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June 10, 2025
It turned out that an entry-level job in the entertainment industry paid less than at most fast food chains. Hollywood was essentially made of money. Where was it all going?
Being a nanny was the last job I wanted, but necessity outweighed pride, and so here I am. Once, a first-generation college student and, now, just a toddler’s personal assistant.
For these women education is not an economic necessity, it’s a social status. The working mom is a rarity—and, in many instances, the least respected on the totem pole of motherhood.
The truth is I have so many questions. What’s it like to reside on the most prestigious street in the world? To never budget or be restricted to the clearance rack? How does it feel to have such a beautiful family and peaceful home and to be able to walk into a store and never want for anything? The ability to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone? I can’t imagine it, but I feel no jealousy. Only a burning desire to be just like them.
But Ruby has resources and limitless encouragement.
I think back to myself at that age with regret. Who would I have turned out to be if I had what Ruby has? Intellectually, emotionally, socially, she is so far ahead of where I had been.
But that’s the thing about kids. Rich, poor, smart, fresh, happy, angry, it doesn’t matter. Children are universally difficult.
“It means that when someone isn’t sure about something you want from them you have to use your words, be patient, and show them how it’s done. Otherwise, you will hurt their feelings and they might not want to do a project with you next time. Okay?”
Stew asked.
Who?
Yet, somehow, something’s telling me that I can still do it. Either I’m a dreamer, or I’m a complete fool. Potentially a bit of both.
Stew
Ohhh her dad
Even when a thirty-year-old Grandpa Larry was caught sleeping with her fifteen-year-old sister, Grandma Kiser still stood by her man.
That's insane
Grandma Kiser had insisted I was a boy. A grandson would have carried on the family name. It didn’t matter that the name came with zero respect, assets, or admiration. What mattered was that a boy could do for the bloodline what a girl could not.
That explain so much 😭😭
It seemed like each time I finally understood one lesson, the class had already moved on to another.
I’m not like her. I’m also not like the mothers around here. So where do I fit in?
don't like
I wonder, What if I had gone to Little Learning? I’d spent my entire childhood being labeled “delayed.” But was I? Was little Katherine a uniquely fast learner or is this what you get for five hundred dollars an hour?
I begin to think maybe I hadn’t been slow after all. Maybe I had just been born into the wrong class.
This isn’t a children’s party. It is a talent show for family status.
As a child or a teenager, I would have found all this so ridiculous it would have been laughable, but that was before. Before I became so envious.
The less I take, the less it will appear I need. Wealthy people can afford to look greedy.
But it’s different for me. The more I take, the more I must not have. The more they take, the more they will have.
She takes the parties and vacations, food and beach houses for everything they are. She knows how to make the most out of this job.
The issue was that while Gram would do anything for Hope, she’d also never stop reminding her of as much. It was my earliest lesson on how money creates just as many problems as it solves.
What do you want to go and add another mouth to feed for?” “Because I love being a mother.” What she meant was that she loved solidifying the bond between her and my father with the one weapon in her arsenal: shared offspring.
She wanted three children regardless of whether she could handle or afford them.
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.
If being a mom is this challenging for Sasha, whose wealth and resources far exceed the majority of Americans’, what is it like for a teen or single mother?
I feel a flash of shame at how easily I focused on my mother’s faults, never recognizing her strengths.
Some days, I love being with the children so much, I nearly forget the dreams I’m abandoning.
I laugh out loud at the absurdity of the claim. “Elissa, why would I be the only nanny she talks to?” This time Elissa looks directly at me, and her response is firm. “She talks to you because you are white.”
I imagine that any one of these rich people could clear my student loans with a flick of the wrist. With that thought comes a rush of resentment. It is the first time I take a look at my luxurious surroundings and feel anything other than awe. I’m surrounded by families with more money than they could ever need, and they’re being served by people who are likely just as capable as them but who simply weren’t fortunate enough to inherit millions at birth.
I get caught up in the question of whether I didn’t work hard enough or if my hard work got me as far as it could, given my circumstances. I’m not sure of the answer.
The more I see of Sasha’s mothering, the more intensely I begin to resent my own childhood. Her devotion and attention far outweigh anything my mother had been able to offer, and, as a result, Ruby is all the things I was not: well mannered, good natured, polite, and respectful.
eager to speak to a candidate with both a college education and Fifth Avenue experience.
Wait yeah. How DID she get that job?
Instead, I lock the experience away, trying to pretend it never happened by waking up each morning, going to work, and caring for a baby that is not my own.
I knew logically, perhaps better than anyone, the repercussions of bringing a child into the world before you’re ready. Maturity, stability, and desire are key.
Was I the help or just someone who needed help? Was this as good as I would ever do for myself?
“The first time I went to your house…” She paused. “It was the first time I realized my family had money.”
More important than how you performed at your job is who you performed it for.
everything Stanford and MIT would see on his application,
She said Ivys only
I begin to see just how lucky I had been to find Sasha.
No, literally
But all over the country, twentysomethings are returning home to their parents’ basements after graduating, forfeiting both their pride and their independence. They’re searching for jobs, taking ones they never intended to, and wondering if they’ll ever again be debt-free.
I’d hardly paid down any of the amount I’d borrowed because the bank’s 4.5 percent interest rate wouldn’t allow any actual progress—a modern way of blocking upward mobility. Out in the real world, I saw who college was truly for: those who could afford it. I feel trapped, hopeless, and ashamed.
“I know it’s particular, but you know, we just really wanted someone who went to college,” she says. Oh, yes, I think to myself. Thank goodness for that college education. This is exactly what I was hoping to use it for.
I had felt a brief relief when Stefany had hired me, but now, back in my own gloomy reality, I just feel lost.
I nodded, embarrassed and unsure how I could force my parents to take an interest in higher learning.
I don't know... it sounds like she's not taking accountability either. It gets to a point...
Giving a student a scholarship doesn’t even the playing field; it simply puts them in the same arena.
My private school education forever altered my trajectory. It was the first place that exposed me to the possibility of more. I was surrounded by successful adults who had important careers and significant resources.
