Stefanie Kiser Book: In Search of: Your Toddler’s Personal Assistant. Cover design by Jillian Rahn/Sourcebooks.
Courtesy: Stephanie Kizer
In 2014, Stephanie Kiser came to New York as a recent college graduate hoping to become a screenwriter. Instead, she spent the next seven years working as a nanny for a wealthy family.
Kaiser new products Memoirs“, “Searching for a Personal Assistant for Toddlers: What Babysitting for the 1% Taught Me About America’s Myths of Equality, Motherhood, and Upward Mobility,” details her unexpected career.
During her seven years as a nanny, she escorted a client’s daughter to a $500-per-session literacy tutor on the Upper East Side, ran errands in a Porsche and Mercedes, and took refuge in a family shelter. She is living at home in the Hamptons during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her clients include families with dynastic wealth and people in high-paying jobs such as doctors and lawyers.
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In Kiser’s first nanny job, she made $20 an hour, well above the $14 an hour she expected to make as a production assistant on a short-term contract. In addition, she often works overtime.
“What I do usually ends up being $1,000 a week,” Kiser said.
That first job opened the door to a higher-paying position through a nanny agency. In her last year as a nanny during the pandemic, Kaiser estimates she took home about $110,000.
“Even though I had the least respected job among my friends, I definitely made the most money,” said Kizer, 32, who works at an ad tech company in New York City.
CNBC spoke with Kiser about some of the financial lessons she learned while working as a nanny and why she ultimately left the position.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity).
No prospects for job growth: ‘I’m very static’
On May 1, 2006, Scarlett Johansson was filming “The Nanny Diaries” on location in the Upper East Side of New York City, USA.
James Devaney | Wire Image | Getty Images
Ana Teresa Solá: When I first saw this book, I thought of Diary of a Nanny, a novel published in the early 2000s that was later adapted into a film. What made you decide to write your story as a memoir rather than a novel?
Stephanie Kizer: When I started my first job, I read Diary of a Nanny. This really hit home with me at the time, but I did find it a bit ironic. I don’t want to denigrate the rich or the poor because there are people on both sides that I love dearly.
My purpose in writing books is to make social commentary. I hope to be able to build a bridge between understanding on both sides because people think poor people just don’t work hard enough and rich people are inherently bad people.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but I think that people who have the money, hire people who actually need these jobs, they do have the privilege and opportunity to make other people’s lives better or worse.
The contract as a nanny is important because there are no human resources.
ATS: You mentioned that you couldn’t afford professional work in New York because the pay was much lower than what you were making as a nanny. Have you ever felt trapped?
SK: When my last boss read this, she felt sad and thought, “I didn’t realize your job was so painful.” I said, “No, I’m not miserable doing this job.” . I love your kids very much, but this is not the job I want.
I do feel trapped. I felt like there was nothing I could do and it got worse as time went on.
All of my friends grew up in these jobs and gained more experience on their resumes, while I did not. I’m very still in this position.
It’s not a good feeling to feel like there’s nothing you can do. Now that I have a different job, this is the first year that I’m making more money than being a nanny, which is great, but the first few years of being a nanny are really hard financially, so making that switch .
“Without HR…the contract is all you have”
ATS: A family provides you with a $125,000 salary, plus comprehensive health and dental expenses, a monthly MetroCard and an annual bonus. But you go with another family and get paid less. You mentioned you were waiting for a contract. Why is this so important in business?
SK: A nanny contract is important because there are no human resources; there are no laws to protect you. Your employer is completely responsible for everything and they decide everything. (New York State does have a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which has some protective measures.)
In a regular job you might say, “I’ve already worked 60 hours this week, and I’m not going to work anymore.” You can’t do that here (there are nanny positions.)
The contract is all you have, and not getting one is really worrying. Your whole life is the nanny of this family. I had just finished a really tough job where I felt like I wasn’t a real person and I didn’t want to take another job like that.
Stefanie Kiser Book: In Search of: Your Toddler’s Personal Assistant. Cover design by Jillian Rahn/Sourcebooks.
Courtesy: Stephanie Kizer
ATS: Can you describe the difference between an au pair and a nanny?
SK: Au pairs can work a certain number of hours, such as up to 30 or 40 hours per week, but there are clear boundaries since they often work for an agency. The agencies that sent them have told you very clearly that they can’t do any more.
They get a very small stipend, but they do get specific accommodations, maybe their own room. Their meals and transportation expenses have been paid for. Au pairs have more measures in place to ensure they are not taken advantage of. Nannies often do not have these protections.
Nannies from agencies are slightly more protected and these are usually the ones who get the contract. But these are the best of the best nannies; these are professional nannies who have been doing this for 50 years; they have raised lots of kids and they have amazing references. Or a young nanny who comes here fresh out of a good college and has about 10 skills they can offer. So honestly, it’s a luxury.
Amphetamine-type stimulants: You also describe the uncertainty associated with the job. It looks like nanny jobs have a low barrier to entry and great potential for salary growth, but all the other risks that come with it.
SK: I know some nannies who are pregnant and they tell their bosses. There is no such thing as “we will pay for your three months of maternity leave.” There’s no, “We’re going to let you go in month eight so you can rest.” None of that.
You can never truly feel safe at work. If you have a medical emergency, if something goes wrong – I’m sure there are exceptions, but for the most part, you’re just out of luck. In this sense, it is a very dangerous profession.
“That’s how you know they’re rich”
ATS: By 2023, about 47% of childless adults under 50 say they are unlikely to have children, according to the Pew Research Center. What does this mean for nannies?
SK: I wonder if this applies to the type of people I’m writing about. I wonder if for them this is a decline that we’ll see, or if they’re outliers.
If that’s the case, I think it’s a very serious problem. We have a lot of people coming here in New York and they need something to make ends meet, they need to take care of their kids and maybe this is their job after get off work and that’s how they work. Or some people don’t have documents, and what they can do is really limited. Many times, housework and nannying are the only options.
Amphetamine-type stimulants: At the end of the book, you write that you received an offer as a personal assistant to the CEO, with a salary and benefits of $90,000. Is this starting point lower than what you were earning as a nanny at the time?
SK: must. As a nanny, I made $110,000…so that’s a significant drop.
I had to work very hard and very quickly to get promoted. I was a personal assistant, I was an administrative assistant, and last July I changed companies and I became a senior assistant, and that’s the role that I ended up making more than a nanny. I don’t think I would have been able to do this, make this transition, if my student loan payments hadn’t been paused because of COVID.
ATS: You write in your book that some families signal their wealth by having many children. I’d love to know more about this.
SK: I think about where I was born, where I’m from, and whenever there’s a family with five or six kids, it’s kind of like, “Well, that makes sense because they’re not rich.” And then you come to New York and you’re in You see someone on Park Avenue with five or six kids and you say, “That’s how you know they’re rich.”
Here, if you do have three kids, you start sending them to kindergarten for $40,000 a year, and then they go to these elite schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, for $60,000 a year, and then you send them to Harvard for four years.
It’s not even just schooling, most of the time you send three kids to this school and then you hire a full-time nanny after they take private guitar lessons.
ATS: What would you say to women in their 20s who were in the position you were in a few years ago?
SK: Do things in parallel. I don’t think I would be happy if I was just a nanny. There’s no way I could survive just writing, but I think doing both at the same time, things turned out exactly how I expected.
Nannying is very important to me because it not only allows me to earn money to live on, but also allows me to build a foundation. When I moved to New York, I had nothing. Now I have a fully furnished apartment with everything I need to be a fully functioning adult. I have a dog, I can afford to take care of it, and I have a car. These are things I wouldn’t be able to do if I wasn’t a nanny.
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