Review of “Modern Day Mary Poppins: The Unintended Consequences of Nanny Work”

Extract

In Modern Day Mary Poppins: The Unintended Consequences of Nanny Work, Laura Bunyan draws on fifty-two in-depth interviews with nannies and parent-employers to better understand the relationship and experiences of nannies and employers whose lives are quite socially similar in terms of race, social class, and educational credentials. This contribution by Bunyan to the cannon on care work and gendered labor is particularly novel as we typically see research on the dynamic between employers and nannies who are from socially distinct backgrounds. This glimpse into the dynamic between people with similar social, class, racial, and educational capital allows us to better understand how ideologies of motherhood, concerted cultivation, gendered labor, and the informal labor market coalesce to shape these relationships. Through interviews, Bunyan is able to examine how this particular iteration of nanny work operates, what parents, specifically mothers, look for when hiring a nanny, if these criteria differ between employed and unemployed parents, and how gender impacts the nannies’ negotiation and self-advocacy in this informal labor market.