THE NANNY DIARIES - The Weinstein CompanyThe north shore Chicago is known for its affluence and high-paid nanny jobs. Subparents are in high demand in these parts, and at Trinity International University (TIU) there are plenty in supply.
Both female and male TIU students find job postings for babysitting and subparenting on MyTrinity online. Just Monday over two-dozen want ads were posted at a minimum of $10 an hour.
“We are a happy, fun-loving family with three adorable boys,” wrote a mom from Deerfield. “Looking for someone to play with and help with homework from 4:00 – 7:00.” The pay rate is $10 -$12 and the mom is usually home but she “needs an extra set of hands.”
References and a car are commonly requested, but not always required.
Local suburb parents have paid up to $14 cash an hour while students pocket tax-free income. Money is never a problem, but the hours add up, the favors increase in inconvenience and the pressure to be available always becomes overwhelmingly stressful.
Two anonymous TIU Seniors, Nanny A and Nanny B, are seasoned childcare professionals of the area. They worked nearly 30 hours a week during the summer and have cut that number in half while taking classes spring semester.
Both are familiar with working while the parents are around, and Nanny A has experienced babysitting children with an incompetent father.
“He can’t take care of his own kids, he can’t even put them to bed,” said Nanny A. “The mom cooks some times, but we usually order food for take-out. I clean up more than she does, they have a cleaning lady, and she bribes her kids. They seriously can’t take care of their kids on their own.”
Nanny A was called out of class 11 a.m. Tuesday to drive to the children’s house, grab wipes and diapers, a change of clothes, and water bottles for everybody, get to Portillos at 11:30 a.m. and save 16 seats. She is paid $12 an hour.
Nanny B usually shows up cook breakfast for the kids while the mom works from home. She has learned that “you can do anything with money.”
“Last summer the mom accidentally messed up the t-shirt designs for her daughter’s birthday and paid-off the Marriot front desk guy to reprint the corrections at Kinkos within the hour,” said Nanny B. That mom got those prints in time.
During the summer, Nanny B spent a lot of time at a clubhouse pool with her kid, and was scorned for repeating swimwear.
“I wore little sundresses and my cute sunglasses – I can't look bad in front of these crazy women who are never seen in anything but the latest fashion in tennis wear,” said Nanny B. She gets paid up to $18 an hour.
The TIU nannies have enough anecdotes to fill a book, but they are all about six years too late.
In 2002, two New York University graduates teamed up and published a novel about their combined eight years of upper eastside Manhattan babysitting that paid for college tuition and loans. Newsweek announced the novel as a “phenomenon.”
Authors Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin’s New York Time’s bestseller “The Nanny Diaries” played out on the big screen last year starring Scarlet Johansson as Nanny.
The movie and book are fiction versions of Nanny’s experience at an upper class home with the X family: an absent, unfaithful and workaholic father, and a grossly self-seeking mother who does not cook, clean or care for her son, a neglected four-year-old boy.
