PRE-SCHOOL'D

I swear I’m still crowning when a friend asks me where I’m going to apply to Pre-School. She’s just put her kid on the list for Sunshine, Sunlight, Sunstroke, I can’t remember the name, but apparently it is THE school in LA. The same parents who want their toddlers to go to Pre-Schools that boast independent thinking as part of the curriculum, have to go to THE haircutter, THE pediatrician, THE baby store. So it comes as no surprise that Angelenos want their kids to go to THE Pre-School.

“You know,” my friend warns not moments after I’ve been stitched up and introduced to my 4- second old child, “Fetus’ are turned down for applying too late.”

I know Pre-School is a big deal. I want my now 5-second old child to go having always had fond memories of my own Pre-School experience, but I guess I thought I had a few months, even longer before worrying if he’s going to get into THE school so he can learn to sit in a circle without picking his nose. But I live in LA where being competitive is a competition. It’s never too early to start thinking and worrying about your child’s future and how you’ve ruined it. So with a child not yet days old, my Pre-School panic attack begins.

I talk to friends who have been through the process with their own children. Each suggests I go see Claire Duncan Hayes, Los Angeles’ Pre-School Guru. So I make the drive across town to her Pre-School Workshop. She’s helpful, informative, and frank.

After some introductions, Claire gets down to the real reason we’re all here. We want to know how to get our kid into Sunshine, Sunlight, or Sunstroke. We want to know how to get into THE school that can start our children’s futures off right.

“You” she says without looking up, “You, the Jew from the entertainment business whose kid has a weird name.” she continues again without looking up. No one answers.

That’s all of us, I offer.

“Exactly,” she says. “LA is about as diverse as Buckingham Palace. These schools want someone who adds something different to the experience. None of you are getting in,” she says without apology. “Unless…” she says while looking around the room. “Unless you can stand out.”

Claire spends the next 20 minutes talking about diversity, which is the LA Pre-School buzzword. In addition to “independent thinking,” schools in Los Angeles boast diversity. It makes parents feel better about the fact that while they want their kids exposed to different types of people, they don’t want to live near them.

Suddenly, I hate being white. Worse, Jewish. Where I grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco, being Jewish was by definition diverse, but now I’m just another one of many families going to temple twice a year in between trying to balance making it in the entertainment biz and raising our oddly named children.

Then I realize just how much competition in the form of diversity this town has to offer. At the park, there are the two Moms who adopted a Laotian amputee last year on their way back from vacationing in Thailand. They can write their own ticket. There’s that damned single Dad I met at the pediatrician’s office fulfilling his dying sister’s wish to raise her child. No question there. And of course there’s the Rwandan family I met at Whole Foods who were airlifted out of their war torn homeland, brought to LA where the father happened on a winning Lotto ticket and claimed his 30 million dollars before the interpreter could even translate “You just won the lottery.” They’re rich, they’re African, and they’re in.

Damned double threats, I think to myself as Claire Duncan Hayes continues her lecture on why my son is never going to Pre-School.

And then it happens. There’s an infiltrator in what was otherwise a safe workshop filled with other families whose children’s lives are over. Diversity has exposed itself and is sitting to my left.

Just as Claire is about to go through the list of the city’s best and worst schools, the woman sitting to my left raises her hand. She and I had chatted over the cookie buffet and I learned that she lives in my neighborhood and has a boy born the day before my son.

She and I could totally be friends I think to myself before taking another Stella Doro.

But when she raises her hand and coyly asks, “Um Claire?” Claire responds yes without looking up. “What about cancer? Does that make you diverse?”

The whole room falls silent. For the first time in 3 hours, Claire makes eye contact.

“You have cancer?” Claire asks, “How wonderful!”

“And I’m pregnant,” the girl smugly adds.

“Even better,” says Claire as the rest of the participants murmur things like, “You’re so lucky!” “She’s totally getting in,” and “Nothing good ever happens to me!”

Pregnant with cancer sits gloating while writing down Claire Duncan Hayes’ suggestions for how to handle the interview process. The first being: “Don’t wear your wig to your interview.”

I can’t compete with illness or pregnancy, I lament. But I definitely can’t compete with a young Mom of two with no hair! Suddenly, I hate my hair too, one more thing about me that’s keeping my son from fulfilling his dreams.

One of the ten Jewish agents in the room raises his hand asking, “What can you do if you’re not diverse?”

Claire thinks for a second and then offers, “It’s all about what you are and who you know. So if you’re not someone special, start sucking up to your friends who are. They can help get you in.”

So that’s my angle. I may not be diverse but I am someone special. I’m my son’s Mom, I’ll always be special to him. If my kid can’t go to THE school because there are only two openings and I’m not from a remote village in Uzbekistan, well I suppose he’ll be okay. After all, I’m a Jewish kid who went to a Presbyterian Co-op Pre-School. My Mom volunteered for the day in order to offset the cost and I collected worms in the playground during outside time. I loved the worms, I loved seeing my Mom, and I loved my school, which wasn’t THE school. It was just a school.

So I decide to stop resenting all those who are diverse figuring that each Rwandan or cancer victim would pay their lotto winnings to trade places with me, my biggest worry being will my kid get into THE school, their biggest worries being far more life altering. My kid will go where he gets in, hopefully somewhere that teaches diversity and independent thinking. Regardless, he’ll still pick his nose, still have a hard time sitting in a circle, and still think is Mom is the most special person around.

BLEEDING HEART

Phone conversations with my Dad are short. His conversation style can best be described as concise. Full sentences are often composed solely of the words “Huh?” or “What?” And while he rarely utters the words, “How are you?” he’ll always ask, “How’s the weather?” This presents a problem for me living in Los Angeles where discussions of the weather are, in a word, redundant.

It’s fine Dad, 80 degrees and sunny.

He’s also interested in politics, his in particular. Conversations with Dad consist of 20, 30-minute political monologues I stop listening to one minute in. To say Dad is conservative in his beliefs would be an understatement. Phone calls with him often leave me wondering if “close minded” should be the Third Party.

Dad and I have been disagreeing about politics for years, decades in fact since I moved to 80 degree Los Angeles from my native suburban San Francisco. We’ve been having the same conversation for so long that I take great comfort in the repetition. I’ll remember I haven’t called in a while and pick up the phone. Dad will answer, sound cautiously happy to hear my voice, the caution only released when he realizes I haven’t called to ask for money.

Quickly, we’ll pass over the weather in favor of politics. He’ll say something ridiculously conservative, maybe blaming the world’s problems on some minority group, referring to said group with a derogatory Yiddish slur. I’ll call him Archie Bunker while reminding him we don’t live in the dark ages, he’ll call me a bleeding heart liberal, and I’ll respond with a simple, “Thank you” knowing full well he didn’t mean it as a compliment.

I find the routine of it all reassuring. In a world where there is little to count on, I know that Dad and I can have the same disagreement about politics and the state of the world no matter who’s running the country; or in Dad’s point of view, no matter who’s ruining it.

But lately, a funny thing has happened to my Dad. At 76 he’s turned, how can I put this delicately, open-minded. I figure my Mom’s been keeping something from me.

Mom, have you been putting Prozac in Dad’s oatmeal? I ask in all seriousness.

“No, but your sisters both just called and asked the same thing,” she replies as if she’s the last person in on a joke.

Well, then what have you done with my Dad? And who was the man on the phone? I ask her imaging my Dad tied up in a chair “9 to 5” style, while being forced to watch large images of Liberals ruining the world.

“Funny,” she says. “Both your sisters just asked that too.”

I give Dad a few more tries, sure that maybe our last few phone calls had been a fluke. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t have the energy to be contrary. I mean surely he knows that children create their own social and political consciousness because of, or in spite of, their parents’. If he’s going to go on and continue listening and discussing, I might have to change my world-view.

After a few more calls I find Dad relatively easy to talk to, even interested. One time, after telling me that he knows how my husband I voted on a certain issue and I respond, “No you don’t because you never asked” he pauses, thinks for a second and then tells me I’m right. I call my Mom again.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY DAD! I ask, but she insists that phone Dad is my Dad and that she hasn’t tampered with the witness.

My relationship with my Dad is analogous to the Homeland Security Advisory System. At various points in my life, we’ve hovered in between Red and Orange, both states of emergency. We’ve gone through periods where we didn’t speak for months to attempts at closeness that usually fail after the first, “What?” or “Huh?”. Over the past few years, we’ve co-existed at a guarded Blue, accepting and agreeing that what we do best is disagree. And we’ve disagreed our way through my 20’s, into my 30’s, through my wedding and the birth of my first child. We’ve disagreed our way into a state of bliss.

But now the man who used to say to his three daughters, “Women and Chinamen should never get behind the wheel,” is considering voting for the first viable African American Presidential candidate. The gung ho 18-year-old who fought in Korea, wept on a recent flight upon seeing two GI’s on their way to Iraq, commenting to my Mom, “I can remember being their age, I know what they’re headed to.” The once die hard Republican, now so disillusioned by a delusional President has been backed into a corner, forced to do the unthinkable, forced either not to vote or to vote for a Democrat, a black Democrat no less. Dad’s been forced to change the way he thinks which has caused me to re-think.

My view of the world, my bleeding heart has been shaped by my Dad’s closed heart. His generalizations on the world, formed in part by his own exposure to the worst of everyone as a kid growing up in the Bronx, caused him to develop a protectionist’s way of thinking. I was never a wild kid, didn’t get piercings or tattoos so I rebelled by being open-minded. Liberalism was my smoking, being a Democrat my teenage pregnancy. But with less to rebel against, I question my own beliefs wondering what I really believe in now that I don’t have to bite my nose to spite my Dad.

Phone calls with my Dad continue to be brief. With so much to agree on, there’s less to talk about. I must say I miss sparring with Dad; the discourse was our connection. But it’s also nice to know that even at 76, an old Dad can learn a new trick. Dad called the other day to tell me he’d re-considered not voting after I “Chewed him out so badly.”

What? I respond.

“I’m going to vote for your guy, just like you said I should,” he says again.

Huh? I say in disbelief.

He repeats himself then asks about the weather.

It’s fine Dad, 80 degrees and sunny, I tell him before looking outside to notice it's actually a cloudy LA day.

Dad and I are at a Low Risk Green. Everything’s fine. Everything's sunny.

TYPE-A

I’m doing time on the Precor. It’s got the TV attached, which passes time and helps distract me from convincing myself that I don’t really mind my side fat and I do really mind being at the gym at the crack of dawn. I used to be a runner back when I used to have young knees that didn’t scream “Oil Can! Oil Can!” like the Tin Man with every step I took. When my knees went into running retirement I decided to make the best of the various cardio options at my gym, each promising they’re the ticket to me being side fat free. And though my knees like the bike, my vagina hates the seat. Walking the treadmill, even at a high speed up a steep incline, is torture for a runner, akin to a sex addict being allowed to look at computer porn without touching the screen. Then there’s the Precor, which aims to replicate steep hills while protecting old knees, all with a TV attached to distract former runners from the reality that all if is boring as shit.

I’m watching the news, flipping between Today, GMA, CNN, hoping that one of their shoulder-length haired hosts will tell me the world isn’t ending. Instead, they’re telling me that the world needs a makeover as they introduce Fall Fashion I’d never wear outside of a library. More, after a commercial break.

CNN’s teaser asks, “Are Your Kids Getting Enough Vitamin D?” I have no idea, I think to myself and gut through the NuvaRing commercial to find out.

I’m not a Type-A parent. I don’t read tons of parenting books since most of my friends do. I pay attention to the news, ask my pediatrician for advice, and read what I need to but not to the point of obsession. So even though I know a lot about kids and Vitamins, I’d hate to find out I won’t get an A in parenting because my kid isn’t getting enough D in his body.

And we’re back.

The Angular Blonde Host is now seated next to a Chubby Expert whose name and credentials I miss, but must know something or CNN wouldn’t put her on. She’s listing the best ways for kids to get enough Vitamin D, fall and winter being D-deficient season since sunlight is the best source. My kid probably gets enough D because we live in sunny LA, but you can only get enough from sunscreen-free sun exposure. This presents a conundrum for thoughtful parents; D-deficiency or skin cancer? Chubby Expert suggests tuna instead of sunlight since it contains a chunk of D.

“Well what about the mercury in tuna?” Blonde and Angular asks.

“Oh, no kid gets mercury poisoning from eating one tuna sandwich everyday,” Chubby and Uninformed replies.

I may not be a Type-A parent, but I also am not a Type-Lobotomized parent. The range of exclusion differs, but most Pediatricians will say that if there’s one thing you shouldn’t give your kid, at least regularly, it’s tuna. It contains boatloads of mercury, which can give you brain damage, which is probably worse than a Vitamin deficiency.

But the Chubby Expert has just told millions of parents that a sandwich a day is okay.

With 24 minutes left on my replicated hill climb, I write and re-write my in-my-head letter to CNN admonishing them for putting someone on the news so clearly uninformed. But I sound as moronic as the Chubby Expert with a letter that begins with the line, “ I don’t know her name or where she was from, but you had an expert on who was no expert.” CNN dodges a bullet, my letter writing campaign aborted before Letter #1.

During the commercial for Adult Diapers, I wonder what else is on the news that isn’t partially or at all correct. I wonder how many Experts are no expert at all.

As a parent, you get a lot of grief, even being referred to as “one of those parents,” if you’re perceived as being Type-A. “Our Moms drank, smoked, and didn’t use car seats and we turned out fine,” is a sentiment often touted by those without children or those with children who like to think of themselves as having a relaxed attitude. Since they didn’t die from their Mom’s one-a-day martini habit, they’re sure their kid won’t die from a little funky tuna.

I think about parents who don’t have access to good care or good information. I think about how many parents rely on the CNN’s of the world to be their experts. One basically needs to be some sort of science expert to keep up with all the paint and plastic recalls that are found everyday in children’s products, not to mention the stuff in their food. And while maybe some of us turned out just fine lighting Mom’s Marlboros or holding the steering wheel while she picked the olive out of her glass, maybe some didn’t turn out just fine. They’re not here to tell us.

Its great to be relaxed, better to be informed. And since the Experts aren’t so expert, it’s not so bad to be a Type-A parent if that means you can watch the news and know the difference between an Expert and a Time Filler. So while I’ll try to keep up, I think the best solution is not to take any expert at face value. You can do your own research without becoming obsessed and you should be able to do your own research without friends and family accusing you of “being one of those….”

And if all else fails, turn off the TV, get off the machine, and get back in your car. 6 am is way too early to have to be an Expert.

KID FRIENDLY

It’s Sunday, my son and I are at The Grove watching the choreographed water show. He’s in his stroller, tush dancing to “Celebration.” If Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, The Grove is the kid friendliest. At the Concierge desk, the childless can probably rent a stroller just to feel at one with the masses of shoulder length haired MILF’s pushing their Orbits and Bugaboos through the wide, flat streets that pave the way to retail heaven. The Grove is Los Angeles’ answer to Middle America, a fake sense of community with pristine streets and a choo-choo train. On particularly Middle American days, the MILFs make eye contact with the other stroller pushers. On holidays, they say “hello”, even if they’ve never met. The Grove isn’t just kid friendly, it’s friendly.

That’s why I’ve chosen to take my son to the Grove for the afternoon. We’re on a date, if you will, since his Dad has to work and my tolerance for the three parks on our rotation has grown thin. We’ll run a few errands then have lunch together and my boy will entertain himself with his favorite game, hurling food into the air or mashing it into the table. I’ll eat a decent lunch, giving him the occasional bite of food off my plate and other kid friendly eaters will walk by saying things like, “It’s such a great age” or “I’ve got 4 kids you’ll survive one.” I’ll smile, maybe even offer a, “It is a great age!” or “4 kids? You don’t look like you’re old enough to have one!” And then we’ll all giggle, smile, and nod knowing we’re kid friendly, in a kid friendly mall where mashed food, thrown silverware, and temper tantrums aren’t just tolerated, they’re welcome.

So when the host sits us at a table within close proximity to another patron’s, I don’t worry. No one here will bat an eyelash when my boy screams at the top of his lungs just to hear what it sounds like or channels his inner Ringo Starr by banging on the table like a drum. No one here will care because their kid just did the same thing to the table to the right whose kid just did the same thing and so on and so forth. We’re paying it forward, kid friendly style.

Next to us, a 6 year-old and her two Moms. The Moms are deep in conversation about one of the heavyset Mom’s latest auditions. “I really committed to my choice,” she states proudly. “I know the casting director really loved me.” Their daughter has a table full of stickers and she couldn’t be happier. Until…

“She’s scared of babies,” the short haired Mom tells me almost proudly as her daughter whimpers and hides to get away from my son’s gaze. “She doesn’t like them.”

Odd I think to myself. Why would a 6 year old be scared of a baby?

Well he’s not scared of you, I tell the girl, You can go ahead and say hello, he won’t hurt you. But the girl screams louder, the shorthaired Mom raising an eyebrow my son’s way as she repeats, “She doesn’t like them.” As if babies are demons and her daughter just got spooked.

My son stares at the screaming girl for a while before setting his sights on her stickers. He goes in for the kill, grabbing a long strip of gold stars. I grab them out of his hands, in part because he’ll eat them and in part because I want the two Moms and every other Mom within earshot to know that I’m not one of those Moms, who lets her kid run wild. I apologize and give the stickers back to the crying girl, but my apology is met with a blank stare before the two women return to their conversation about the heavyset Mom’s attempt at stand up comedy. I’m left wondering why the least funny people feel the need to get into comedy. But in light of the crying kid and the sticker incident, I keep my career advice to myself.

Lunch arrives and my son is distracted for a while with his food and my food and the floor. And then out of the corner of my eye, I see what he sees, a shiny silver cell phone, the baby mother load, at the Comedy Mom’s fingertips. The only thing that stands in between my son making a break for the cell phone are two porcelain salt and pepper shakers. At the age of 1, my son is no dummy, he knows that all he has to do is hurl those to the ground and he and the cell phone can be one.

Do you mind if I move these? I ask the two Moms sure they will say, “Oh no problem and why don’t I move my phone, here have a sticker!” Instead, the two women look at me, don’t say a word, and go back to their food. Do you mind if I move these? I ask again. It’s just that he’ll want to throw them and I’d hate for him to…

“Whatever,” the Comedy Mom says as she moves them across the table leaving her cell phone in its place, undoubtedly for that call from Spielberg whose scoured the world to find a heavyset 45 year-old comedienne with the charm and timing of Hitler. For a moment, I think I should suggest she move it, but then I don’t. If my son happens to grab her cell phone or happens to get food on it, well, whatever…

The two return to their conversation, undoubtedly about the Comedy Mom’s newest Can-Can routine, while exchanging a not so subtle eye-roll pointed in my direction. The eye-roll speaks volumes, saying loudly, “She’s one of those Moms….”

When I think of the word “tolerance”, I can’t imagine two people who could use it more than a family that consists of two Moms and their adopted dark skinned baby, but just because people preach tolerance doesn’t mean they have it. And apparently, just because someone has a kid doesn’t mean they’re tolerant of other people’s. Had we been dining at Spago, I could understand the disdain, but we’re at the Grove, Kool and the Gang is blasting, a kid nearby is holding a balloon animal. If you’re not tolerant of kids here, then you’re just not tolerant of kids.

I like to think that all parents are just trying to do the best they can. But when I come across parents like these ladies at The Grove, I’m reminded that an asshole with a kid is still an asshole. The kid may soften the blow, but a baby won’t make you tolerant.

And so it becomes clear that the kid with the stickers hates babies because her Moms do. Kids learn to like and dislike what their parents do. My kid will probably love The Dave Matthews Band, Rufus Wainwright, Neil Diamond, sushi, the South of France, and bad reality TV, just like I do.

And he’ll definitely hate assholes with kids, just like I do.

We pay our check, leaving a generous tip in anticipation of the server’s time spent cleaning up the floor mat of Sweet N Low’s, courtesy of my one year-old, and we get up to leave. We head outside where the sun is shining, the water fountain is dancing, and Lou Rawls is singing. A woman and her two daughters walk by, look at my son, and say, “What a great age!” I look at my boy, then respond, “You know what, you’re right. It is a great age.”

SEXY WOMEN

I’m at the gym. It’s 6 am and I’m wearing clothes I picked out in the dark. Not my best look but since my gym has a ratio of 99% gay men to 1% potentially straight it’s too hard to tell at 6 am women, I don’t really care.

Being that there are so few women, one tends to notice the others around. There’s the girl with the brand new boobs who hoists them like a shelf and the clog wearing perky trainer whose voice registers in an octave only heard by whales and dogs. There’s the heavy set lesbian (even at 6 am, there’s no hiding for her) who passes her cardio time with a complete set of tabloids and the girl in the short shorts who might want to wear longer shorts the next time she does squats.

And then there’s the girl with the pin. She’s easy to spot, hard to miss because she is wearing, as she has been for the past 6 days, a large pin on her shirt which reads:

“Sexy Women Vote For Obama.”

I don’t know if she’s gay or straight, but even at 6 am, one thing is fairly certain, this woman is a total and complete moron.

A pin worn to the gym is in and of itself stupid. The chances of being impaled by an Obama pin are not wasted on me and I spend my 37 minutes on the Precor picturing what happens when she drops a weight on her chest, the pin opens, jabs her in the heart, blood spouts out, and she dies; the headline reading, “Sexy Woman dies due to Obama stabbing.” But that’s not the real problem here.

Political views aside, it’s her choice of words that’s got me all wound up. “Sexy Women Vote for Obama.” Does that mean that non-sexy women vote for McCain? And who decides whose sexy enough to vote for Obama because I was gonna vote for Obama, but I’m wearing an outfit I picked out in the dark so I wouldn’t wake my husband as I snuck off the gym to work out for an hour before my kid wakes up and wants to play his new favorite game, “Lets throw food on Mommy” which makes me feel, to be honest, not so sexy. So can I still vote for Obama?

I don’t mind that the Pin Girl has an overly healthy opinion of her own sexuality, but I do mind that the very important decision of who should run the country comes down to how sexy you are. And I’m wondering how the Pin Girl would feel if she were to tell a man she was voting for Obama and he replied, “Well that’s because you’re sexy.” That guy would probably get a slap on the face and be accused of being a sexyist.

We live in an era where young girls look up to Paris Hilton over Hillary Clinton where Wall Street boasts the lowest number of female executives to date in a country with the fewest females holding public office in 30 years. Even Pakistan has had a female President and yet we are defining our voting habits by how sexy we are.

Since becoming a parent, I’m constantly reminded that two people, one of whom is me, will define my son’s view of the world. I’ll expose him to his favorite food and develop his love or hate of music. He’ll appreciate theatre if I do and have a strong sense of family if I encourage it. And his view of women will also be defined by one of two people, me. Personally, I want my son to learn that women are sexy but I’d also like him to learn that women are smart, whomever they vote for, as long as they vote.

I’m at the gym and there she is, the Pin Girl, bench-pressing a grueling 7 pounds. I decide I’m going to stand up for all women and tell her what I think. “Sexy Women Vote for Obama?” I’ll say. “How bout Smart Women Vote. Period.” Then I’ll walk away with my gym full of gays cheering me on. But before I can get over there, I hear a crash. She’s dropped her weights on her chest.

“Fucking pin!” she screams as she rubs her chest.

I turn around, head back to my workout. I take that back. While it’s smart to vote, it’s even smarter not to wear sharp metal objects to the gym.

And by the way, if you’re smart, you’ll vote Obama, no matter how sexy you are.

NANNYGATE, PART DEUX

Claudia needs three weeks off every summer while Aida needs to bring her son to work. Laela isn’t actually a nanny, doesn’t know how to change a diaper, but “really likes kids.” And though Jennifer lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her son, her mother, and grandmother, she doesn’t want to work too many hours because she wants to stop working to become a nurse.

“Taking care of sick people is fun, “ she tells me. “It’s like taking care of a baby, but sick!”

Jennifer looks disappointed when I remind her that my son, while a baby, is perfectly healthy.

In my two-week immersion into Nanny Gate 2008, I have interviewed well over 20 candidates and have whittled the 20 down to 5 who have worked for me at least a day to see if they just might be the one. Each comes with her own file folder full of glowing recommendations from families claiming to have wept upon her absence, wishing their children didn’t have to go to school so they could keep her on.

Ann, a 50 year old nanny who took three years off from “the baby biz” to work at Curves is my first test. Looking at her resume, filled with perfect reviews from former bosses and nursery schools at which she’d been employed, I’m optimistic, even enthusiastic, until she starts work. Within five minutes, she asks me to hold the baby so she can “take a breather to wipe her brow.” It’s clear her time working for Curves was not spent on the gym floor.

Judith, a self -proclaimed “Super Nanny” with 25 years of credentials comes to her interview enthusiastic if ebullient. But that enthusiasm fades quickly into her workday when simple tasks like: following directions or folding a child’s laundry is required. “I don’t understand this, what is this?” she barks while pointing to my son’s pajamas. When I confirm that yes indeed my son’s pajamas are in fact pajamas, she seems perplexed. “I don’t understand. How do you want me to fold these? I don’t know what these are!” she says again as she throws them on the floor. Judith might be a Super Nanny, but she's also Super Angry.

And these are the ones that made it past the interview.

I remember the days when I, like these nannies, worked for an hourly wage. I remember counting my ten dollars or fifteen dollars per hour until my rent was made, my car was paid for, and hopefully my food. If my boss asked me to work extra hours, I was thrilled, knowing that I’d have a few more tens or fifteens toward covering my nut.

When I worked as a personal assistant, and met my boss for the first time she said, “I’m very particular, I like things done a certain way.” What I heard was that she was very particular and liked things done a certain way, which is what I did. I did things her way and we got along famously. But every nanny I’ve met comes with her list of demands, her career pre-nup if you will, listing the conditions, benefits, and payment required for her to do her job.

Jillian, a French nanny who charges $19 an hour, “But is willing to negotiate”, will work for $18 an hour as long as I am willing to pay for her gas to and from work. A simple request, but when was the last time a teacher got paid for his drive to work or a nurse for hers? People shouldn’t be treated poorly because they clean a house or take care of a child to make a living, but they shouldn't be treated better either. Adding up the expenses of Jillian’s requests and benefits, she’d make more than my husband and I combined. So needless to say, I said “au revoir” to Jillian, wishing her “bon chance” and remembered that a French nanny would be lovely if only she weren’t French.

I start another week immersed in Nanny Gate 2008 wondering if I’ll find a suitable candidate before my new job starts, a movie I’m writing, for which I’ll probably get paid less than my nanny. It’s my first big writing job, there’s not much room for negotiation, but I’m happy for the opportunity, happy to have a job. It's easy to "dignify" yourself out of a job, demand your way into the unemployment line. Somewhere out there is a nanny who wants to work and is happy for the opportunity and realizes there's not a lot of room for negotiation.

And if not, I hope my kid knows how to spell check and write jokes because he and I have got work to do.

NANNYGATE

If someone doesn’t show up for work is she quitting her job or just being an asshole?
Me, Wednesday Sept 3, 2008



One of my husband’s favorite theories is, “Hope is a terrible strategy.” He says things like this all the time as if repetition per theory justifies the exorbitant amount of money he spent to go to an Ivy League Business School to learn such things. A day doesn’t go by without him quoting some hero of wealth with a quick, tight theory that encapsulates a moment. Instead of admitting that I’m not listening or worse yet, that I have little interest in business, I nod and occasionally quote back to him some theory just to make him feel like he’s had an impact. But the notion that hope alone is nothing to bank on resonates with me, especially since becoming a Mom. Especially since deciding to hire a nanny.

I long ago stopped hoping my nanny would get my name right or that she’d show up when expected. So after spending 3 hours waiting for her to arrive on time to work on a Wednesday morning, after two weeks off with pay followed by a paid Labor Day Monday, it comes as no surprise to me when my phone finally does chirp the ring of doom.

“Hello, Merta? It’s me, Dalia. My Mother broke her leg.”

She pauses as if she’s given a complete and logical explanation for why she’s three hours late for work when she’s been given countless warnings about missed days of work, and hasn’t called until now.

Well did she break your phone, too? I ask not half or even a little bit kidding.

“Maybe Friday should be my last day,” she says with a decisiveness that betrays her lack of emotion on my behalf.

Recognizing that losing a nanny is a chaos inducing inconvenience rather than a life spent starving in Darfur, battling cancer, or finding out you’re related to one of the morons on MTV’s “The Hills, I try to keep it all in perspective. But since I’ve had more nannies than children, my patience has worn thin.

In one year of Motherhood, I’ve had two nannies; both excellent at the job as long as one doesn’t consider showing up for work a job requirement. There were always last minute illnesses, surprise children’s school conferences and the inevitable “mother with a broken leg” excuses. Each excuse requiring a day, two, four off from work, unpaid and unaccounted for. I’m left wondering if I’m the only person in America that actually needs to work. Because it seems like there’s an awful lot of people who don’t mind missing out on a day or seven of work and a day or seven of a paycheck.

Every Mom who hears my story feels my pain, even those who do have cancer and are related to morons on TV. But with every offering of sympathy also comes the inevitable, “Haven’t you been through this like…a lot?” Yes, I’m quick to respond. I give people too many chances. I guess I was just hoping…” my voice trailing off, me knowing that I sound about nannies like 20 year-old girls do about boyfriends, hoping it will all work out knowing that it’s a terrible strategy.

Others offer a more cynical opinion. “It’s just how they are. They live a flip flop kind of life, they’re not reliable,” one relative suggests not explaining if the “they” so politely referenced is Nannies or Hispanics in general. Another asks where our nanny was born, then seems confused, “But California has all those cheap Mexicans who will work for free. I didn’t know they were so uppity like the girls from the Islands. They’re very high maintenance.” Suddenly, it seems that a crap employee is no longer just that, they’re a representation of a whole race brought down in one fell swoop.

Instead of joining the cynics, I opt to get back on the horse, get back out there, and start interviewing others. Out of three appointments I make, two candidates don’t show up, one never calling to cancel, the other saying she’s “just too tired.” The third, a lovely girl from Pensacola, peaks my interest until she explains that she’s hoping to get into nannying “to get out of bartending” I feel like she just might not be the right fit as I imagine my son’s first word being “highball.”

I make three more appointments for the following day. Each potential Nanny from a varying country around the world; one Guatemalan, another Israeli, another Russian. One by one, before each woman’s appointment, my phone rings, each canceling her interview.

With each passing cancellation, I begin to miss my old Nanny more and more. Maybe I should call her, I think to myself, just to see if she really meant to quit. Sure she wasn’t reliable and was so forgetful she could forget her own name, but at least I knew her bad qualities. When your kids are involved, the devil you know is better than the nanny you don’t know.

But settling for someone who’s unreliable, uninterested, and quite frankly unavailable is not a solution. Maybe that’s what got me here in the first place, settling for someone sub par to take care of the person who matters most to me, my son. Sure we can’t do any better, women go from settling for bad boyfriends to bad nannies simply out of fear of the unknown. There’s no one race lazier or more unreliable than another, but you get what you settle for in any aspect of life. People are as reliable as you require them to be, as concerned as needed.

The truth is, my son is the most valued thing in my world, I shouldn’t settle for anything but the best, wherever the person is from. So until I find the right person, I guess it’s just he and I, napping, playing, trying to get our work done. I know I’ll find the right person; she’s out there somewhere, at least I hope so. Sure, it’s a terrible strategy, but sometimes hope is all you’ve got.