Other people's children

When parents hire nannies, housekeepers, or au pairs, most think they are getting the best child care money can buy. But are they? When parents become employers, what does it mean for them, their children, and the nannies themselves? While parents may dream of Mary Poppins, seldom do they hire professional British nannies. Instead, most hire untrained women who have few other career options. Coming from different worlds, middle-class parents and their children's caregivers may not share a language - either literally or figuratively. Most parents do not know what their caregivers truly think about them, their young charges, or American child-rearing practices. Based on more than 150 interviews with caregivers and parents, this book explores the hidden side of caregiving relationships. Julia Wrigley asks how parents learn to be employers and why some fail at the task. The book is an unsparing examination of the poignant situations and conflicts that can arise when parents and caregivers share child rearing but little else. In their own words, caregivers tell of working long hours in aching isolation and boredom, asked to invest emotionally in children yet lacking any real authority over their charges. Parents tell of caregivers who disappear without warning or who define their jobs as "watching" children but not playing with them or helping them learn. The book examines parents' strategies to ensure that their children are raised according to their own values, even in their daily absence from the home. No strategy, however, can overcome all the problems created by unequal relationships within households. The book makes a compelling argument that professionally run child care centers better meet the needs of children and parents alike.