This woman hires a nanny so she can write about the tense triad of mom-kid-nanny??????

More rich white woman angst, eh, Joan?

I have an idea. Let's try to keep the ratio of stories about the parenting issues of rich people equal to the ratio of those people to the general population. I realize most working and middle-class parents are too busy being parents to write about it, but there are these people called "reporters" who actually go out and talk to people who aren't in their social circle! You might want to look into that.

It would be so disgustingly funny if it weren't so pathetically tragic. I hope all these 'high achieving' mothers (and fathers) enjoy their old age in the nursing home- you're not there for your kid's childhood, expect them to be there for your decrepitude? Those twice-a-year, high price vacations to Harbour Island or Provence (and no doubt the nanny was along to take care of the kid) ain't going to amount to a hill of beans when you're old and lonely and lying in your nursing home bed wondering 'why don't my kids visit me?' Of course their 'high achieving' but alienated children will be repeating the whole thing for another generation. You reap what you sow. But hey, Kaylin has the great and meaningful achievment of her name on the Marie Claire masthead! Was it worth the trade for your kid's childhood? Thinking that giving your 5 year-old the latest iPod, iPhone, Xbox, exclusive kindergarten pedigree and weekend in Paris will make up for the damage done is tragically misguided.

Why would you:

A. Have a kid you didn't want to raise yourself?

B. Hire a stranger to take care of your child?

This of course is excepting all those that DON'T have the financial freedom to make such choices.

(full disclosure: We had a kid, I quit my job, we moved to a crappy apartment and I raise my kid myself full time. Why? Because he's our child and it is our responsibility and joy to raise him. If we didn't feel this way, we wouldn't have had a kid.)

"Let's try to keep the ratio of stories about the parenting issues of rich people equal to the ratio of those people to the general population."

Really, how many working parents can afford to even think about hiring nannies? It's sort of like thinking about the crushing dilemma about which vacation destination to fly to with the private jet.

So I totally agree with the previous writer's plea.

But, sadly, it ain't gonna happen. Non-rich parents aren't the targeted consumers here.

From my own vantage point in the playground, as a nanny-free mother (full disclosure), I too often see the way nannies are subltly dehumanized by their employers. My least favorite scenes are the ones where the nanny and child(ren) are accompanied by the parent who wordlessly hands the nanny dirty diapers or other garbage without making eye contact and chatters away to friends/acquaintances without ever making an introduction. I don't think there is anything wrong with hiring someone to help you with childcare but please, people, don't forget that nannies are people with lives (and usually children of their own they want to get home to at the end of the day!).

I couldn't help but notice that Bess and Lynn's nanny remained nameless in the introduction to the review of Kaylin's book (though raced). That irritated me long before anything else.

What's the difference between a nanny and a babysitter?

I can't speak for anyone else but I am annoyed by these articles because I think the use of the term "nanny" is pretentious and indicative of a certain distasteful, bourgeious mindset.

Real nannies make $30k or more a year, have degrees in early childhood education, wear uniforms, and work for ultrarich families. Almost everyone else has a babysitter taking care of their kids. Paris Hilton had a nanny. Your rugrats have a babysitter. Live with it. It should be easy when you see what little good it does rich folks to use a real nanny.

...I can't see, for the life of me, how this book covers any new or different territory than the countless mommy war-type tomes littering the bookshelves for the past 5 years.

It seems to me the fundamental conflicts are these:

a. women whether working outside the home or not continue to be stuck with the majority of child rearing. Though raising your child is obviously rewarding, the lack of adult interaction, being out of the flow of economy and culture, not contributing to your brain bank or actual bank in a meaningul way is bound to have a negative impact on self-esteem, feelings of parity in the marriage, and a sense of self-actualization. The answer is simple - men have to take up more of the child-rearing burden. This means in turn that they demand - and take- more down time from employers, make room for immigrants and women who will rush to fill the gap they leave, and have a generally lower income and standard of living than the status quo provides. Understandably, men don't really want to do this. And many wives/mothers don't want to make these standard of living sacrifices either.

b. lacking (a), you can go the nanny route, w hich places mothers in a an interesting hypocritical position - they want the nanny to love the child as much as the mother loves the child (or at the ver least, care for and interact withe the child *as if* they do) but they don't want the child to love the nanny as much as the mother. So here is this person that is in many ways the most important in the mother's and child's life, and her feelings about the family are supposed to be 'organic' (e.g. ignoring that she is just, after all, doing a job)...but when and if emotional scales start tipping towards nanny vs. mom she's supposed to retreat to 'it's just a job' land. An impossible task.

Mothers can always choose to behave and believe as if there is no conflict in them wanting an adult life in addiiton to being a mommy. Have a nanny in for a couple of days a week, thank God you're blessed enough to have this option, and toil away at the adult endeavors that keep you a sane and balanced adult who is then better equipped to be a sane and balanced wife and mother. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill. You can afford a nanny- that's a good thing, a lucky thing. Why not make the most of it instead of making a big fricking issue out of it?

I think this is a woman thing. My boyfriend raised his daughter as a stay-at-home dad from infancy until age 3. He had a nanny come in 3 afternoons a week so he could do things like pay bills, work out, do household repairs, do errands, go on a 4 hour bike ride, have an afternoon date, or just read a book. No guilt, only glee. His attitude has always struck me as eminently sensible. I can't imagine him trying to wring enough angst out of the situation to fill the pages of a book. I'm wondering why Harris and other reviewers of books like these - books that trot out the same tired tropes with no new spin or even sprinkles on the (non) issue, can't seem to approach their reviews with the same lifted eyebrow.