She had style, she had flair, she was there
2. If you can afford a nanny, get a nanny. If you can't afford a nanny yet, consider waiting to have kids until you can. If you're the typical person who isn't sure if he or she wants kids, you're well-educated and have good income potential. So if you can't afford a nanny yet, you'll be able to soon enough.
3. Don't let American prejudice against live-in nannies influence you: Live-in nannies mean you can sleep in, stay out, and get a break when you need one. Your best bet is to get a mature woman to bond with your kids when they're infants, and keep her happy. A little respect goes a long way.
Indeed. I think
I'll leave any further commentary about this advice for the blogosphere
conservatives to write, especially the analysis of various methods of
how hiring nannies could be made more affordable for the busy upper
class aspirants of America. Hey, perhaps if the nanny wasn't live-in
but took a daily two-hour bus trip from... wherever heck it is that she
lives in to their employer's house, then she would also have plenty of
time to think of witty one-liners and this way lighten up the family
life, as The Onion once suggested. Somebody could eventually make a hit sitcom out of this.
I recently read Suzanne Hansen's book "You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again : The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny", in which the author tells us about her stint as a nanny for the Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz.
The book was published in 2003, but the events depicted in it must have
been from the late eighties, even though the book goes to great lengths
to avoid fixing the events in time so that it would feel more
contemporary. At the end of the book it shows its age when the narrator
goes to work for Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito, who is currently
filming Twins. (Perhaps it showed its age earlier when the Ovitz kid
was wearing a snowsuit that cost $40.)
So the obvious question
would be why write this book after all these years, especially when I
read this book, the main impression that I got was that the author
really didn't have a book inside her so she just had to put lots of
words in a sequence and try to create some kind of drama by describing
the various events of her life that she went through, elevating each
one of them into a little dramatic crisis. But at least the publisher
of this book has done a great job in (re?)packaging it in the current
"devil wears prada" and what else have you "chick lit" style. (My yes,
the cover of this book looks exactly the way that you would guess, as do the blurbs in the back cover.)
Inside
the book, the author tries to do the schtick of an innocent small-town
girl amazed of how geewhiz golly those rich people sure are different
and pampered and they don't know anything about the real world
and the problems of ordinary people. (Halfway through the book, I
started to look forward to Daddy Warbucks showing up to rescue our
heroine, but I guess that Danny DeVito fits this bill.) Now, in case
somebody actually didn't know this, the whole point
of having more money is precisely to be able to avoid the stupid
everyday problems that the ordinary people are forced to endure and
tolerate. For all the complaints that the author mutters about how the
rich people just don't understand real life, there are billions of poor
people around the world who could similarly envy and complain about her
easy life. "She actually thinks that she is entitled to get clean water
whenever she wants, just by turning on the tap! How... pampered!"
As
I read through the book, I didn't quite understand from the author's
narration how exactly Michael Ovitz and his wife were supposed to be
bad people. Sure, they didn't pay her (or anybody else) more than the
fair free market price for their services, even though they could have
easily afforded to pay more. Maybe it's just me, but I just don't see
how that is a moral failing. Or collecting expensive art and this way
keeping all kinds of otherwise useless people in the art community off
the welfare rolls.
Most of all, the author just doesn't seem to
comprehend that if somebody's time is worth several thousands of
dollars an hour, the way that they do everything and what they even
bother to do, remember and pay attention to in the first place is
necessarily totally different compared to the people whose time is
worth ten bucks an hour. Mr. Ovitz probably knows a thing or two about
getting the best possible deals, so it makes sense to assume that he
would follow this principle in his civilian life. Just like anybody
else would do, if they held similar money and power.
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