they had made.

However, it was a particular spanking incident that caused the nanny to abandon her position with the Gosselin family:

The nanny said that she ultimately quit after witnessing certain behavior she was uncomfortable with, such as Kate spanking son Colin—whom she described as the "busiest" of the eight kids and the one most often in trouble—with a plastic spoon in front of his brothers and sisters. 

Still, though despite the apparent poor home environment, the Gosselin kids reportedly loved to watch Jon & Kate Plus 8, calling it "mommy and daddy's show."

[

» READ MORE: E!

]