<![CDATA[Jezebel: nanny diaries]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png <![CDATA[Jezebel: nanny diaries]]> http://jezebel.com/tag/nannydiaries http://jezebel.com/tag/nannydiaries <![CDATA[Big Brother Contestant Is Heather Mills' Nanny]]> Well, actually, current BB house guest Lydia is Beatrice McCartney's nanny. She's been dropping hints like crazy on the Live Feed this week, including answering the question "Who is the most important person alive?" with

"Heather Mills."



She was pissed when her fellow cast mates immediately began insulting Mills.

Here's a paparazzi shot of Lydia with Beatrice in January 2009.


And here she is again, with Heather Mills, on the way to an October 2007 Good Morning America interview.


In other BB news:
Natalie is a republican and she doesn't believe that police work should be done by women.

Earlier: Which Celeb Couple Did Big Brother Houseguest Nanny For?

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<![CDATA[Which Celeb Couple Did Big Brother Houseguest Nanny For?]]> Big Brother 11 contestant Lydia Tavera's bio on CBS says that she "has been up-close-and-personal with fame as she used to be a nanny for a high profile couple." We (may have) found out who it is.

When pressed about it last night, on the live feed, Lydia would only say they were involved in "music," before Big Brother shut off the live feed. But then we received this email:

One of my close friends is related to Lydia. She nannied for Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. She doesn't anymore, though.






I guess that could be why she talks about England all the time?

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<![CDATA[So It's Not A Jinx To Dedicate Your Book To Your Fictional Future Husband?]]> Nicola Kraus, one of the authors of the Nanny Diaries just put an end to 33 years of the misery of singledom by getting married to a man. Oh my god how did she do it??? I knew you'd ask! According to Vows:

Last year Ms. Kraus decided to dedicate their latest novel, "Dedication" to her husband. No, she wasn’t married. But she was hopeful. 'I was creating a place holder,” Ms. Kraus, 33, said. “He was out there. I just hadn’t crossed paths with him yet.' She began behaving as if she was already in love. 'You carry yourself differently when you’re not alone,' she explained. 'I would carry myself at a party or a supermarket or a gym as if I was loved.' Then a month later David Wheir kissed her, and she no longer needed to pretend."

Okay, so clearly something about this is bothersome, but what?

1. So we're supposed to walk the streets in the same yoga pants and busted Chuck Taylors and expressions of total indifference to the male gender we'd be wearing if we had boyfriends who loved us? Because, you know, done.
2. Okay, I know I said "total indifference" but fuck if "Mr. Wheir" isn't totally fucking hot. Check the video.
3. All right, here's how it really happened: they were friends first, he'd flirt with her immaturely but he always had a destructive relationship with some girlfriend with whom he liked to suck face publicly — why do I suspect said girlfriend was working retail at the time? — and then Nicola was mean to the girlfriend the time she came with him to a dog's birthday party, which is totally not something I would generally pull, not that I would have a birthday party for a dog either, but still it's illuminating, to the extent that maybe if she had spent the party yakking with the girlfriend and ignoring David she not only would have secured herself a discount at the girlfriend's boutique but maybe might have hastened the process by which he came to the realization that any woman indifferent enough to his mammoth hotness to chat up his vacuous-ass girlfriend was not only emotionally independent enough to actually date, but sufficiently comfortable around shallow people to date him. Or maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But seriously, what was she so intimidated by in his ex-girlfriend? Her movie starred fucking Scarlett Johansson.
(OT, but: did anyone else On-Demand Nanny Diaries? I love that Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti both star in that thing. Can't you just hear Linney being interviewed…"Well I loved working with him on John Adams but we couldn't exactly not work together again after the once-in-a-lifetime experience that was Nanny Diaries…)
4. The wedding service involved a reading from the book Eat, Pray Love.

Vows [NY Times]

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<![CDATA[The Management Perils Of Having Two Or More Nannies]]> Yesterday's Page Six Magazine attacked the subject of mommies who find themselves needing multiple nannies. (We thought it would be challenging for them to match the pathos and capacity for conveying human suffering reached by last week's story about Wall Street traders who go to massage parlors, but they did.) We meet Yael Halaas, a 38-year-old plastic surgeon and mother of three, who calls having two nannies "the best damn thing in the world to make life function." We learn that some women find themselves needing a second nanny for basic "one is illegal and can't come to Bermuda"-type purposes, others when they want their kids to be exposed to a blend of different personality traits and/or world cuisines ("I wake up to her cooking buckwheat crepes from scratch!" cooes one) others when the first one simply proves too competent at "management" functions, such as finding a second nanny.

Of course, that can also be a double-aged sword: "Those with two full-time nannies say that, since each is aware of what the other is doing, there are times when each one feels unfairly burdened with too much work and thinks the other is slacking. "You have to explain, 'You're here looking after the baby and the house, but she bought groceries and went to the post office to send a certified letter for me, and she got the kids to the tailor and playdate,' says Yael. "You wish they could figure it out on their own, but you have to intervene." Perhaps someone should get a team of McKinsey consultants in to optimize these work flows?

In other cases, too many nannies may mean that children don't learn to do things for themselves. "Sometimes nannies do things the child should be doing, like picking up toys," says Stacy Rosenthal, a West Village resident who works in product development.
Sounds like a little bit of a power vacuum in child rearing middle management there!

Or um alternately like the recession could not arrive soon enough.

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<![CDATA[Ever Get The Feeling Some Working Moms Just Get Off On "Guilt"?]]> In today's Huffington Post, former ABC News anchor/blogger Heather Cabot is feeling guilty because she confused some kid's nanny with his actual mother. In short: Heather and a blond caretaker bonded at the local gymborama or whatever. They made a playdate. Then Heather spotted the same child with a tall brunette wearing dark sunglasses indoors, and since the kid was blond, she assumed the brunette was the nanny. Then she projects all of her guilt about having a nanny onto this sunglasses-clad woman. When someone confused Heather's nanny for her child's mother, she felt "a swell of emotions - guilt for being lucky enough to be able to pay someone to help me care for the kids...and guilt for wanting time away...I can really empathize with what this woman must have felt when I just assumed she wasn't the boy's mother." Oh Jesus Christ. The best part? This woman is the founder of a site she calls "a guilt-free zone."

First off, the other woman didn't seem insulted at all when Heather assumed she was the nanny. But more importantly, women have got to stop feeling so fucking guilty about every decision they make. The highly publicized upper middle class "opt-out revolution", wherein highly educated women were dropping out of their prestigious careers to be stay-at-home moms, took its toll on vulnerable nanny employers across the nation. Moms like Cabot saw their peers dropping out of the partner track at their law firms and thought "Holy shit, am I a bad mommy for my ambition?" The answer is: NO...

matter what you do your kids are going to blame you for something. My working mother was the only parent who did not come to my second grade luncheon honoring the 50 states. I still have yet to forgive her, but she's totally over it. What can I do? The woman gave me life. And paid for college! I feel guilty just thinking about what a crap mom I'll be in comparison. But do I go and have a massive guilt-induced breakdown about it online? No.

Is it possible, Heather, you're just feeling guilty about not taking your own advice? For rampant hypocrisy? Or maybe you're feeling guilty about profiting off the female obsession with guilt? Or are you feeling guilty for feeling secretly triumphant you were confused with a nanny???

You know what? Don't answer that.


Who's Your Mommy? [Huffington Post]
The Opt-Out Revolution [New York Times]

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<![CDATA[Creators Of 'Nanny Diaries' Believe They Have The Next 'Citizen Kane' On Hands]]> scar.jpg

We didn't know this until just now, but sometimes when a movie is not released on time it is not because focus groups told them it was better off not released at all ever; it's because the movie's makers are so gosh darn taken with their own brilliance that they decide to forego the gazillions they could rake in during the lucrative summer blockbuster season in favor of something so, so much more profound: awards. So anyway, consider yourselves blueballed by that 93-page spread in Vogue (which put Scar on the cover for its positive body image issue) (because she is the spokesperson for twenty year old women everywhere who have really great tits and are completely comfortable with them, doncha know): you won't be able to see Scar Jo in anything (except every fucking magazine) until September, when it is a "contender." For what, exactly? The Golden Globes of Comedy. Are you fucking kidding us? They actually give out awards at the Golden Globes? Are they even televised? And anyone has actually watched past the red carpet show?

Oh wait, we were supposed to make a joke about subtle class differences, and thank Nicky and Emma for starting the whole assistant roman a clef thing we love so much, and how Citizen Girl is easily confused with 'Citizen Kane', and figure out how to code "roman a clef" correctly in HTML... yeah, but we're putting off those plans till this blog is actually live and eligible for the prestigious 'Bloggies.'


Wait For 'Nanny'
[Page Six]
The Bumpy Ride From The Nanny Diaries To 'Citizen Girl'
[NY Mag]

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