The Secret Lives of Nannies

I realized this weekend that even my best friends judge me for having a nanny. Not in a "you're a horrible mom" way, to be sure. But in the way that "she has a nanny" is one of the first things that comes to mind when they think of me. It was a reminder of how complicated and multi-facted the nanny issue is. I used to go back and forth on "to nanny or not to nanny" all the time. I've gone through all the cliched mental hoops--will she be raising my kids; am I being selfish; etc. etc. And I've rounded the bend and truly now chant as mantra "Get a nanny and get over it."
So I thought I had exhausted every possible thing you could think about nannies.

But lo and behold, I was wrong. Tasha Blaine's new book, Just Like Family turns the mental gymnastics so many of us engage in in terms of nannies on its head. Instead of the usual back and forth on whether to get a nanny in the first place, it addresses a question that I had never yet asked: What does my nanny think of me?

It's a great read and much more fun than The Nannie Diaries and its ilk because Blaine's portraits of families and nannies are so real. She somehow manages to capture all the nuance of the complicated dynamics of nanny families in a way that made me re-examine assumptions I had thought were firmly tested.

Educational and absorbing...but, for what it's worth: I still will be emblazening "Get a Nanny and get Over it" with rhinestones on a tshirt very soon. You think it's crazy? Nah. This is crazy.

Book Club?

I can't wait to read this book. Yes it is by an Indian woman and yes it could be pigeon-holed as the sort of "identity fiction" I begged to come to an end. But I can tell it's going to be amazing. It's not going to be one of those "one foot in the east, one foot in the west, woe is me tales." It's going to be a full, robust, plot-driven adventure, featuring an Indian woman as the protagonist. Just check out this blurb from Amazon:

In the wake of their mother’s mysterious death, Linno and Anju are raised in Kerala by their father, Melvin, a reluctant Christian prone to bouts of dyspepsia, and their grandmother, the superstitious and strong-willed Ammachi. When Anju wins a scholarship to a prestigious school in America, she seizes the opportunity, even though it means betraying her sister. In New York, Anju is plunged into the elite world of her Hindu American host family, led by a well-known television personality and her fiendishly ambitious son, a Princeton drop out determined to make a documentary about Anju’s life. But when Anju finds herself ensnared by her own lies, she runs away and lands a job as a bikini waxer in a Queens beauty salon.

And apparently that's only the first half...! Seriously? The "Indian-American experience" with a sort of culmination at a waxing lounge in Queens?? I'm getting tingly thinking about it...!

If any of you want to read this with me, welcome to the most low-key book club of all time. We can read the book and, in a month or so, we can put up some of our thoughts about it. Done. Hope you'll join me!

Tasty Reading

In case you missed it: I can't cook. I am a master at assembling: Caprese skewers? Phyllo cups with feta and mushrooms? I'm your girl. But actual cooking--like involving heat and pots? And the "stove"? Not so much. (Much to my husband's prevailing chagrin--maybe one day S...!)

I can read though. Pretty well some say! And I love to do it. For whatever reason, I enjoy reading books about food even though I have no desire to make any of it. Perhaps it's aspirational, I don't know. I also enjoy Top Chef for what it's worth (though Bravo could make a reality show about dog walkers and I would probably be into it...)

But I digress. I know this is weird but I tend to read even more when I am the busiest--like now when the new one is constantly demanding milk and the other two are...well...still constantly demanding something or the other. Reading is a release, a few minutes of time for myself that doesn't involve a trip to the spa that I don't have time to take, or a lunch out with friends that (again) I don't have time to take...! So, I asked around for some reading material to get me through--yes--this nursing period.

These books come with highest recommendation from friends who can cook, cannot cook, and choose not to cook alike:

Entertaining Disasters: A Novel (with Recipes), by Nancy Spiller. According to my friend N, the dinner parties in this book are exactly the kind you always wish you could attend--full of drama, sprinkled with wit, and bursting with big personality.

The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude, by Carol Lay. A graphic-style memoir about cartoonist Lay's weight-loss strategies. This book is one part self-help but, more up my alley, one part cultural commentary--my friend S says that I will laugh out loud while nursing and I told her that if it disrupts the baby she is in big trouble.

The School of Essential Ingredients, by Erica Bauermeister. According to my friend E, this novel about a cooking class is really the story of 8 students, how their lives intersect, and how their personal journeys dovetail with the food they learn to make. "High concept enough for you to read without hiding an embarrassing cover on the Bart," E says--she knows me well.

Cooking and Screaming: Finding My Own Recipe for Recovery, by Adrienne Kane. This memoir about how Kane found her calling in the kitchen after suffering a paralyzing stroke at age 21 will supposedly "inspire you with the reminder that all you have to do to start doing what you want is do it," according to my friend S. Yea, that and be done with nursing...!

All these books include recipes intertwined with the narratives--I'll let you know if I develop some sort of cooking bug after I've read these. But please don't hold your breath...!

In Focus: Pooja Pittie, Little GuruSkool

There are so many amazing South Asian women doing so many amazing things. I want to try to showcase some of them on this blog with this new feature: "In Focus."

My first interview is with Pooja Pittie, a mother of a 6 year old who lives in Chicago, loves to eat out, read and paint, sometimes dreams of going back to art school, and has authored and designed a series of beautifully illustrated books for Indian children. When Pooja couldn't find books and DVDs to introduce Indian culture to her son, she took the matter into her own hands and decided to make her own. Hence, Little GuruSkool was born. Heralded by many as "Baby Einstein for Indians," the 3 books and 3 DVDs currently available teach children about colors, music, and animals, in English and in Hindi, with an Indian backdrop of culture and music. The book on animals, for instance, takes children on a journey from the jungle to the farm to the ocean, highlighting the names of the animals in English and in Hindi. The book on musical instruments introduces kids to the strings of a sitar, the beats of a dholak and the melodies of a flute. And the accompanying DVDs visually and musically compliment the books.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Pooja about Little Guru Skool, how she got it off the ground, and where she sees it going. She and her books have recently been splashed around in the press and she has some great insight on the constant "balance" we all crave in parenting our children. Plus she's just a rockstar. LittleGuruSkool books and DVDs are available at LittleGuruSkool.com, as well as Amazon.com. Also, you can preview the DVDS or sample songs from the CDs at Pooja's site. Readers, meet Pooja:

Tell us about your inspiration to start Little GuruSkool.

Well, I am a first-generation Indian and I wanted to make sure my son was learning about India. I used to be very hesitant about letting him watch videos but then I came upon the "Baby Einstein" series and I really came to admire it. The reality is that, in this day and age, both parents are busy and kids are going to watch t.v. This is of course a deviation from the Indian mindset that somebody should always be taking care of a child so I had my own issues with it. But I found Baby Einstein to be interactive and definitely educational. When I tried to find something like the Baby Einstein series that was focused on Indians, I was surprised to see there really was nothing out there.

Why were you surprised?

You just never think that you have had the "big idea" so when I found myself really thinking that if I was going to find content I was going to have to write it myself, I found that surprising. Everything I found, here and in India, just didn't appeal to me in terms of quality, or wasn't age-appropriate. And when I started asking other Indian parents if they had had any luck in finding good, entertaining, educational books or DVDS about India, I was amazed by how eager they were to find the same sort of thing.

Lots of our readers grapple with the conundrum of exposing our kids to Indian culture. How do your books and DVDs do this?

I like to think the books and DVDs provide a good balance of Western and Indian culture. Which is really how I wanted my son to grow up. The material isn't "too ethnic" and the sensibility in terms of content and illustration is modern. It's different from other "Indian" products--it isn't designed to be any sort of language immersion. Instead, I hope the books and other materials subtly expose children to portions of what makes Indian culture great--the sights, the sounds, the music, the language.


What are the other ways you inject Indian culture into your lives?

Simple things. By traveling to India with my son as frequently as possible. He's 6 years old now and has been there about 6 times - I know it's difficult to travel there often, but children never forget that early exposure. Even at 5 years of age, Aarav talked about places and people he interacted with on his last trip when he was just 4!

By cooking Indian food for my son, teaching him the Hindi words as we go along, telling him anecdotes about my childhood &and food that I liked to eat when growing up.

By listening to Hindi music with him - I haven't exposed him to Bollywood movies but many songs--from old movies & new ones--are a great way to get children familiar with the sounds of Indian instruments and languages. And Aarav finds the big dance sequences highly amusing.

Do you worry about your son not being "Indian" enough?

You know, maybe I should but I don't. I moved here when I was 21 years old and see so much greatness in the Western culture. I think I would be doing my son an injustice to "make" him more Indian. I myself don't feel overly American and at the same time I don't feel overly Indian. I don't want to make my son feel out of place in this place that is his home. Of course I want him to be aware of his roots and be comfortable with his identity. But I think it should be done without too much force.

What were you doing before you launched Little GuruSkool?

I got my MBA from the University of Chicago Class of 2005 and upon graduation, I worked at Unilever on the Dove Hair brand in the U.S. for 1.5 yrs. Last year, I left Unilever to pursue Little GuruSkool full-time

Do you write the books and videos yourself?

I create all the concepts for the videos and books. I work with a film production studio in Bombay of course, but nothing goes forward without my input or approval. Based on the videos, I create the storyboard and illustrations for the books myself, but I have the illustrations professionally rendered afterwards.

Take us through "a day in the life" of Pooja...

A "day in the life" in terms of business could be - waking up at 4 am to talk to my web developers in India, creating a storyboard for one of the book titles, working with the graphics designer on the DVD packaging, meeting an Indian mom for coffee to get some ideas, spending an hour on the phone with customer service at Amex to make sure my website accepts their cards and at the end of the day, always evaluating my written plan and writing up a to-do list for the next day!

"Busy" doesn't do you justice--so tell us, what are your tips for the perpetual juggling we all do--of kids, family, work, pleasure?

I am not too rigid and disciplined about my work schedule - quite impulsive in fact and I think this allows me to juggle things better. I know that sounds contradictory, but since "pleasure" and "family" are part of the balancing act, it helps to be impulsive and flexible. It allows me to enjoy life a lot more. I'm good at taking breaks!

I've realized that I'm ambitious in all these areas of my life and wouldn't sacrifice one for the other, and so for me, it's all about balance. I am trying to accept that everything cannot be perfect and I shouldn't be too hard on myself! Starting a business in an area like this has been all-consuming but I try to have weekends where I take time off from even "thinking" about work. And, with my son, I try to involve him in as many things as I can - especially things that I enjoy doing - painting, cooking, listening to music

What are some of the other parenting sites/books/products you like?

Like I've said, I've admired and used a lot of Disney's Baby Einstein products. I think they've done an excellent job in developing a range of complementary products for pre-school children.

Believe it or not, I've never read a "parenting guide" really - I rely on my mum's anecdotes from our childhood to be my guide!

In terms of toys, I've found Magna tiles & Legos to be very effective in engaging my son for hours and at the same time, helping him think about building things

Last book you loved? Movie? TV show?

I love reading - last couple of books that I liked were "Shantaram"--was struck by an outsider's account of the city being something I could agree with!--and "Time Traveler's Wife." I'm reading "Three Cups of Tea" right now which is so inspiring

The last movie I loved? "Sex & the City"! Also liked "Sarkar." I know that's old but I'm not the biggest movie buff!

As for TV - I love Dragons' Den on BBC America.

Tell us the funny things your son is doing these days.

He's really into playing guessing games with people - whether it's humming a tune and having them guess the song or drawing out a house with a paper flap for a door and having people guess what's inside the house!

What are the weirdest/funniest/strangest reactions you've had to starting Little GuruSkool?

My family and friends were surprised that I was starting a media company without any prior media experience--my background is in Finance and Accounting!

Some people have asked if I was setting up an actual "school" for children because of the name. And a lot of people tease me about the spelling of "skool" - I chose that spelling because it's a play on the word "gurukul" and "kool" sounded a lot closer to that word.

Any advice for budding-entrepreneurs reading this?

I want to say "go for it" but with one caveat. You need to have a very clear vision of what you want to do before you just take the plunge. Without the vision, you will get side-tracked. For instance, with my books, I had to fight nearly daily for the sort of "less is more" illustration style. If I didn't stay firm in what I wanted it to be, my vision for the books would have gotten lost. But, I cannot even describe how happy I am that I left my old job to do this full time. If you are lucky enough to find something you really love and that really inspires you, take the plunge!

What's up next for Little GuruSkool?

I want Little GuruSkool to be a cultural "gurukul" for parents and children around the world. I plan to introduce new topics every few months and new products like toys, flash cards & coloring books. This is my plan but in the end, I am looking to all the parents out there who care about this to give me ideas and suggestions on how I could help them introduce their children to this vibrant culture.

Pooja would love to know what you guys think of her books, and what sorts of titles you would like to see. Please feel free to leave Pooja questions and comments here, or to email her directly at pooja.goel@littleguruskool.com.

Check out more of the books and DVDs here and here.

Two Things I'm Not Going to Buy

Did you (secretly or not-so-secretly) watch the Real Housewives of New York City? I did. Sometimes secretly. Sometimes in the open. It was a trainwreck, bejeweled and with great shoes. The true "star" of the show, in terms of trainwreck magnitude, was Alex McCord, who (1) unapologetically explained that she and her creepily- feminine husband, Simon, went to events in New York city in order to meet "socially important" people; (2) pretentiously insisted that her children speak French at all times, for no good reason; and (3) sat by with the calm of a Valium-addict and watched her children throw tantrums of epic proportion...and then insisted that her kids were the most well-behaved children she has ever encountered. Apparently being a social-climbing, affected mother with bad hair and a penchance for ill-fitting, extremely expensive clothing is what makes a "parenting expert" these days: Alex and Simon are co-authoring a parenting book based on their experiences with their children. For a bit more flavor, keep in mind that these are the same people who woefully explained on television that their kindergardener only got into his "15th choice" school and then immediately set on the path of finding the "right" people to get him into a better school. In between looking for photos of themselves in the paper.

Then there is this new "toy" that Janie T in Ohio emailed me about: Kidsling, a toddler-sized version of baby carrier sling. First of all, can't our kids just use the huge pile of baby crap we already have in our homes if they really want to copy us? Secondly, is it just me, or is there something a little creepy about seeing children pretending to hold babies and stroller them around in those mini-strollers? I know this is probably not a popular thing to say and I know it's natural for kids to mimic their parents, but something about it feels funny to me. Like our kids are these mini-adults. Or, to go further, what about our kids wanting to mimic us nursing a baby while the baby is in the sling. Is this as "cute" and "adorable" as some people find the notion of kids toting around their stuffed animals?

Then again, I suppose every little kid has a doll of some sort so maybe I'm the crazy one.

Speaking of dolls: Have you seen the new "American Girl" doll Sonali? She is only the third non-white doll the ridiculously popular AG outfit has put out (check this out if you are unfamiliar with the AG phenom) and, according to the official AG literature, she is "at least part South Asian" and "she is also quite smart." She is also depicted as one of the "mean girls" of the AG pack, which I hope doesn't influence the legions of little Brown Girls who will buy her too much. Thanks to Parul in Chicago for the tip!

The Enigma of Marriage and Ambition

My husband is a trooper. Anyone who’s married to a writer deserves a medal of honor, in my book. We are moody types, prone to long bouts of introspective reticence, sudden bursts of manic energy, and a tendency to over-analyze everything from the state of the world to the state of our daily lives. “What’s it all for?” we’re constantly asking. Of course, we never have a definitive answer to that question.

It can get tiring for us, but at least we can explain it away by saying it’s all fodder for the book we’re going to write or the short story we’ve been working on in our heads for the past two years. (Or, in my present case, a blog entry I’m putting up the next day!) For our partners, however, it’s maddening. They don’t understand why we have to live so much of our lives in our heads. They also carry a heavy burden: that of being our muses, our cheerleaders, and at times, our punching bags when things go south.

I use the term “punching bag” figuratively, of course, but for one of my favorite writers on the planet, it turns out this term is very close to describing what his ex-wife, Patricia Hale, was to him. I’m talking about Vidyadhar Suraj-prasad, “Vido,” Sir Vidia -- V. S. Naipaul. In The World Is What It Is, Patrick French’s biography of Naipaul releasing in the U.S. next week, this “cruel and unusual” relationship is depicted in all its horrors. Astonishingly, the biography is authorized: Naipaul gave French intricate details of his marriage, even handing over his late wife’s diaries to French.

Naipaul and Hale met at Oxford, married quickly, and spent the rest of their lives in pursuit of his many literary ambitions. Hale gave up everything to marry Naipaul, “a scholarship boy with no prospects, contacts or money at a time when the racial prejudice endemic at every level of British society prevented him getting a job or even renting a room in London.” She served as his editor, typist, and secretary, even on her deathbed as she lay dying of cancer. And in return? From The Guardian:

He stopped her acting on the grounds that it offended him, refused to buy her a wedding ring ('I had no interest in jewellery,' he explained blandly to his biographer) and stamped out any hope she may have had of an independent career, except in so far as he needed her initially to earn his keep.

Her world contracted as his expanded. He undermined her confidence, derided her opinions and told her she was too dull to take to parties. She stopped travelling with him because, for the last 20 years of her life, he shared his favours with a far more sophisticated and no less compliant Argentinian mistress who crisscrossed the globe at his side, providing services, principally boastful, energetic and violent sex, outside the scope of his mute, sad, stay-at-home wife.

She records this all in a painful, self-loathing way in her diaries. From The Atlantic:

Vidia’s unconscious hope may have been that if he were sufficiently horrible to Pat, she might disappear. Alone in her room at the cottage, she dutifully recorded his insults … “He has not enjoyed making love to me since 1967 [the entry is for 1973]”; “You know you are the only woman I know who has no skill. Vanessa paints, Tristram’s wife paints, Antonia, Marigold Johnson” … Even when she was alone, Pat felt she had failed her husband. After going up to London to watch a play with Antonia, Francis and Julian Jebb, she concluded that while she was there she had “lived up to Vidia’s dictum: ‘You don’t behave like a writer’s wife. You behave like the wife of a clerk who has risen above her station.’”

It finally became too much for her when Naipaul publicly announced in 1994 that he had regularly paid prostitutes for sex in the early years of his marriage:

The shock of this revelation devastated Patricia Naipaul, who had been in remission from a cancer that now became terminal. 'It could be said that I killed her,' her husband conceded dispassionately to his biographer in one of the brutally frank interviews that provide the backbone of this extraordinary book.

The insult didn’t stop after her death, however. Naipaul proposed to his current wife, Nadira Alvi, a Pakistani journalist 20 years younger than the writer, as soon as it became clear that Hale was going to die:

'He felt angry that she was dying,' Nadira reported, 'and angry that she was not dying fast enough because he wanted to carry on with his life.' The day after Patricia Naipaul's brief, austere and impersonal funeral, her successor moved into her house and a few months later scattered her ashes in the nearest wood while reciting a prayer in praise of Allah.

Naipaul’s “extraordinary callousness” has been well-documented in the past, most famously by Paul Theroux in his scathing 1998 biography of the man, Sir Vidia’s Shadow. As a student, I read and re-read his books, marvelling at his mastery of the English language. He was my favorite writer for years. He’s won the Nobel and been knighted, and it’s a prodigious accomplishment, especially given where he came from, as a penniless grandson of an indentured laborer.

But now, perhaps in part owing to my perspective as a Devi with baby, I chafe at what happened behind the scenes while all this was going on. All sorts of thoughts run through my head as I read. That poor woman! And, what kind of a man could treat such a loyal partner in this way? And, what kind of woman would put up with that?

We've often heard about how great men and women in history often have had flawed personal lives. So many examples in recent history come to mind, from Bill Clinton to Madonna. It makes me wonder if a worldwide level of fame or achievement is almost intrinsically at odds with a functional personal life. It seems to be the sacrifice one has to make in order to be great, because other parts of your life inevitably have to suffer.

Is Naipaul still one of the greatest writers in history? Yes. Can we still adore and admire his books knowing the pain and degradation he inflicted upon another human being in order to create them? That answer is personal for everyone. I am also a firm believer that you can't judge someone else's marriage, because you really have no idea what happens behind closed doors.

What I do know is, if that’s what it took for me to be as great a writer as Naipaul, it’s not a sacrifice I’d be willing to make. Would you?