Excerpt: 'White House Nannies'
May 10, 2005 — -- Fed up with her own failures to secure a proper nanny for her children, Barbara Kline set out to solve this problem for Washington's elite corps. Senators, governors, and chairmans alike seek out Kline's services on a regular basis to help them find the perfect nanny so they can return to their high profile careers with minimal sacrifice. Kline's matchmaking services often produce humorous scenarios, which form the basis of her book, "White House Nannies."
You can read an excerpt from the book below.
No one moves to Washington to kick back. The most driven, educated workforce in the nation is here, for government or international trade or lobbying, for high-tech or telecom -- what's left of it. No one is here to do lunch or play golf. They're here to compete with the rest of their elite tribe, all those valedictorians, class presidents, and law review editors, voted just as likely to succeed as they were.
Whatever their game, many of these Extremely Important Players won't be here long. Sooner or later, the District's infamous revolving door will probably eject them back out there again, to the place they came from. Just so they remember that D.C. isn't the only center of the universe.
Most of my clients are in their potent prime, between twenty-eight and forty-four years old and on Marriage Number One. They work harder than anyone outside the Beltway -- or so they think. Scrambling to the top of whatever game they play means no downtime.
And then, in the middle of these lives already crammed with crucial obligations, they have babies. Extended families live far away, so these power-elite couples try to keep the government running without the luxury of any free backup at home.
The highest percentage of families with in-home childcare live right here (11 percent compared to a 5.3 percent national average). They log more air miles, meetings, and fifteen-hour workdays than most of us can imagine. Now these parents know what tired really is.
Husbands help, of course. But everyone knows where the parenting buck stops -- after the nanny goes off duty. Don't forget, we have hardly any doting grandparents, aunts, and uncles to share the joy and pitch in when there's an emergency.
This is where I come in -- to dispatch a miraculous savior to the suddenly chaotic, childcentric home of a congressperson, media mogul, or federal judge. One of my White House Nannies will calm the tantrum and handle the calamity they never in a million years expected -- especially not when all hell is breaking loose in the national, international, or interplanetary arena.
If you've already called me, the crisis a few miles away will be over before you're out of your West Wing meeting or back from Asia. No matter how many hours you spend away from your home and family, when you finally get back there, life will be harmonious -- because you have a White House Nanny.
And even if this isn't always the case, my batting average is still pretty good.
So I think of myself as the other chief of Homeland Security.
My hometown is really another kind of Hollywood -- just as overpopulated with high-profile celebrities who consider themselves the most entitled citizens in the universe. L.A. superstars may wear glitzy, shocking outfits while D.C. men and women only get as crazy as seersucker suits and maybe a designer shirt and tie. But you can follow the moves and moods of our stars too -- on C-SPAN, Leno, or Aljazeera.
