Rich Parents Now Outsourcing Absolutely All Parental Duties to Nannies

By Lindy West | May 21, 2013 | 8:00pm

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Administrators at some tony New York private schools are currently having a massive collective snit over the fact that rich parents don’t show up for even the most basic school functions. Instead, they send hired nannies along to entrance interviews, bake sales, “safety patrols,” class plays, and any other volunteer duties in which parent participation is expected. Teachers and administrators (and some other parents) are pissed off at having paid employees sub in for parents at events intended to foster a sense of community.

I don’t see what the big deal is here—I mean, my mailman Jerry is a totally nice dude. Why wouldn’t I want him holding power of attorney at my deathbed? (And before you yell at me about how nannies are full of love, DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHAT JERRY AND I SHARE.)

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Via the New York Post:

“They’re sending nannies for bake sales, book clubs, for the ice-skating group,” Amanda Uhry of Manhattan Private School Advisors told The Post. “Parents can’t be bothered two days a year for an hour.”

Nannies are working fund-raisers, designing sets for school plays and taking seats at graduations and public performances.

“Now the schools are getting angry — and other parents are getting angry. They don’t want to work the school bake sale with someone’s paid employee,” Uhry said.

I’m going to assume she’s implying that the paid employees don’t have a personal stake in the school and therefore are less likely to feel invested in community-building—not that the parents resent having to rub elbows with grubby poors. I’m just going to ASSUME. For my sanity.

For their part, the parents are like, “Um, I pay like threeve fafillion megabucks (PLUS ‘charitable donations’) for you to sit around while my dumb kid plays Oregon Trail, and now you expect me to reschedule my eyelash-extensions so I can come participate in ‘safety patrol,’ which, as far as I can tell, is a schoolyard game in which an idiot tries to stop an oncoming delivery truck armed only with a small nylon flag? NOPE. I’M SENDING LISA.”

Aaaaaand then the school admins fire back with this tasty burn:

“Sometimes, the parents are so high-maintenance. you almost rather see a nanny,” she added.

Boom. Killed it.

Anyway, I don’t really give a care what these people do (don’t you guys know that THE WORLD IS MELTING?), but it does raise the question: Why bother having children if you never want to see or speak to them? Seems like a full-on money-pit-raccoon-in-the-dumbwaiter situation to me. Why not just get a goat that eats money and then hire some Swedish lady to pet the goat all day? The end result would be the same, plus you wouldn’t have these school administrators yapping in your face all the time about “community” and “giving a shit about your child.” Win-win-win-win-win. (The last two “win”s are the goat and the Swedish lady.) Good day.