|
Note: this obviously
is an example of the vast divide between the wealthy and the middle and lower
classes, but another example of the Upstairs/Downstairs culture we may be
recreating. KwC Taking Superparents in Hand These days Ms. Cavezza, 37, does a similar job for a family
in Palo Alto, Calif., making her employers' travel plans, helping organize the
slide shows that the mother, a liver transplant doctor, delivers at medical
conferences and picking out fixtures and wallpaper for the spec homes built by
the husband, also a developer. Come evening, if she has any time and energy
left, she helps their 7-year-old with her homework. "I did start out nannying, and I wouldn't want the job
without the kid," Ms. Cavezza said. But she has outgrown the traditional
role, she said, noting, "If you can do a good job with children, nothing
frazzles you." Being a nanny once provided little chance for career
advancement. But as
affluent employers have faced growing demands on their own time, many nannies
are starting to oversee the parents' lives as diligently as they do (or once
did) the children's. And some now say their work has almost as much potential
for career development as that of the doctors, lawyers and bankers they work for. For such nannies, gone are the days
when they just fed their charges, took them to the park, gave them baths and
then moved on to new households when the children no longer needed constant
supervision. Their job
descriptions have expanded to include household management and even personal
assistant duties. Kelli Gabriel, a Washington financial consultant, hired
Myrna Alphonse in 2002, not just to take care of her five children but to run
her household while she and her husband, also a financial consultant, were working 10-hour days with long commutes. Ms. Gabriel had employed nannies
before, but she had never considered paying anything close to the $75,000 annual salary Ms. Alphonse asked for. But on meeting
Ms. Alphonse, who is taking a master's degree in psychology and who presented
herself as capable of a lot more than baby-sitting, Ms. Gabriel began to think
that the price might be reasonable.
"After I listened to her," she said, "I thought, 'Can we
afford not to hire her?' " In addition to taking care of Ms. Gabriel's children, who
are 6 to 15, Ms. Alphonse, 33, now oversees the landscaper working at the family's home in McLean, Va.,
and the menu
planning of a chef
who delivers a week's worth of meals at a time. She took charge of the
renovation of the family's eight-bedroom house last year, coordinating the work
of interior decorators and construction crews to minimize the disruption of the
children's lives. She meets regularly with the psychologist for one child, who
has attention deficit disorder. All
this while Ms. Gabriel and her husband are separating. "She's a surrogate
me during the day," Ms. Gabriel said. "I feel very blessed to have
her in my life right now. She's the one constant we do have." Clifford Greenhouse, the president of the Pavillion
employment agency in Manhattan, estimated that at least 10 percent of the
personal assistants he places started as nannies, significantly more than a few
years ago. He sees the transition as a natural one. "I often refer to nannies as personal assistants for
kids, because they're so involved in scheduling and shuttling and party
planning for the children," he said. "As the children grow older it's
natural that nannies, instead of buying all the presents for the children's
birthday parties, are asked to get reservations at local eateries and
coordinate travel logistics for the parents." And as children grow out of the need for child care, many
nannies are looking for ways to remain useful to their employers. Although they are often seen as members of
the family, American nannies have rarely enjoyed the lifetime employment that
European aristocrats once offered their nannies, who took care of the children
and then the children's children. In this country, nannies who hope to stay on
have to prove that they are providing something besides years of loyalty and
good will. "The nanny has to be a real motivated
self-starter," said Charles MacPherson, the vice chairman of the
International Guild of Professional Butlers, which has its headquarters in New
York. Mr. MacPherson will be delivering an address at the annual convention of
the National Association of Nannies in September in Boston, offering strategies
to help nannies extend their employment once children grow up. "It's shocking how many nannies don't drive," Mr.
MacPherson said. "Then there's being able to e-mail on behalf of the
employer, deal with trades, research things on the Internet, type a letter,
maybe pay bills on behalf of the employer. They're adding value. They don't
understand that. They're generally in the passive role, being told what to
do." But other nannies have all the training and motivation they
need to transcend the traditional limits of the job. Kristen Kanoski, the
president of the National Association of Nannies and a nanny herself, said it
is increasingly common for members of her organization to have college and even
advanced degrees. Many families now want "someone more professional, who
knows child development and child psychology" and is capable of running
the household, she said. With the added responsibilities has come an elevation of the
sense of the value of the job, among nannies as well as their employers. Glenda
Propst, whose job has evolved from nanny to household manager in the 12 years
that she has worked for a St. Louis family, found the work too satisfying to
give up, even after she married the owner of a fuel company and no longer
needed the paycheck. Like many nannies who have moved beyond their original
roles, she credits the mother of the family, a lawyer, as an inspiration. "Through both of my employers, especially the female,
I've learned how to manage my time, to be more efficient and organized,"
she said, adding that her new time management skills make it possible both to
work and to devote time to her husband, the first man in her life to realize
how important the job is to her. She
said she is also happy with the respect her employers give her, and the way
they share responsibility for the household. "They're extremely hands-on
with the children," she said. "That's the only way I want it. I don't
want to be a paid parent. I want to be a partner." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/16/garden/16nanny.html?8dpc |
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
