Modern Day Mary Poppins

Laura Bunyan is assistant professor in residence at the University of Connecticut, Stamford.

• Chapter 1: Hiring Decisions: Employers Dilemmas Chapter 2: Pathways to Nanny Work: Education, Status and Employment Chapter 3: The Ties that Bind: Doing Gender and Expectations of CareChapter 4: Gender and Power: Interactions in the Workplace and on the HomefrontChapter 5: Nanny Work: Hard Lessons LearnedConclusion, Implications, and Suggestions

Rather than focus on the imbalance of power, resources, education, or racism experienced by women who work as nannies, Modern Day Mary Poppins focuses on nannies and employers who share similar sociodemographic characteristics. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a sample of 27 employers and 25 nannies, Bunyan explores the process and criteria employers use in selecting a nanny, the educational and occupational trajectories of women who become nannies, issues of attachment between nannies and children (from the perspective of both the nanny and the employer), gender differences in the division of labor, and the ways in which nannies and employers characterize nanny work as a relatively unattractive, long-term occupation. The book makes no claim to be generalizable. Instead, its contributions come in the form of opening up new questions about nanny work itself, the gender biases in education that lead some women to feel limited in their employment options, and how even the privileges of race, education, and class do not transcend the persistent cultural beliefs that parenting is not valuable work, that parenting is women’s work, and that policy need not support it. Highly recommended.