Tasha Blaine completed her MFA at New York University. She spent several years researching and interviewing nannies, at their work and in their homes.
Tasha was born and raised in New York City and now lives in California with her husband and their two daughters.
Author Interview
How did you end up writing about nannies? What first drew you to the topic?
In my early 30s, I realized I had spent the past decade of my life in office jobs I didn’t like just to pay my bills. To make matters worse, I wasn’t even doing what I loved in my free time, which was writing. Growing up, I had always written fiction. I had an MFA in fiction writing from New York University, but somewhere along the line I had stopped writing. I naively thought I could get a lower stress job as a nanny, one that would be fun and that I could leave behind at the end of the day, so I’d have more time to write. I was completely wrong. Working as a nanny is a tough job. You have to give a lot of yourself emotionally and physically to do it right.
While being a nanny wasn’t right for me, I was completely drawn to the other women who did it. I had landed in a whole new world. Every nanny I met had at least one dramatic story to tell of heartbreak or abuse. One woman was chased through her employer’s apartment when the father got drunk and flew into a rage because she forgot to buy bread. Instead of leaving the job immediately, she stayed because she loved the child and wanted to protect him. I quickly learned that this kind of sacrifice was typical among nannies. Not many jobs out there have love as one of the main requirements. If every American family is uniquely dysfunctional and complicated, then so is every American family’s relationship with its nanny. Once I started talking to nannies, I couldn’t stop. It was just too fascinating.
How did you go from nanny to reporter?
After I left my brief job as a nanny, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a story to be told. I went through piles of newspaper and magazine stories and read a few books on the topic. With a few exceptions, there was very little that addressed the nannies’ point of view. At the same time, I saw a lot of parental anxiety in what I read. What is our nanny really thinking? parents wondered. By exclusively presenting nannies’ point of view, it was my goal to give these caregivers a voice while also providing a keyhole for parents into a world they never really enter but always speculate about.
How did you choose the women you ended up profiling, Vivian, Kim and Claudia?
In the United States, nannies are a diverse bunch and so are the places where they work. I chose Kim, Vivian and Claudia because taken as a whole, they represent the broader nanny community: immigrant and American-born, college educated and high school dropout, live-in and live-out and, most importantly, women who chose the work as a career and ones who are doing it because they have families to support in their home countries. They also worked in different parts of the United States: New York, Massachusetts and Texas.
On a more personal level, I almost felt like we chose each other. Claudia seemed trapped and sad, but also proud, loving and hopeful. I was moved by the sacrifices she had made as an immigrant living in Brooklyn, sending money home to her family in Dominica, including her 18-year-old son, whom she left behind when he was just a few months old. Vivian was the polar opposite. Her passion for the job was infectious, and while she was totally in control of every part of her boys’ lives, her love for them felt just a bit out of control and over the top. Ironically, Kim’s work situation was the most dramatic, but she struck me as the one truly born to do the job. She was the most adept at skating the line of loving children like her own while knowing they weren’t.
You bring up love a lot. Is it possible to buy love for a child?
Any nanny will tell you that she doesn’t get paid enough to do what she does. The ones who choose it as a profession are in it for the love, and that’s often why they stay even when the job isn’t right. While nannies are paid to care for children, the love comes naturally and organically. Even nannies who don’t necessarily choose it as their profession fall in love with the children. Claudia struggled daily with her desire to do something else with her life, but I have no doubt she loved those kids. She laughed about them and bragged about them like they were her own. Telling me stories about them, her expression was the same as a parent’s, smile wide, eyes bright.
Vivian was paid on the books with health benefits and other perks. Claudia was paid off the books with no benefits. Do you think the difference affected their work performance?
In a way, yes. When I first told Claudia I was writing about professional nannies, she was shocked. She didn’t even know they existed. “Why would anyone who was white and went to college want to be a nanny?” she asked. Claudia was constantly down on herself for being a nanny not just because she was bored with the work but also because it held so little status. If the job had more structure, if she had health care and Social Security benefits, and if the job was more valued in the larger society, I think Claudia would have been more motivated.
What can parents do to foster a positive relationship with their nanny?
It sounds pretty basic, but make sure you communicate. A lot of nannies aren’t very straightforward and a lot of parents, especially ones who come from middle class backgrounds who didn’t grow up navigating domestic relationships, don’t always know how to treat nannies. If I had to sum it up, I’d say a nanny wants to be treated as a good friend who is vital to your family but also a respected employee. I’d tell parents to outline either verbally or in a contract as many details about the job as they can think of at the start: from regular work hours to overtime pay; from what cleaning is expected to television rules for the kids.
As the job progresses, it’s very important to address things as they come up and not let them linger. What might seem minor to a parent-say, getting home 10 minutes late every night-can loom large for a nanny because she feels taken advantage of. I honestly believe that if parents and nannies talked to each other openly, the relationship would be a lot less fraught. Also, make sure you are paying your nanny the going rate in your area and if you can’t afford it alone, try to look for another family to share a nanny, or consider day care. A lot of nannies told me their employers wouldn’t give them a raise but then went out and bought an $800 Bugaboo stroller or took an expensive vacation. Nannies are keeping track of those contradictions. What you might consider vital to your lifestyle could seem like a luxury to a nanny, especially if she’s scraping to pay her rent every month.
What is the biggest mistake parents make with nannies?
There is no one mistake, but lots of nannies told me the same story. When they started with a family, they were told they were just like family, but later they found out they weren’t. Vivian, for example, was devastated when she wasn’t asked to watch her boys’ receive hockey trophies and Kim was deeply insulted when she was invited to a weekend party as a guest only to be put straight to work. I think parents underestimate how involved nannies get emotionally, and if they are treated like family one minute but like an employee the next, it can feel confusing and hurtful.
What is the most rewarding part of being a nanny?
Hands down, it’s about the kids. When I talked to Kim, I often asked her if she felt isolated because she didn’t have play dates and didn’t hang out with other nannies while she was at work. The answer was always, “No. Why would I? It’s my job.” She had a singular focus: the baby. She loved the way a baby felt in her arms, the way his head smelled. She loved watching a baby grow into a toddler and then into a child, knowing she had a hand in the transformation. Kim knew that a lot of people thought she just did domestic work but to her it was a gift. She got to witness life itself.
How did researching the book affect your own life as a mother?
When I started this book, I was recently married with no children of my own. By the time I was done, I had two young girls. The truth is I couldn’t afford a full-time nanny, although there were times when I wished I could. After a few part-time babysitters, including my sister, I put my first daughter in day care at about a year old. This is where my experience became invaluable. I knew something was wrong with my daughter’s first day care, but initially I didn’t trust my instincts. When I tried to talk to the caregivers, they gave me blank stares or one-word answers. At pickup time, my daughter was strapped into a swing they hadn’t bothered to turn on with a pacifier popped into her mouth. She was zoned out and exhausted. While her face was red and tear-stained, the women in the day care told me she hadn’t cried at all. I would rather hear that my daughter had cried on and off all day than an obvious lie. I couldn’t trust them.
On her second day, I tried to spy on them at the playground before picking her up, and then I remembered discussions I had had with Vivian and Kim about nanny cams. “If you think you need a nanny cam,” they both said, “then there is something wrong with the situation so you may as well not bother getting one anyway.” I decided to trust my instincts and after three days, I put my daughter in another day care that I was very happy with.
After having children, I truly understood just how vulnerable parents are when it comes to childcare. It’s the scariest feeling in the world the first time you leave your child in someone else’s hands. At the same time, I was even more mystified that there are nannies out there who are underpaid, overworked and underappreciated. I guess you could say I see both sides of the story now.
