So began my my late teens and early twenties. I moved to New York City for school and entered the insanity that is Upper West Side Nanny Life. It was during these years that I began to learn how I did NOT want to raise my children. My mom once said to me that it is always easier to raise children with little money than too much money, because when you have little money, the answer is always, "No." However, as the many families I came to work for over the next 4 years proved, when there are 3 nannies, 2 personal assistants, a chef, a housekeeper and a driver, it becomes a little harder to say "no" to a child's request for a new Pokemon card. Here is the stuff that values are made of. And as much as I loved the children I sat for over the years, I always felt a little sad when they easily referred to me as, "Mom." Now, it must be said that I have nothing but the DEEPEST respect for parents who balance work and parenting (my parents included). However, when I am faced with a mother who stays at home, has 9 personal staff members and a 5 year old boy who wants her to read to him, and she looks at me with pleading and exhausted eyes and says," Katy-please! I CANNOT handle this right now!" and slouches back to bed, where she remains for the rest of the day, I make a mental note to myself promising never to be her.
Other adventures in nannying included 3 months spent in New Zealand for a young family, who had their third child under 4 after I had been there 3 days. A week after the baby came home from the hospital, I got hit with the flu within a twenty minute span and, not wanting to burden the family, went to sleep that night, convinced that I had contracted meningitis and would probably die in my sleep. Miraculously, I survived, only to be told by the new mother the next morning, that she could not possibly take care of a sick au pair, in addition to three children, and if I didn't immediately recover, I would be out on the street. Needless to say, I felt better.
Several years later, there was the 5 year old boy who always wanted to play cops and robbers with me and he was infuriated with me when I told him that I didn't like to play with guns. When he reported this to his father, his father patted him on the head and said, "Its okay, Nick. Katy doesn't understand, she voted for Gore."
While learning the ways in which I did, and did not, want to raise my future children, I still engaged in shirt stuffing behavior, but had evolved past the amateur practice of using a pillow. I acted in a good friend of mine's senior thesis film, in which the main character was a pregnant Zamboni driver and I played her arch nemesis, a champion figure skater (fantastic body double). At the wrap party my friend gave me, as thank you gift, the pregnancy belly form (compete with a belly button!) used in the film, because she knew that I, above all others, would want it. To describe my excitement at having this in my possession would be fruitless. OBVIOUSLY, I began wearing it frequently, whenever I could justify it. It began with a series of pictures (of which I wish I could find), of me and two of my best friends, Meredith and Margaret, taking turns wearing the belly under white wife beaters and drinking 40s. Disturbing, I know. I also convinced Meredith that I had to do a social experiment where I wore the belly to the movies with her, to see how people treated me differently. Sadly, they did not treat me like the queen I was hoping for, but that's New Yorkers for you. I also dressed up as a pregnant prom queen for Halloween that year only to have people look at me with disgust as I drunkenly rode home on the subway at 3am. What can I say, the belly was convincing! I once came out of my bedroom wearing it, when my 80 year old grandmother was visiting and she nearly had a heart attack because she thought it was my back door way of letting her know I was pregnant out of wedlock. I eventually retired the belly from active duty and went back to wearing it only on occasion, such as the time I played a pregnant conjoined triplet for a Medicine Show in Alaska (see picture above).
Soon after this, I entered the period in which I began the long and extensive pre-planning for pregnancy and parenthood, known as "Aha, There You Are! You're Perfect For The Job. Let's Get This Party Started."
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