Wanted: Toddler's Personal Assistant: How Nannying for the 1% Taught Me about the Myths of Equality, Motherhood, and Upward Mobility in America

by Stephanie Kiser

The more I take, the more I must not have. The more they take, the more they will have.

The more money I’m exposed to, the more I want, and the more I make, the more I spend. I’m on a financial Ferris wheel

There are certain things in America that can suggest a person is either very wealthy or incredibly poor. Where I come from, a yard with dozens of cars in it screams poverty. The cars are mostly junk, being saved in the hope that one day they’ll have a healthy part that can be salvaged or an engine to repurpose. But a person in East Hampton with a driveway full of automobiles has surely done well for themselves. At the very top of the list of wealth indicators is something far costlier than cars: children.

The thing I would later come to realize is that women needing validation from men is a universal problem that affects every class.

It seemed that women, regardless of their age, race, or tax bracket, were overshadowed by the men they were associated with.

The fact was, Americans supported working wives, so long as the women still did all the things they’d done when they didn’t work. By the time I was an adult on the Upper East Side, I’d find that the evidence spoke for itself. Women in America were fucked. Poor, minority, and uneducated women in America were doubly fucked.

I feel a flash of shame at how easily I focused on my mother’s faults, never recognizing her strengths.

Sasha’s type of motherhood requires a selflessness that I fear I don’t possess.

I am not related to Ruby. I’m not her aunt or even a family friend, but I love her as if I were.

The situation was impossible, but still, I asked myself, How can I care for someone else’s baby when I chose to abort my own?

Giving a student a scholarship doesn’t even the playing field; it simply puts them in the same arena.

This is the first step to making peace with my parents. It is a critical moment. I both realize and accept here in this conversation that I can’t change who they are or where I came from. I can’t be angry with them for not having more than they did. They are different from me, and we don’t share the same values or beliefs, but those things are okay as long as we respect and attempt to understand one another.

My dad’s love has always had its limits, and our relationship was often flawed, but it doesn’t matter. His words are enough to give me hope.

If I learned one thing growing up, it was the effect a chaotic environment could have on a person. Although the yelling here is far tamer than anything I had ever known, the lesson remained the same: fighting fire with fire won’t put one out; it’ll set the whole damn house ablaze.

In Manhattan, having a therapist is a mark of success, wealth, and awareness. In a poor neighborhood, it can mean only one thing: you’re crazy.

She sees her place in this world in a way I have yet to see myself. Esther might be hired to help, but she treats herself like an equal, and as a result, everyone else treats her that way too.

The sort of unconditional love children offer is different from the affection we share as adults. It’s given without judgment or boundaries. Their love is pure and simple. There’s a generosity to it that they quickly outgrow.

my love for him is absolute in a way it’s never been for any of the other children.

I have spent many years pretending and wanting to fit in with the 1 percent. But looks are deceiving. I can never be one of them. And I’m no longer sure I want to be.

How had Jodi managed to cook for her closest friends last summer with only six staff members in her home and unlimited income? The thought is so burdensome, I send thoughts and prayers.

did that apartment actually feel like home, or did I just like what the address represented?

At six, Rei was wiser about what made a home special than I was. Rei loved my apartment simply because it was mine and she felt special being there.

For years, I had been so obsessed with what I wanted that I had forgotten to notice what I had gained.

If wealth has taught me anything, it is that friendship holds more value than money ever will and that dignity has no price tag.