Living: Beyond a Spoonful of Sugar

Since she ruled the downstairs–and much of the upstairs–of Edwardian households, the British nanny has been the “veddy” last word in child care for privileged families. Now she is getting some colonial competition. Prompted by a demand for long-term quality care by the growing ranks of dual- career couples, an Americanized version of the legendary domestic tyrant is blossoming in affluent suburbs across the country.

Loosely modeled on British equivalents, 17 fledgling nanny training centers, from Haddonfield, N.J., to Sacramento, have opened their doors in the past 18 months to homegrown applicants. They offer eight- to 15-week courses of study, including such subjects as child development and coping with separation anxiety. Graduates command $175 to $300 a week for their services; live-ins receive room and board, and most get medical benefits as well.

The schools cannot keep up with demand. Since the American Nanny Plan opened in Claremont, Calif., in 1983, some 2,000 families have written to ask about hiring one of its 36 graduates. Desperate couples have even been known to underwrite a trainee’s tuition to ensure her services after graduation. The rush, says Judith Bunge, founder of North American Nannies Inc., in Columbus, “is because of the high number of working mothers with children under six.”

Indeed, about 7 million mothers of preschoolers now work outside the home, and many must compete for scarce spaces at day care centers or depend on strangers found through want ads. Kevin Becica, 31, a Cherry Hill, N.J., civil engineer, felt she was wasting too much time carting her youngsters to a baby-sitter, so she hired Sue Thomas, a trained and bonded nanny. “It’s the most expensive kind of day care,” she says, “but my kids are well cared for and safe.”

The lucky parents who have nannies seem willing to do anything to please them. One couple bought their nanny a ski outfit and free lessons during the family’s outing to Vail, and another included a room for theirs in a new addition to the family’s Pacific Palisades, Calif., home. Screen Actress Mary Beth Hurt (The World According to Garp) took Daughter Molly and her American nanny to London while on location.

Unlike Mary Poppins, who was armed only with a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, the new nannies are valued for their specialized knowledge. At North American, for example, students learn toilet-training procedures from a pediatric nurse, diet planning for acne-prone adolescents from a nutritionist and how to deal with family turmoil from a counselor. Says Nanny Plan Student Marcie Mansell, 24, a former cosmetics-company beauty adviser: “We are professionals trained to know things baby-sitters do not.”

The biggest problem for the schools: finding qualified students in an age when women’s liberation has put child care behind the “Gingham Curtain.” Minimum admission requirements at most centers are a high school diploma, psychological tests and a criminal record check. Tuitions range from $900 to $2,000, prohibitive to many candidates. Typically, says North American’s Bunge, “I’m attracting young women with no formal backgrounds from little towns. They already work with children, but they make peanuts.”

Students have various reasons for their choice of career. Tammy Frantz, 20, of North American Nannies, disliked the assembly-line approach in her previous job at a day care center. As a nanny she stands to double her salary. Says she: “I wanted to work individually, to see kids grow up.” Pat Morgan, 41, grandmother of a two-year-old, switched to nanny school after getting an accounting degree because, she complains, “accounting was boring. I can’t imagine babies ever being boring.” Alice Naumetz, 56, left clinical education work for Philadelphia’s Nanny School and the chance for a more glittering life-style. “I’d like to be a nanny to a child of Meryl Streep’s,” she says. “I could go on location with them.”

Instilling confidence is a prime objective. Psychologist Beverly Benjamin, founder of Nanny Plan, teaches students to deal with everything from a pass by a husband to a mother’s jealousy of a nanny’s close relationship with her child. Bunge tells students, “You are a resource person like an accountant or an attorney. You have to present your information in a subtle way.” Yet most schools teach some assertiveness training. “Families tend to overburden nannies,” says Larry Uno, of the California Nannie College in Sacramento. “We teach them to say no.”

The figure of the nanny looms large in history. “My nurse was my confidante,” wrote a wistful Winston Churchill of his beloved Mrs. Everest. American aristocrats such as Franklin Roosevelt also had treasured nannies, but will the new nanny to the upper middle class have a similar impact? That will take a generation to discover. Meanwhile, they are charting a new egalitarian course between the pantry and the parlor. Says Bunge: “They’re not servants and they’re not new sisters. What are they? That’s what the nannies have to figure out.” Mary Poppins may be an outdated stereotype, but it just may take a spoonful of sugar–or two–to help such assertive new medicine go down in America.