The parenting blogs are all a buzz about Adam Davidson's magazine piece about high priced nannies. He profiles one nanny who pulls in serious cash.
As one of New York City’s elite nannies, Muneton commanded around $180,000 a year — plus a Christmas bonus and a $3,000-a-month apartment on Central Park West.
There's an agency in the city that places high priced nannies. These women are not only Mary Poppins with the kids. They also will drop all plans at a moment's notice to watch the kids and have additional skills.
According to Pavillion’s vice president, Seth Norman Greenberg, a nanny increases her market value if she speaks fluent French (or, increasingly, Mandarin); can cook a four-course meal (and, occasionally, macrobiotic dishes); and ride, wash and groom a horse. Greenberg has also known families to prize nannies who can steer a 32-foot boat, help manage an art collection or, in one case, drive a Zamboni to clean a private ice rink.
A fellow grad student once told me that she worked for a super wealthy family in the city that got off on having an entire staff of ABDs as servants. She worked for them as a personal assistant as she finished her dissertation in English literature. It was better money than adjuncting.
This article is getting so much attention, because most people can't afford basic daycare costs for their kids. It's the largest item on monthly budget, after the rent or mortgage payment. Other luxury goods that the rich enjoy like cars and boats are annoying, but accepted. There is a lot of irritation about inequality around childcare.
Apt. 11d 
Hiring ABDs seems like a good way to get around paying for health insurance for your employers.
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My nanny costs me 2.5 times my mortgage payment and in September, daycare (full time for one, after school for the other) will only cost me 1.9 times my mortgage payment.
That’s a Toronto mortgage, not a Texas one.
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I’m not sure what the relevance of complaining about “inequality” around childcare is. In fact, these really wealthy families are doing what people do when they price out the value of a caregiver (i.e. when it’s the mom) and then actually paying someone to do it. Childcare is labor intensive and its a skilled talent (especially when you add to it cooking, teaching, and managing a family’s/child’s life — oh and the bit about how a nanny can connect your child with the right people just adds to the obvious economic value).
I’ve wondered for a long time why this market wasn’t more public. I guess I’ve assumed it was there, except that it also seems true that most people have tried to underpay their nannies, even when they could well afford not to. I’ve also wondered why more ABD’s, ex-teachers, etc. don’t take on the job. (And, suspected that it’s because the job isn’t usually paid what its worth, because it’s very demanding, both because children are demanding and parents are demanding).
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In fact, I’ve always presumed that if one needed to hire a caregiver to do most of the work normally done by a parent, that paying in the 100K range would be perfectly reasonable (and, in turn, that this would basically be the requirement of a family in which other caregivers were working at the elite levels of the workforce — CEOs, for sure, not sure who else I’d include).
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