This is an intriguing peek into the life of a nanny to the wealthy families of NYC while trying to figure out her life and finances. This memoir is humorous and clever.

https://michelleardillo.com/2024/08/06/book-review-wanted-toddlers-personal-assistant-by-stephanie-kiser/

What an incredible memoir! I loved the alternating timelines of the author’s childhood and the current nannying situation. I loved the casual name drops of celebrities and the juxtaposition of wealth with those who are struggling.

4.5 stars

I absolutely loved this book! It was one of those "Do-I-really-need-to-go-to-sleep-even-though-it's-3 a.m.-because-I-don't-want-to-stop?" ones for me. Now that you've (hopefully) not been scared away by that run-on sentence, here's more...

I was intrigued by the peek into the lives of the very wealthy when I decided to read this, I admit. But I also knew it would have criticisms of them. I am not sure how she did it, but Ms. Kiser somehow manages to so well describe and embrace all that she loved about the kids she cared for--the jobs--and certain employers, the absolute exhaustion and desperation of such work, the privileges she came to realize she had as a white person in the nanny world, a very special best friend, with all of this contrasted and interwoven with great skill in regards to her "white trash" and politically conservative upbringing. And to keep it entertaining, lightly funny, and fascinating at every turn; what's next, I often wondered.

With absolutely crushing student debt and a hard time paying the high rent in New York City, Stephanie enters the job market with her hard-earned diploma from Boston's Emerson College expecting to get a decent job in TV writing; at least an entry position. However she soon realizes that one of the only type of jobs available to her that pays enough for her to not be in "survival" mode is to nanny for the ultra rich families in New York City, mostly in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Such jobs pay about $50k-125K a a year, some with medical benefits. (The only thing missing from the story was how she got an "in" into the first such job).

At first I thought, well the writing is certainly not bad, but it's nothing extraordinary. But as I read, I realized the way she writes is as if someone is personally talking to me with their story. I have read a LOT of memoirs and unfortunately often the writing is horrible (even when story is interesting). This on the other hand was quite easy to absorb. And for me, riveting.

She really covers a lot of ground in the manner she interweaves all of these aspects. From her absolute thrill at having Tiny Fey comment on how cute the baby is that she's holding (while at a fancy poolside vacation with her employers) to having to scrape poop off of diapers with her fingernails. For a FIVE year old. For a mother who screamed at her because she was not using her fingernails but rubbing the two sides of the fancy linen diaper together, which would degrade the linen. Yep...

She narrates the journey so well, with her feelings, the situations, the personalities all having a light touch yet plenty of characterization for the reader to feel what she is experiencing.

I enjoyed many of her lines, such as:

<i>...she had pesticides where her soul should have been.</i>

and

<i>As she left, so did any kindness in the room.</i>

For me, it was not just eye-opening about these 1%-ers (some described as obviously far more compassionate than others). It was just as much about her upbringing in a far-less educated, fairly poor family. I highlighted the most in this book the conversations from her family about why they were "red" or conservative voters. I. like many liberals, have often wondered how such folks can constantly vote against their best interests, not "see the light," be so duped, be so "stupid." It was a wake up call for me to realize how much they resent being seen as stupid by "those liberals" (like me) and the reasons for thinking how they think. Indeed, it showed why and how the educated tend to be more liberal in politics but gave me much to think about in regards to "those people."

<i> My father's reasons for voting Republican, backward as they have been, made sense to him. He had worked harder than anyone I had ever known to get where he did. The truth was my dad was not racist or dumb or evil. He was scared. He was scared of the government taking more of what little he had. Like me he just was not fully clear on how it all worked.</i>

Hearing stories like these from folks who have transitioned out of ignorance into a more informed (& consequently) more liberal world view, but who understand their own roots, is priceless.

I highly recommend this book!

And my many thanks for the advanced copy to Sourcebooks, NetGalley, and Stephanie Kiser.

Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college, hoping to make it as a writer for television. She quickly finds out the jobs she could use to break into the business would not cover her living expenses. When she answers an ad for a nanny, Kiser decides it could be a way to save up some money for a little while. Throughout the memoir, Kiser details her time as a nanny for the top 1% and contrasts it with the very different world she grew up in.

Based on the title and description of the book, I was really looking forward to that fascinating look into the lifestyle of the top elite. We do get some fun anecdotes and Kiser showed vulnerability with what she expected from her life and how she grew up. I was disappointed that Kiser's privilege allowed her to touch on the subject of racism that she witnessed in her time as a nanny without really going deeper or addressing it. It felt more of a passing thought. I did enjoy seeing her growth from wanting the apartments or materialistic things that others would deem as her being successful, to her final realization that money does not always bring happiness. Overall, it was a fun read.

Kiser spent 7 years after college nannying for wealthy families in New York. I was expecting a fairly voyeuristic book about that experience but this book intertwines her years as a nanny with her years growing up poor in Rhode Island. Although I didn't really like the chapters jumping back and forth and she probably gave too much detail about her childhood, it does a good job of framing her experiences. She is aware of how being white and going to a well-known college gave her opportunities and experiences that other nannies did not have. I did appreciate her realizations about politics. However, I think if she waited 10 years to write this book, it would ultimately be more insightful. A decent book that is worthy of discussion.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. These opinion are completely my own.

I did not know what to expect from this novel, but I rather enjoyed it. The writing style had me wondering if they were fact or fiction. The two time lines were very well placed and interesting comparisons.

This was an interesting read of how someone from a "white trash" background who once declared as a child, "but, I AM FAT", and considered herself ugly and stupid, has climbed to a higher economic class than her parents at her age. Stephanie Kiser is a character, in that she represents a story of American, but also that she sometimes doesn't seem real, until she shares her musings on overt and subtle racism from white employers to their colored staff members. Being privy to her thoughts, I considered her selfish for pushing her best friend away, irresponsible for spending money as soon as she gets it (which she does acknowledge), and the way her parents treated her continuing to dictate how she teaches others to treat her.

Oh my god, her parents. Her dad consistently calls her a dumbass and the main mode of communication in her household is yelling. Both her parents became parents too young, and her mother is still a child in her own right because she started a family before she could really live and learn. Whenever Stephanie mentions her parents, they don't feel like traditional parents, instead, they feel like a set of mean friends that you live with, try to escape, yet get pulled back into.

I could go on about Stephanie, but another important character that deserves mention in this book is the children, and by extension, their parents. Stephanie reveals that rich people can CHOSE to be ridiculous, it is not just a quirky personality trait that is thrusted upon them. Her first employers are actually down to earth people, who still follow the traditional trope of the wife taking on all the child caring duties while the husband continues to live his life with mild interruptions from his children. Case in point, Stephanie's female employer asks her husband to watch their youngest, who is only a few months old, so that she can attend to the other children. The husband agrees and then proceeds to pull out his phone, allowing a disaster to strike, which did. When the mother came back, the baby had knocked over a juice, staining the carpet, and she set about expunging the stain from the pristine carpet. This infuriated me because she just asked for a simple helping hand and he proceeded to do the least. Even when she was at her most tired, from a long, long day at work, he was disappointed that she didn't prepare clams for dinner, instead, opting to order in. Now, this couple may be down to earth and embody the traditional family troupe, but they are considered an anomaly in the high rolling world of elite New York nannies. Stephanie's subsequent employers are a motley crew of unaware, or just uncaring, individuals. In one episode, Stephanie is unable to discipline a child that truly needs time outs and discipline, but the mother insists on not actually providing punishment and consequences for bad behavior, instead, just saying "oh, he is special." When in fact, he is just a little asshole, so much so that other kids his age notice. Then in another episode, Stephanie is interviewing for a nanny job and is properly dumbfounded when she finds out the child in question is 17 years old and her only job is to monitor and report back to the overbearing mother.

Overall, this book was an interesting study of the world opening your eyes to new perspectives and lives, whilst also examining the subtle, and sometimes overt, boundary between the help and the household they run; and how, at an early age, boundaries and set rules are needed for child to understand how to operate in the world, regardless of their privilege, and when that is taken away, you are left with an asshole.

I’ll read pretty much anything about NYC’s wealthy elite, especially from the perspective of their nannies. This book was definitely a bigger mix of past and present memoir, reflecting on her time with a few families in NYC but also the stark difference in her own blue collar upbringing.

Underneath the talked of the wealthy is a look at the disparity in America, especially in the time of COVID.

I'm a harsh grader of memoirs written by people in their 20s and 30s. Rarely does a young person (I'm in my 60s, so 20s and 30s are young to me) have enough experience and introspection to compete for top-rating honors. However, Stephanie Kiser keeps her narrative focused on her nannying experiences and appropriately uses her past family stories to contrast the two classes she is comparing. So it worked. Also, I was interested in nannying as a general topic as I raised a large family as a single mom and relied on in-home childcare and, thus, developed a morbid curiosity about nannies to the rich and famous (I did not have a crew of household staff; childcare was my single biggest expense by far).

Kiser's book is good partly because she doesn't seem to have an agenda. She tells about the families she interacted with and worked for in a nuanced manner that shows the complexity of class and privilege. Kiser also sheds light on the challenges those working in service jobs face.

If you are interested in Kiser's subject matter, you will appreciate her memoir. It is well-written and focused, and it makes me very happy that I am not part of NYC's uber-rich, nor dependent on a service job attending to NYC's uber-rich.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an electronic ARC in exchange for a review.

knew this was going to be amusing, heartfelt, touching, & wholesome when I requested it. And now, after reading it, I can confirm it was!

Reading a fellow Emerson alum's work is always fascinating especially if it's a memoir. I loved Stephanie's storytelling of real events/incidents/moments. The writing was catchy & conveyed exactly what Stephanie wanted to.

Can't wait to read more from her, whether it be fiction or non fiction!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Who doesn’t want a glimpse into the lives of the 1% as told by someone who has had an insider’s view into that lifestyle? With this premise, I was intrigued by the cleverly titled, Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant. The author, Stephanie Kiser, moves to New York City after her college graduation and finds she can’t afford the lifestyle she wants due to crippling student loan debt. The only position she can find to help her financially survive is nannying for the wealthy families that pervade the city. Against the backdrop of this experience, the author plays out her own disadvantaged upbringing in a working-class town outside of Providence. As with any memoir, its success comes down to the reliability and likability of the narrator, and while I found the stories about her employers and their exploits interesting and educational, I never really warmed up to the person telling the story.

What I took from Stephanie’s story is that her nannying experience wasn’t all good or all bad… just as with any cross-section of life there are the good, kind, and giving people, and the self-important, arrogant, nasty folks. I do think there was at least one chapter missing from this story as I think the book could have benefited from some self-awareness and self-reflection from the author. Her position in the story is that the game of life is rigged for the wealthy and the powerful—I don’t mention this as a means of debate whether for or against, but Stephanie never seems to consider how the choices she has made in her life up to this point (as told in the book) have affected the outcomes she has had to confront. As a high school student, she had the opportunity to play college basketball on scholarship at schools that may not have been the Ivy League but would have still provided her with a good education and less student loan debt. She decided she was finished with basketball at that point and chose instead to go to a junior college before attending Emerson College and majoring in writing for film and television. Emerson is one of the most expensive schools in the country and she majored in a subject area where it is notoriously difficult to find employment. To further compound her plight, she moves to New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world, to chase her dream. I would have liked to see some hindsight perspective from her, realizing that you don’t have to major in writing to be a writer, that you can live anywhere and find creative people to help encourage and inspire artists of all kinds. I grew weary of the victim narrative she often invoked when so many of her problems were self-inflicted. I think her high school should have done a better job advising her about the long-term effects of her choices, but I doubt in her head-strong immaturity she would follow any advice that would try to talk her out of her determined path to immediate gratification. As someone who majored in writing for film and television, perhaps she can now identify with this iconic line from the film, Good Will Hunting: 'You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.' It is an expensive lesson, and by the end it’s evident that she still hasn't learned it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! It had some super interesting insights that gave some new perspectives! I would recommend this book!

Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant is an insightful, heartfelt account of writer Kiser’s years spent as a nanny for some rich New York families. Kiser moved to New York with her friend after graduating college, and is enamored by the generous paycheck nannying can provide. But she soon discovers the real cost to her health, friendships, and moral compass.

This book was incredibly easy to read. Kiser is an entertaining writer, with a real knack for engaging storytelling. I loved her reflections on her own, comparatively poor upbringing, against this backdrop of opulent wealth. Kiser’s youthful energy comes across well, and she is rarely naive. I got exhausted merely reading about her life!

There were some really heartbreaking moments when Kiser described how wealthy families cut ties with their existing, long-term nannies without a backwards glance during COVID. From Kiser’s account, genuinely “nice” people are few and far between in the circles she worked in.

I read this in a few days, once again staying up past my bedtime. I am so glad readers can benefit from her experience, and the result of her stressful years is an incredibly entertaining book.

This book was enjoyable to read. I appreciated the comparisons and contrasts between the author's own families and the families she nannied for. It was interesting, and at times flabbergasting, to read about the experiences of these young children. Overall, this was a balanced, enjoyable read.

📚: Wanted: Toddler's Personal Assistant by Stephanie Kiser
⭐️: 2/5

The gist: Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college with dreams of becoming a writer. At her entry-level PR job, she realizes her salary won't cover rent, let alone her student loan payments. What allows her to stay afloat? Nannying for the 1%. Written in parallel with her childhood experience in working class North Providence, Rhode Island, this story tells Kiser's aim to jump social classes, but at what cost?

The good: The anecdotes about Kiser's nannying experience are juicy, poignant, and at times, outright hilarious. (The never-disciplined kid bursting into song at a dinner party, singing Santeria by Sublime? What a vision.)

The eh: Going into this read, based on the synopsis and title, had me thinking that the book would be full of the sort of anecdotes I loved reading. But it turns out that the bulk of this is a memoir of Kiser's own childhood and complicated family dynamics. I understand how her working class upbringing ties into the jarring world of nannying the 1% elite -- but it gives a different point of the book than was expected. Additionally, Kiser goes into racial divides among nannies, but only superficially, which came across as glossing over a vital issue. It could have been dug into with more thought or omitted, and instead it lays somewhere, uncomfortably, inbetween.

Thank you to @sourcebooks via @netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. Wanted: Toddler's Personal Assistant is out on August 6th.

The only reason this didn't get 5/5 stars from me is the writing itself. For the beginnings of some chapters, it took too long to get the context I needed in order to establish which point in Stephanie's timeline it was in. That was the ONLY issue I had with this book.

When it comes to social class, I've never read a non-fiction book written from such a unique perspective. Then, as I'd read each chapter I'd realize year-by-year how close in age I am with Stephanie - only to find out we are the same age. I was certain she was much older than me by the gravity and wisdom of her words.

Growing up I wasn't much of a babysitter and my only sibling is a half-brother who I unfortunately didn't/don't see often at all. Until having my own child, I was blind to the dualities of motherhood. I'm not even sure Stephanie knows it (I mean that as a comment, not patronizingly), but the insight she has into raising children and family dynamics from the caregiving angle are so far beyond anyone this age without children. If that's an unpopular opinion, I'm sorry - but as a mother there were portions of this book I've read that made me feel more validated than any book I've read by a biological, full-time caregiving mother. I got the sense that nannying makes the kids your coworkers as much as it makes them your boss, the outcome of your day relies largely on how the day of the children you're with goes. As a stay at home mom I face the same daily coin toss. I think finding those hard truths I identify so closely with in this book can be attributed to the degree of separation nannying provides; you're more likely to be frowned upon if you're overheard saying your kid sucks vs saying your coworker sucks. To have the domestic workload outlined so crisply is refreshing.

If you don't personally have children I think the insight Stephanie provides here will still be enlightening, whether that's on class differences or parenting styles. I recommend this book to any and everyone.

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Stephanie Kiser and publisher for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!}

If you're thinking this book sounds a lot like The Nanny Diaries by authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, you might be surprised to find that Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant has very little in common with the aforementioned novel. While the former is fiction and the latter is not, and they’re both set in the world of the rich and famous, this one hits home much harder.

Wanted: Toddler's Personal Assistant is a candid look into Stephanie Kiser's years of nannying some of America's wealthiest families' privileged offspring. She shares all about the trajectory her life took in her twenties from wanting to be a screenwriter to inadvertently becoming a nanny, partly due to overwhelming debt in student loans, and partly due to the cost of living in New York City.

The synopsis states this memoir as being "alternately poignant and funny", but in my opinion her memoir lacks the "funny". However, what it lacks in humor, it greatly makes up for in "poignant", shock, and astonishment. I wasn't astonished at the wealth of her employers, the shocking behavior of some of her charges, or how the ultra-rich treat their staff, but rather at the "parenting" done by some of these elitist parents - as in one case where Stephanie was interviewed to nanny a seventeen-year-old.

What I enjoyed about this memoir is the real-life look into the lives of real-life people who breathes the same air as the rest of us not part of the American 1%. She deftly draws comparisons between her poverty-stricken upbringing and her new life as a nanny with a newfound measure of financial freedom.

I found the tone of the book rather sombre. It was hard for me to feel any emotion for the author, as she maintains a chasm between herself and the reader. As expected, she obviously had a life outside of her hours as a nanny, but keeps the reader at a distance by sharing only snippets of that part of her world in short, unexpected bursts. In stark contrast she details what her life was like being raised by parents in "an economy stacked against anyone trying to work their way up from the bottom". In all honesty, I enjoyed reading about this part of her life journey as much as I did the chapters about her nannying. Her frankness about her tumultuous childhood years brought a level of depth to her memoir that I felt would make her experiences as a child relatable to many readers.

Her memoir is filled with social commentary about the growing divide in society between the super-rich and the dirt poor, as evidenced in the chapters spanning the COVID-19 pandemic. If at no other time in recent years, the world witnessed the true colors of human behavior during that period, and Stephanie shares heartbreaking experiences during those years of fellow staffers and nannies whom she had befriended long before the outbreak of the pandemic.

It's not all doom and gloom though. She also tells of all the good experiences she’s had with employers who took a hands-on approach to parenting their children, and who welcomed her into their families. She shares about the children she came to love as though they were her own. Despite the glimpses into the more positive aspects of her time as a nanny, her resentment about certain aspects of this job, which she chose out of financial necessity, comes through loud and clear. I often found it difficult to discern whether she loved it or hated it, as I was left with the impression that every day for her as a toddler's "personal assistant" seemed to be a little of both.

Overall, I really enjoyed this memoir as it addresses a host of issues not only limited to social inequality. Stephanie shares her views on the difference (but also in some cases, similarities) of parenting styles between the rich and poor, and the divide between white, college-educated nannies versus ethnic minorities in the same profession. This book offers a lot of food for thought.

Wanted: Toddler's Personal Assistant kept me glued to its pages and reading into the wee hours of the morning when I should’ve been sleeping. Therefore I highly recommend this thought-provoking read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an ARC of this memoir in exchange for my honest review.

Stephanie Kiser’s memoir on her time as a nanny for the New York elite was one of those rare books I couldn't put down. As she takes on this high paying job to survive as a writer despite heavy student loan debt in Manhattan, she transports us into the extravagant lives of the privileged few, to their Upper East Side residence with their designer baby wardrobes, their estates in the Hamptons too large to take in, and then some.

It's a dream come true for her, at first, as she takes us on her journey of assisting several such families with their childcare needs. Her bosses, the mothers and fathers of these babies in need, range from honest and grounded to peculiar and downright abusive, all in the quest to provide the most curated experience for their child.

I think what makes this book stand out so much is how she weaves in her own upbringing in poverty and brings it in contrast with the lavish life her little Upper East Side brethren experience.

At one point, Kiser even worries about the arrival of a new baby in the family she's taking care of, comparing it to the serious financial hardship that situation caused in her own family.

“I know the sort of damage new additions can bring to a family, and I am terrified for Sasha. The one thing I cannot understand when she tells me this is why she looks so incredibly happy.”

Kiser also masters a discussion on several social issues—for one she describes the inequality that exists between women and men even in the upper crust of our economy, with all the help that can be bought by their wealth.

“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.”

She also manages to use her multifaceted book to comment on her own privilege as a white American citizen in the profession, comparing her relative safety to the cutthroat immigrant labor practices during COVID that result in sudden job loss and even the need to leave the country in some cases.

The glitzy armor begins to gnaw even on her “safer” existence though. Contrary to the expected trope, it isn't the abusive environment that wears her down though—in fact, she seems to have a spidey sense for exploitative situations to step away from. Instead, it is the loss of her writing career, the reason for her student loans in the first place, that begins to unsettle her.

The book culminates in the examination of American economy and politics and how they've led her on her path from poverty to a college degree and debt. Kiser concludes on a positive note and leaves us in awe of not only her courage, but also her exemplary writing, which didn't fall by the wayside throughout her years as a nanny after all.

“Life in America was rigged, but I had done well enough in the game to find a happy medium. My feet were firmly planted on the bridge between less and more. It was everything I could have hoped for.”

Thank you Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book and it’s look into the world of a nanny. I was expecting some fluffy funny stories about nanny life, but it was so much more than that. I liked the honest and heartfelt writing about the good and bad parts of being a nanny. The author also discussed her life growing up with a lot less than the families she nannied for which made her story even more interesting. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader’s copy.