At last, a novel about modern nannying written from the nanny's point of view. What took them so long?
The Nanny Diaries by Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin (Penguin, 6.99) has been having a good airing in the newspapers and other media with its publication this month, and you'll be hearing a lot more about it when it gets made into a movie - the film rights have already been sold to Miramax. Be forewarned that it's not necessarily about nannying as we know it in the UK, as the authors are Americans creating a fictional tale out of their own experiences of working for wealthy families in New York while they were university students. Still, the characters and situations in the book are bound to ring true for nannies and au pairs everywhere.
Nannies may feel they have found their very own Bridget Jones in the book's heroine (no doubt why the word 'diaries' was chosen for the title). But the humour is more 'Absolutely Fabulous', as is the outrageous character who will loom much larger than the nanny in any film version - move over Nanny from Hell, it's the Mother from Hell.
This is the mother who knows her Gucci and Prada better than her Sesame Street and Teletubbies, who crams a social calendar full of 'play dates'
for the child she never plays with herself, who runs the child's and the nanny's lives at a distance by means of mobile phone and notes ending with PS and PPS. Nan, or Nanny, as the book's heroine is called, sees herself as just one of a cast of servants providing 'twenty-four/seven "me time" to a woman who neither works nor mothers. And her days remain a mystery to us all.'
A recurring type of family that many nannies will recognise is nailed hilariously in a more general introduction before the story begins. This describes the typical interview with the future employer who is 'looking for answers which will confirm that I am not there to steal her husband, jewellery, friends or child. In that order.' Nanny thinks, 'She wants to know why, if I'm so fabulous, I would want to take care of her child. I mean, she gave birth to it and she doesn't want to do it, so why would I?'
Nanny suspects that what she is really there to protect is not the child but the immaculate luxury home, stocked with 'more types of cleaning fluid than I knew there were types of dirt', when the mother invariably mentions that the child really 'prefers' to play in his room. As Nanny says, 'If there were any justice in the world this is the point when all nannies should be given roadblocks and a stun gun.'
The kitchen is the most revealing place on this initial tour of the luxury apartment. The pantry reveals 'an Armageddon-ready level of storage, as if the city were in perpetual danger of being looted by a roving band of insanely health-conscious five-year-olds.' The fridge 'is always bursting with tons of meticulously chopped fresh fruit separated into Tupperware bowls and at least two packs of fresh cheese tortellini that her child prefers without sauce (meaning there is never any in the house for me, either).' Nosing around, however, Nanny discovers that 'the freezer is stocked with Mommy's dirty little secret: chicken nuggets and popsicles.'
She knows this means 'they are able to feed him this crap in good conscience on the weekends because I will be cooking him four-course macrobiotic meals on the weeknights.'
Then there is The List for the child's diet - 'allergic to dairy' - 'allergic to peanuts' - 'sandwiches must be cut in quarters and have NO crusts' - 'he won't eat anything starting with the letter M', as well as The Rules, such as 'All juice is to be watered down and drunk out of a sip glass over the sink or in the bathtub (preferably until the child is 18)'
and 'Actually, if you could get Lucien naked before eating and then hose her down afterward, that would be perfect.'
And there is the well-stocked bookshelf which the mother relies on for her jargon-laden and purely theoretical knowledge of parenting, with titles like 'They're Your Breasts Too: The New Wet Nurse Guide', 'Making the Most of Your Four-Year-Old' and 'Taking the Bite out of Teething'.
It's in this sort of atmosphere that Nanny goes to work for a mother called Mrs X, looking after her four-year-old son who somehow manages to stay innocent and unspoiled. Mrs X lures Nanny into her clutches at first by giving her designer cast-offs, but soon has her running around on errands for a lifestyle so lavish she can't fit it all in herself, while she stingily pays Nanny too late and too little (sound familiar?). Mrs X, of course, thinks her time is more important than anyone else's, demanding to-the-minute punctuality from Nanny while always getting home late herself, and even expecting Nanny to miss her graduation ceremony to go on holiday with the family.
Before she knows it, Nanny finds the job beginning to intrude on her personal life at the speed of a galloping thoroughbred. It's not just Mrs X, but the rarely-seen husband and his mistress, the bribes Nanny is offered to keep his affairs quiet, and a tell-tale pair of panties left behind.
What keeps Nanny going is the love she develops for the poor little rich boy in her charge. The tender relationship between her and the child provides the necessary balance against the selfishness of his parents. The other saving graces are Nanny's supportive mom and grandma, her flatmates, a stiff drink after work, and, for romantic interest, the dreamboat student - her 'Harvard Hottie' - from a neighbouring penthouse.
But what it's really all about is pulling the wraps off the kind of employers who hire 'problem consultants' to sack their domestic staff. As Nanny says, discovering that she's been underpaid, 'I am your own personal sweatshop! You've got a handbag, a mink and a sweatshop!' Nanny finally tries to get her own back, in a climax that will prompt any nanny who's ever worried about being spied on to stand up and cheer. 'There's been a lot of "confusion", so let me make this perfectly clear for you: this job - that's right, j-o-b, job - that I've been doing is hard work. Raising your child is hard work! Which you would know if you ever did it for more than five minutes at a time!'
The book's American setting should cause no problems for UK readers - just remember that even university students there say they're going to 'school', and 'pants' are trousers. And while this form of childcare is a relatively new trend in America, where hiring a British nanny is the ultimate status symbol, this book should kill off Hollywood ideas of Mary Poppins once and for all. The one thing the heroine has in common with the Julie Andrews character is her attempt to get parents to spend more time with their offspring. The message is the same: love children and respect childcarers.
If The Nanny Diaries becomes a hit, the one drawback will be that it reinforces the idea in the public's mind that nannies only work for rich families, and have a remote and servile relationship with their employers.
It does nothing to spread awareness of the changing role of nannies today, and the enormous need for childcare by honest-to-goodness working mothers.
But hey, you gotta laugh, eh?
