Some women can have it all — thanks to their nannies
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images When New York went into lockdown two years ago, Sarah, which isn’t her real name, relocated to the countryside. She would have hunkered down in her tiny apartment were it not for her job as a nanny to the young son of a famous actress. When her employer’s family left the city, Sarah and her husband packed up, too, and went to stay at a rental house near theirs — provided by Sarah’s employers — so she could continue caring for her charge.
By squishing professional life and family life into the same space, the pandemic provided many examples of the ways in which nannies enable women to raise children while pursuing high-powered careers. Too often, nannies’ significant labor gets swept into the background. When COVID-19 disrupted the daily routines of work and child care, it highlighted the crucial role nannies play in the flow of many parents’ daily lives.
Over the years, Sarah’s boss has worked on projects that require her to be away on set for six months at a time, and during those stretches, Sarah would facilitate daily FaceTime chats between mother and son. She’d also drop anecdotes and videos into a group chat with the actress and her husband to keep everyone in the loop on the little moments in their son’s life like the chaos of a soccer game played among small children or the triumph of figuring out the freestyle stroke in swimming class.
In some situations, nannies are very aware of how their labor factors into the dynamic between two parents. Janine Cunningham, a former nanny who now works at the nanny agency Smart Sitting, says that in past jobs, she’s had a friendly but removed relationship with the high-powered women employing her, partnering instead with their husbands to tackle the children’s needs on a daily basis. “I felt like I was supporting the dad and the dad was supporting his wife,” she says.
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