Wanted: Toddler's Personal Assistant: How Nannying for the 1% Taught Me about the Myths of Equality, Motherhood, and Upward Mobility in America, by Stephanie Kiser.

First of all, the title of this book is too long. Secondly, I hated this book — a lot.

From the indulgent title, one would think this book would include some amount of stats or data alongside the author’s lived experience as a white nanny for the rich. What this book delivered instead was a flatly-written account of the author’s witness to inequities, inequality, and privilege and her chosen decision to not take a stance on any of it. She writes about learning how family members who, beyond relaying orders, never spoke to non-white nannies who lived in their homes but freely asked her about her own family, her schooling, and her day. She learned she was the exception to being able to drive the family car from other non-white nannies who had been working for families for years and didn’t even know where the keys to certain vehicles were located. The author’s family were (are) staunch right-wingers, and she freely included excerpts of her family’s racist remarks about “illegals” and sexist remarks about Hillary Clinton. The author relayed these things willingly, but noticeably missing from her account was her position on any of it. She merely acknowledged the racism, sort of like saying, “I saw someone run over a person,” but not going the distance on whether they felt the act was wrong or right. This is bothersome to me because the title would lead one to believe otherwise — that the author learned something from her experience and will share what she learned with us and what she now believes based on her learnings. If she learned anything at all, she’s keeping it close to chest, and I have to believe she’s doing this because she continues to surround herself with people who think the racism witnessed is not necessarily bad — just par for the course, a way of life. And who she surrounds herself with is her choice and her business, but I think I should’ve known what I was getting myself into before I gave her my money.

There’s nothing I hate more than a person who stands on absolutely nothing. If you see this book in the wild, do me a favor and tuck it behind all the others in the same row.