Do “The Nanny Diaries,” “Schooled,” and “Spoiled” blame the parents for rich, spoiled private school brats?

This is Part 4 of a dialogue between Caitlin Macy, author of Spoiled; Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, authors of The Nanny Diaries; and DoubleX associate editor Samantha Henig. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

Caitlin, you asked how much of Schooled we believe. I wish we could treat it as satire alone. But in interviews, Anisha Lakhani, the author, makes it sound like the whole thing is pretty true to what she experienced. So if we believe that this system, which rewards students whose work is done for them by highly paid tutors, is real, who’s to blame? It starts so young that it’s tough to hold the students responsible. And I agree with you that these NYC prep schools aren’t totally at fault, either. They exacerbate the problem by giving the already-privileged even more advantages. But they also do their part to help people who weren’t born into privilege. There were a number of students at Trinity who were part of Prep for Prep, a great organization that selects some of the brightest minority public school students in middle school, gives them intensive tutoring to get them up to speed, and then places them in prep schools for middle and high school. A large number of the Prep for Prep kids from my grade went on to the most competitive colleges, where, from what I gather from Facebook, they did quite well.

Still, I want to indict someone! One obvious contender for condemnation: the absent parent. During my NYC prep school year, the parents were notably and appropriately missing. Parties took place when they went to the Hamptons. After-school snacks occurred at fancy restaurants rather than townhouse kitchens. I remember watching one of my first friends—we’ll call her Alex—get dropped off in a huge shiny black SUV one morning, with an older man behind the wheel. “Is that Alex’s dad?” I asked our mutual friend Jess. I had been to Alex’s house on the Upper West Side (and “house” is the appropriate word—I gaped shamelessly when I realized that all four stories of the brownstone were hers) but there had been no parents around. Jess giggled at my naiveté. “That? Alex’s dad? No silly—that’s her driver!”

Mr. X in The Nanny Diaries is a great satire of the absentee working dad who pays the salary of nannies or maids whose names he doesn’t know. Schooled is full of such parents. We watch them throw money at problems like poor grades without really engaging them. And Blair and Chuck, the two most seemingly evil characters on Gossip Girl, are also the ones with the least on-the-scene parents.

But Caitlin, absent parents come off differently in your book. In one story in Spoiled, you have a character, Annabelle, who is basically raised by her nanny, and it totally works for her. We get the sense that she ends up more well-adjusted than she would have if it had been her mom out there with her on the playground. So what exactly is the problem with these other fictitious families? One possibility is that the parents are around only enough to bear down on their kids with unreasonable expectations, but not enough to offer the sort of support and guidance they need. It’s enough to make me wonder if the kids would be better off if their clueless parents were out of the picture entirely, like Annabelle’s mom. I certainly wished that the Xes would just leave Nanny and Grover in peace.

Tags: books, class, gossip girl, schooled, the nanny diaries

Samantha Henig is the associate editor of Double X, and can be reached at samantha.henig@doublex.com.

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The Manhattan Prep Schoolers Are Different From You and Me

A dialogue about the novel Schooled.

Samantha Henig
|
September 29, 2009

Have Prep Schools Devolved Into Tutorial Arms Races?

The novel Schooled makes it seem as if no private-school kids do their own work.

Caitlin Macy
|
September 30, 2009

Are George W. Bush and Chuck Bass Cut From the Same Cloth?

The authors of The Nanny Diaries on Schooled, spoiled teens, and their sequel, Nanny Returns.

Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
|
September 30, 2009

Life

Blame the Parents for All Those Rich, Spoiled Private School Brats

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