"Just Like Family" by Tasha Blaine - Book Review

To be a nanny is to live a life of striking, almost painful contrasts.

You earn comparatively little but spend your days in comfortable, even luxurious surroundings. You always have time for the children you care for but your own are latchkey kids who come home to an empty house. You prepare meals, tidy up, and make life easier for the working parents who hire you, yet you're a working woman who still has to cook and clean in your own home.

You wield real power in the lives of these families, yet you get little respect from your employers or from others who think, "How hard can it be to raise other people's kids?"

It's hard. Very hard, as Tasha Blaine reveals in Just Like Family: Inside the Lives of Nannies, the Parents They Work for, and the Children They Love.

And smartly enough, she doesn't simply draw on her own short stint as a nanny to make the case, but spoke with dozens of nannies before settling on three -- Claudia, Vivian, and Kim -- to show how complicated, misunderstood, and often painful the relationship is between a nanny, the children she cares for, and the parents who may say she's "just like family" but in the end regard her as nothing more than expendable hired help.

Each of the three nannies Blaine follows in-depth has a different story to tell.

Claudia, a native of Dominica, has her own 12-year-old daughter at home and an unreliable husband who she's separating from; she'd like to continue her education, but has been a nanny for years in New York City and doesn't think she can make a change for the better.

Vivian, a college graduate, is a single 28-year-old who is passionate about her work; she wants nannies to be regarded as professional working women and attends national conferences and promotes the profession while caring for two boys in a suburb of Boston.

Kim, facing a second divorce, takes on a new job as a live-in nanny in Texas; despite 20 years of satisfying, rewarding employment as a nanny, she finds herself in a situation with an emotionally unstable, paranoid employer and feels trapped by circumstances.

Blaine, who earned an MFA in fiction writing from New York University, tells their stories with a sure and transparent voice that makes you feel as if you're standing in the kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms of these homes, eavesdropping on what's going on.

The book is non-fiction but reads like a fiction tale well told, and unlike fiction, it's never quite clear how things are going to end up. (The ominous details of Kim's living arrangements in the home of Brian, the paranoid employer, are especially unsettling.)

Each woman's story has a strong emotional pull, and although readers will undoubtedly have their favorites, their situations are understandable and the empathy Blaine has for both the nannies and their families shines through.

You don't have to be a nanny, employ a nanny, care for children or even have children in your home to enjoy this book. However, if any of the above apply to you, Just Like Family will provide greater insight into the nanny-parent dynamic and may prove invaluable if you're contemplating bringing a nanny into your home. It's a deeply moving account of the lives of women who are paid to love and care and for our children and who lose their heart in the process. I can't recommend it enough.