So a couple of weeks ago I brought the kids to a birthday party in New Jersey. It was like most any other party—play gym, slices of pizza, juice boxes.
This time, however, there was a really, really good-looking nanny.
For suburbanites like myself, this is a pretty rare sight. The majority of nannies, I’d venture to say, are soft and lovely and cuddly and, well, motherly. They tend to be in their mid-to-late 30s and up; often have children of their own; are dialed into academic schedules and snack preferences and after-school play-dates. We don’t have a nanny but, were we to, odds are she’d look more like Charlotte Rae than Kate Upton (Note: I should add here that our first two nannies were quite memorable. The first was a crazy homophobe who didn’t know how to make a bottle. She didn’t last long. The second perpetually smelled of body odor. Literally, when she rose from a couch, the odor remained—for hours). This, of course, isn’t to say there aren’t pretty nannies. There are plenty.
I digress. While standing around at the party, watching my son throw a ball against a wall, I couldn’t help but notice (I don’t think anyone could help—man or woman) the excessively hot nanny. And, as dumb as this will sound (and, perhaps, as unbelievable as this will sound), noticing her wasn’t about, oh, checking her out or sizing her up. Really, it wasn’t. More than anything, I was shocked—because I know v-e-r-y few women who would ever think of hiring an excessively hot nanny. There is a checklist, after all, of things 99 percent of American women do not want in their in-home childcare professionals:
• Serial killer past? No.
• Cuts the heads off dogs and prepares them in taco sauce? No.
• Only speaks broken Serb-Yiddish? No.
• Looks like this? No. (Funny side note: While looking for an image to link here, I came across this article—How to Cope with a Hot Nanny).
Anyhow, upon arriving home from the party I actually said to The Wife (who, for the record, remains cooler than shit), “Have you see Wendy and Bob’s nanny?” To which she replied, “I know. She’s insanely gorgeous.”
Then, last evening, over dinner with some friends, I continued the conversation. There were three couples eating risotto, and the question was asked to the women … would they feel comfortable with gorgeous nannies working inside the house. The reply was a resounding, emphatic No. The woman next to me, I thought, made the best point. “It’s not that I don’t trust my husband—I do,” she said. “I just don’t want to be the second-best looking woman in my house.”
I get it.
