Who's Your Nanny?

A few weeks ago I was browsing through the New York Times online and came across an interesting article that gives a small peek into a world that the majority of the world will never see; the world of the high priced nanny.  Being a relatively new father, I had to read the article and see what exactly some of the nanny's to New York's elite children are commanding in terms of salary.  As it turns out, I will probably never make as much as they do in a year, which in my mind speaks to the absurdity of it all.  But I guess if you have the money to spend on essentially not raising your children, then have at it, although I would much rather take charge of my child's upbringing than hand it over to someone completely unrelated to my family.  So what exactly does a high priced nanny make?  As it turns out, the one interviewed for the article makes $180,000 a year, plus a Christmas bonus, plus a $3000/month apartment.  All this to watch someone elses children on an almost continuous basis.  Personally, I can't quite wrap my mind around the price, thinking that a couple is paying someone else that much money to essentially raise their children.  On the flip side, it almost makes me want to quit my day job and start looking for a job as a nanny.  That, however, wouldn't quite work as I have a six month old son who, along with my wife, are raising ourselves.  This begs the question as to why some people spend as much money as they do to have someone else raise their children. 

I am quite sure that I will never understand what goes through the minds of these multi-millionaires who hire nannys at these extravagant rates.  We all know parenting is a full time job, but to pay someone else to do the job for you makes me wonder why some of these people had children in the first place.  If you don't want to raise a child, yet you still want children, then why have them.  It almost seems to me as if these people have children just to continue their family dynasty and to show off at social functions.  If your not going to take the time to raise your own children and instead pay someone else to do the job for you, can you even call them your children?  Technically, I guess you could, but only in the most strict sense of the word, that being you gave birth to them and they live in your house.  Beyond that, they are to me, the nanny's children.  After all, she is the one who spends the most time with them, takes care of them, and makes sure they are okay.  Although if you look at this whole paradigm in a larger sense, the parents probably don't know any other way of dealing with children as they were probably raised by nanny's as well or at least had a nanny growing up.  This simply speaks to the vast cultural difference between those with excessive amounts of money and everyone else.  This isn't to say that everyone with millions of dollars pays for nannys to raise their children, but it is a different world where nannys are much more prevalent.  To the majority of the population, nannys could be the equivalent of grandparents or relatives, people who help to raise a child.   Even then, grandparents and relatives rarely go as far as nannys do. 

Obviously I have strong feelings about this as I am a parent myself and for starters wouldn't be able to afford a nanny even if I wanted to.  But beyond that, I couldn't imagine having someone there  to take care of my child 24/7.  Granted, some nannys do more than others.  Some are only there to help when the parents are at work, essentially permanent baby sitters, while others take care of the children even when the parents are home.  The difference is vast but it all boils down to what your idea of parenting is.  Some view parenting as a job that gets hired out to the best fit nanny, others view it as a part of life that is best dealt with by the parent.  I personally view it as largely the parents job and I would think that the majority of people view it the same way.  Even if some people don't view it as their job, many people don't have the money to spend on a nanny to raise their children for them.  Whatever the case, I will dedicate myself to raising our child the best I can for two reasons; the most important being that I want to, the second being that not in my wildest dreams could I afford or want to afford a nanny.