Nannies From Heaven

I chased a nanny the other day. It was in Brentwood. Nannies abound in Brentwood.

She was wearing a white uniform and pushing a stroller with a baby in it. I saw her walking along San Vicente Boulevard and stopped the car. When she saw me approaching, she pushed the stroller a little faster.

There is something about me that creates anxiety.

“Excuse me,” I said politely, “could I talk to you for a moment?”

She glanced back and increased her pace.

“Wait,” I said, hurrying to keep up, “I’m a journalist.”

I shouldn’t have said that. She began to trot. The baby in the stroller looked around, startled. I began to trot.

“Stop running!” I hollered, irritation creeping into my voice.

She was terrified. I should have let it go, but I couldn’t. I was deep into the chase, like a lion bounding after an eland. There is nothing more awesome than a newspaper columnist running down his source.

The nanny broke into a full gallop. The stroller bounced and swayed. The baby began to cry. I broke into a full gallop too, and waved my yellow legal pad to indicate I was a professional man and thereby beyond causing pain. She shifted into high.

After a block or so, I slowed down. To hell with it. It was hot and I am not in shape anymore for marathon nanny-chasing. The woman, the stroller and the baby disappeared across the Masai Mara.

There will be other days and other nannies to feed on.

I just wanted to talk to her. Lately I have been hearing stories about nannies and they’ve piqued my curiosity.

There are about 20,000 nannies in California, most of them in L.A. They are everywhere. It is our newest possession. A home, a car and a nanny.

I never had a nanny. I had my sister Emily who gave me what was known as a “Dutch rub” when I misbehaved. It consisted of rubbing one’s knuckles with great force on a victim’s head.

No one who had ever been Dutch-rubbed grew up to be a normal person.

The nanny stories I heard were not as severe as the problems posed by the nanny from hell in the movie “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.” I loved that movie. Murder, motherhood, seduction, the works.

It shot Mary Poppins and her umbrella right out of the sky.

The stories I heard were about nannies who, while they did not sell babies to Gypsies, were less than perfect. Mike and Kathleen, who live in the Hollywood Hills, had five nannies in six months.

One, Muriel, lived in terror of rape. When the doorbell rang, she barricaded herself in the bathroom. When neighbor kids made teasing anonymous calls, she phoned the police. The parents came home one day to find half a dozen patrol cars at the house.

After four months, Muriel fled to Ireland, where no one is ever raped.

Agnes was fired when she declared she’d hurt her back and couldn’t lift babies. Helga quit when she realized there was no beach in Hollywood.

Mandy was canned when she took the baby joy-riding for four hours without telling anyone. Rosita was bounced when, on the second day, she demanded more money and shorter hours.

Two elderly ladies from Pasadena run a thriving agency that arranges for child care. They are Reve Simmons and Mary Minnie. Reve is a great-great-grandmother. Mary has two master’s degrees in early childhood training and is a psychiatric social worker.

All they supply are nannies from heaven.

No one is employed by them who has not had a background check. References, doctors’ certificates, everything.

“We want women who care about children, not just those in it for money,” Simmons says firmly. “We also want to know, are they punctual, dependable, honest, sober, emotionally stable and free of disease?”

Has there ever been a problem nanny, I wondered? “One,” said Minnie somberly. “She was too old to get down on the floor and play.”

Nannies are not licensed. Like psychics and free-lance writers, they can simply declare what they are and not be challenged.

I’ve heard of nannies who partied all night and napped all day, who watched TV and ignored the kids, who made long-distance calls overseas, who fell in love and to hell with work, and who got arrested for drunk driving.

A divorced mother hired a nanny from Nantucket who knitted. Unlike Madame Defarge, she was unable to knit and concentrate on anything else, including the woman’s son. He disappeared one day and the nanny didn’t know it.

The kid came home, but the mother was not appeased. Exit the knitting nanny from Nantucket.

I never did talk to a nanny myself. They’re too fast for me. Next time maybe.