"nanny sighting logo About 11:45 A.M. on Monday 8/11/08 Gladwyne, PA. I saw an overweight caucasian female with blond hair and a bad, frizzy perm pushing a dark bluish stroller down Conshohocken State Road towards the Post Office. She was wearing an indescript dark green t-shirt, jeans and white sneakers.

This road is only one lane each way - with no sidewalks. She was pushing the baby going the same way as traffic. Cars and trucks (it's a major thoroughfare) were whipping around them.

I was sick when I saw this. It may as well have been a freeway. It is an extremely dangerous road. There have been many accidents and deaths on it, and it is very twisty as well.The baby had light brownish/blondish hair and looked not more than about a year old. She had on a pink foral shirt, denim clamdigger looking shorts, and soft leather pink shoes. They went into the post office where the woman spent quite alot of time. Baby was very antsy and unhappy. The woman thrust a piece of paper at the baby (in a very exasperated way) to try to distract her. Not even a toy, but a post office pamphlet or something to that effect. As a mother I would never expect for someone to put my child in such a dangerous situation as this. I am assuming this was a nanny as this particular location is extremely wealthy, and she did not have the appearance of a resident."

Comment Digest:

"This post bothered me. Not because of the person pushing the stroller. But the description of this individual. And to automatically asssume it was a nanny because of her appearance. That seems a little stuck up to me. Maybe, shes a struggling mother, who doesn't have a car at her disposal. And she can't help it if theres no sidewalk. Maybe, instead of writing on here, you can call the town up, and mention that you see people walking on the side of this dangerous road. And suggest they put in a sidewalk. Thanks"

And:

"Appearance of resident= stuck up, sexually frustrated, miserable human being. And FYI, darling, while Gladwyne is certainly no ghetto, it is not nearly as nice or 'wealthy' as you think it is."

And:

"when we see people puttiing children in harm's way or neglecting them, we usually see them in the ugliest of lights. that's the truth. deal with it."

And:

"I'm sorry but the author of this post sounds like a stuck up snob. "a bad, frizzy perm" ...well what if she liked her perm that way?! and overweight? I'm sorry that not everyone has the perfect body, and I'm sorry...some overweight frizzy haired people can be wealthy, or maybe she had to walk farther then that "wealthy" neighborhood because maybe that was her own kid and she HAD to walk and didn't really have a choice whether or not she had to be on the road.people driving need to look out for pedestrians no matter what, no matter how curvy the road may be."

I Saw Your Nanny

Earlier: I Saw A Crazy: Nanny Policing Goes Off The Rails

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]

Then the comments begin. I have done the dirty work and waded through hundreds of comments to bring you the annotated "Best Of." (That said, if you have a few free hours, read the whole exchange. You won't be sorry.)]

Angry Mom: If there is not a crackdown there needs to be. I am so tired of going to the beach, the playground or wherever and seeing people who have their children swimming and playing nude. Aside from pedophiles, what are you teaching your children about respecting their bodies??

Defiant Mom: I get the whole pedophile angle and keeping your kid dressed but respecting your body? What sort of uptight repressed Victorian crap i
s that?

Angry Mom: Sorry, I don't think that teaching children to respect their bodies by keeping their privates PRIVATE is uptight at all. Sure, my kids enjoy a naked romp IN the house now and again, and I walk around topless IN the house regularly. But, when in public I feel they should be covered. A child under maybe 2 years old could be changed outside, no problem, but any older needs to use a restroom with privacy.

Random Mom: Seriously?

What is wrong with you people? I am in the NYC area and I have not heard of a crackdown. True, nanny could be sparing a not so bright mama's feeling, but also it could be that nanny was lazy. Changing a child's cloths requires effort. The most effort I have seen a nanny display was wrangling the wrapper of a Mr. Goodbar in the 95 degree heat. She used her car keys, teeth and eventually, just her tongue. Oh I wish I had that photo!

Crazy Mom: No one wants to see their vagina's and penises hanging out.

Self-righteous Mom: To mom who is so grossed out by the penis or vagina of a 2 year old? Get your mind out of the slimy filthy gutter.

Wry Mom:

THE SKY IS FALLING

THE SKY IS FALLING

THERE ARE PEDOPHILES WITH HIGH POWERED LENSES AND ERECT PENISES!

They are children. People have been having them for eons.

Get over yourselves.

Batshit Crazy Mom:Undercover regular..you ares oooo wrong..I have watched you and so many of your "Liberal,regular,fellow posters" for years now and I have got to tthank you all for getting us where we are today.

You all jump down my throat every time I post..I never see things the way you do and let me just tell you..we do have a choice..but thanks to %&44##@@ voters like yourselves..instead of taking care of things and keeping our families safe..you all do your liberal magic and these damn pedophile's..discusting shits that they are get out after rehabillitation..and over 60% of them violte again!!

How do you vote MMP, mom, Cali Mom, UNdercover regular, manhattan mama,sprak??

Tha bastards,if found guilty beyond a doubt should be hung..and then perhaps we would be able to take our children to the park, school or beach without worrying so much!!

Your posts anger me to NO end..you are all the same PC jerks who have caused this problem!!

And don't for one second try to play it off like you beleive in the death penalty ..you are the ones who vote to set these freaks free!!

Your posts over the last few years give you away!!

you are all anti spanking anti death penalty, pro ilegal alien, pro positive reinforcement PC dummies who have made our sick worl what is is today!!!

Kill the pedophiles and rapists,
close the borders
spank your child and get this country back in order!!

or stop bitching ..afterall you are the ones allowing them on the very streets your children play on!

…and I'm out.

Nudity Crackdown [I Saw Your Nanny]

• Mariah Carey, 38, is engaged to Wild 'N Out star Nick Cannon, 27. Yeah, weird. Did you even know they knew each other? [Access Hollywood]
  
• And, um, the ring Nick gave Mariah is the same one he gave his former fiancé, Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks. That is just Tackée Harry. [Perez Hilton]
  
• Madonna humped Justin Timberlake in during her show at New York City's Roseland. The more things change, the more they stay the same, no? [E!]
  
• A second nanny in the Rob Lowe case has filed a cross complaint and it says that Rob's wife Sheryl sexually harassed her by walking around naked and asking about the size of the nanny's boyfriend's penis. (Apparently the boyfriend is a 7 foot former NBA player.) But yeah, from an employer? Ew. [TMZ]
  
• The nanny also says the wife was "perverted, disgusting and crude." [People]
  
• Meanwhile, Rob Lowe's lawyer says the allegations are false, obvs. [People]

• Michelle Williams and daughter Matilda have been "hounded out" of New York by continued harrassment from paparazzi. She's considering leaving her home in Brooklyn. [News.com.au]
• Amy Winehouse is now rumored to be sleeping with Babyshambles guitarist Mik Whitnall. So in addition to Blake Wood and Alex Haines, she's keeping busy while Blake Incarcerated is away. If these rumors are true, that is. [The Sun]
• John Mayer: Seen not flirting with girls. Maybe he's actually into Jennifer Aniston? [Page Six]
• Aww, Jen and John "already miss each other." Hey, whatever makes you happy. [People]
• Kate Moss is moving a man into her home, but it's not her boyfriend Jamie Hince; it's her hairdresser, James Brown. He feels good. [Mirror]
• Lindsay Lohan's dad: Getting engaged to girlfriend Erin Page. How will LL feel about getting a stepmom? [Page Six]
• Um, Lindsay's new album will feature a song written by Snoop Dogg. For shizzle. [The Sun]
• Old news blind item: "Which celebrity dad is just as rebellious as his starlet daughter? The troubled parent wears a ring through a piercing on his nether regions." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which wonky reality show star quietly checked into a California rehab center only to head for the exits when the staff said they would be searching her bags? Wait, you mean you can't take drugs into rehab?" [Rush & Molloy]
• Britney Spears will be spending a supervised Mother's Day with her sons; she bought Sean Preston and Jayden James t-shirts that read "Mama's Boy." [Rush & Molloy]
• The repo man took Lil' Kim's Bentley away, sob! [TMZ]
• Pete Wentz is being suing by a dude who claims Pete beat him up at a Fall Out Boy show last year. Dude, that's not something you admit. [TMZ]
• Edie Falco adopted a baby girl from Florida. Daughter Macy joins older brother Anderson, who is 3. Congrats! [People]
• Rosie O'Donnell no longer has a crush on Tom Cruise; adjust accordingly. [MSNBC]
• Meanwhile, Tom Cruise's two-part Oprah interview includes candid talk about his personal life: Suri, Katie and Scientology. Tune in Friday and Monday to see. [Yahoo News]
• Tina Turner, 68: Going on tour! [AP]
• Usher wants to team up with Michael Bublé and John Mayer. Musically. You know, singing. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Diddy's in the booze biz, you know that, right? He's the brand manager for Ciroc Vodka. [Variety]
• T.R. Knight MIGHT marry his boyfriend, UCLA student Marc Cornelsen, on June 4 when Knight hosts the Matthew Shepard Foundation's group commitment ceremony for same-sex couples in West Hollywood. There's really no indication that he will, but it would be awesome. [E!]

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.

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

• Remember how sources said Ashlee was knocked up and then Pete Wentz said she wasn't ? Now sources say Ashlee Simpson is pregnant and will get married next month at a private residence in Southern California. [People]
  
• Jessica Simpson is reportedly jealous of little sis Ashlee, since she's always wanted a baby and even joked she'd resort to making her hairstylist Ken Paves the daddy. Oy. [MSNBC]
  
• Cameron Diaz's father died suddenly yesterday; the cause was pneumonia. [TMZ]
  
• Um, prepare yourself: Rob Lowe's nanny says he repeatedly exposed his "flaccid penis" and his "erect penis" to her, repeatedly asked her "to touch his penis," repeatedly masturbated in front of her, showed her pornographic images on his computer, asked her to give him a massage and tell him dirty stories. Shudder. [TMZ]
  
• So yeah, the nanny is countersuing Lowe for sexual harassment. She is seeking $50,000 in general damages as well as punitive damages and unpaid wages. [Reuters]

• Lily Allen was taken off the judging panel of the Orange Prize — awarded to female writers who have authored books of fiction — because "life got in the way" and she missed a bunch of meetings. A week after joining the panel, she announced she was pregnant. Later she miscarried and split from her boyfriend. The girl's got no time to read. [Telegraph]
• Uh-oh! Amy Winehouse's record label is warning her that she can only release a new CD if she is clean and sober. Crap. Think she can do it? [The Sun]
• John Mayer and Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger: Doing the do? [Page Six]
• David Hasselhoff uses his assistant and an autographed photo of himself to try and pick up chicks. It doesn't work. [Gatecrasher]
• Some crew members feared for Heath Ledger's mental health while he was filming The Dark Knight: He reportedly refused to talk to anyone out of character and found it hard to "snap out" of the personality of The Joker, who he described as a "psychotic, mass-murdering clown." [News.com.au]
• Oh, dear. Pete Doherty is doing heroin while in jail. [The Sun]
• Michael Lohan says daughter Lindsay wants to do missionary work in India; Lindsay's rep says um, no. [Gatecrasher]
• Paris Hilton was paid £70,000 for 50 minutes of work: Showing up at a London nightclub. The world has gone mad. Mad, I tell you! [Mirror]
• Meanwhile, Paris's parents adore her boyfriend Benji Madden. Kathy Hilton says, "I have a funny feeling it's going to go all the way." Rick Hilton says, "We love him like family already." [People]
• Jennie Garth has "abruptly" left a CBS comedy pilot — does that mean she's headed to the 90210 spinoff instead? [Reuters]
• TMI blind item! "Which inexplicable media star (blame www.Gawker.com for that) likes to boast that she let a certain handsome men's magazine editor, who is also much in the gossip columns, get to third base during a dinner at Balthazar?" [Gatecrasher]
• Camilla Parker Bowles (now Duchess of Cornwall), Celine Dion and Madonna share an ancestor! They all descend from a French carpenter. See? Madonna was destined to have a Continental accent. [The Star]
• Deborah Gibson has a stalker who is originally from Spain but left his wife to follow Debbie around the country. Deb's filed a restraining order against the dude and is singing "No, no, no, no, only in your dreams! As real as it may seem — It's only in your dreams." [TMZ]
• Former MTV VJ LaLa Vazquez says she is supporting fiancé Carmelo Anthony in the wake of his DUI arrest. Yawn. [People]
• Despite her album not doing well in the US, Kylie Minogue is splurging on a £3 million mansion in the British countryside. Get it girl! [News.com.au]
• Actor Jason Beghe, an ex-Scientologist says, "Scientology is destructive and a rip-off. It's very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological, mental, emotional health and evolution. I think it stunts your evolution." Tom Cruise? Stunted? Never. [Page Six]
• Magician Criss Angel threw a hissy fit over the weekend when his girlfriend, Miss Nevada, didn't win Miss USA. He's also probably upset that no one cares. [Page Six]
• Foxy Brown is scheduled to be released from prison this week! The rapper has been behind bars for the last eight months due to probation violations. She's got a VH1 reality show already in the works, naturally. [UPI]
• Martha Stewart's beloved dog, a Chow named PawPaw, has died. [The.Life Files]
• "I'm just trudging along, you know. I wash every day, I've got my own teeth, and I don't dye my hair. I must be doing something right, as I've only canceled two shows in 30 years: once when the doctor said I would have a miscarriage, and once when he told me my eardrums would explode if I did the gig." Chrissie Hynde, 56. [Page Six]

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]

New York Post:

LOCKED down in a celluloid prison cell marked "The Nanny Diaries" for 105 punishingly awful minutes, I was seconds away from crying "Attica" and leading a tactical assault on the projectionist's booth when the words "The End" appeared on screen. I rocketed out of my seat as though wearing a jet pack.

Washington Post:

In "The Nanny Diaries," the sublime Linney takes the most reprehensible of icons, the snooty, privileged, controlling Upper East Side rhymes-with-rich, and delivers a masterpiece of Cruella De Vil-level toxin as the Park Avenue hostess with the leastest, Mrs. X. She becomes the woman you love to hate. But — this is the greatness of Linney — she also gives you a glimpse of the forces that crushed her into such monstrous certitude. It's funny, it's sad, it's real. Too bad, alas, the rest of the movie isn't.

Because "The Nanny Diaries" is essentially a two-character story whose supporting players are wooden props, it would help if the actors playing the two were evenly matched. But Ms. Johansson's Annie, who narrates the movie in a glum, plodding voice, is a leaden screen presence, devoid of charm and humor. With her heavy-lidded eyes and plump lips, Ms. Johansson may smolder invitingly in certain roles, but "The Nanny Diaries" is the latest in a string of films that suggest that this somnolent actress confuses sullen attitudinizing with acting.

One has to wonder what kind of movie about a nanny focuses entirely on a woman like Annie. The movie explains that as a young, single, white, American college graduate, she's extremely eligible. "The Chanel bag of nannies," Annie puts it. And Hispanic, Caribbean, Indian, and Irish women throw in their two cents, but the filmmakers seem uncomfortable with the surrounding racial, social, and class politics. Admittedly, the brief shot of a nanny and her charge at a costume party dressed as Condoleezza Rice and little George W. Bush is quite a statement....The movie's banal fantasies badly chafe any anthropological consideration of what a girl should do with her career. This isn't life. It's Lifetime.

Curiously, the most compelling (if only half-formed) idea here has less to do with class than with parenting—how parents can, out of fear or selfishness or both, abdicate the responsibility of child-rearing to self-appointed experts and Ivy League grade schools, and how when a marriage goes south, children can become assets akin to investment accounts or property deeds. That's a rich subject for a film, but instead The Nanny Diaries gives us a half-cocked martyr movie about a plucky prole sticking it to the corrupt bourgeoisie: Joan of (Central) Park.

More boring still is Nanny's love interest, the Harvard Hottie (Chris Evans), a blandly handsome stick figure who serves no purpose other than to give our heroine a shot at the life she's come to know and love-hate. And lest we think Nanny a hypocrite in the making, we're informed that H.H.'s life hasn't been quite as charmed as his address and educational background would suggest. Sure, he was raised by nannies, but it's because his mother died. (Otherwise, surely. . . )

Satire should be knife-sharp and whip-smart, and The Nanny Diaries never is....Johansson, displaying flustered mannerisms that smack of one too many Woody Allen projects, goes about all this like the hopeful protagonist of a sitcom pilot. That is, attractive, amorphous, bland.

Frankly, there's something painful about watching Scarlett Johansson, who looks as if she never had an indecisive moment in her life, struggle to seem ineffectual. As Annie, a recent college graduate who falls into nannying, she plays a young woman who doesn't know who she is or what she wants. To make that seem even possible, Johansson tries to drain her eyes of all traces of intelligence, ego and self-assertion and even goes around with her mouth open half the time. The result is that the actress robs herself of about 90 percent of her appeal onscreen - and yet she still isn't convincing.

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]