If I didn’t have a nanny five days a week, you probably wouldn’t be reading this column. So where’s the harm in thanking them?
At a typical Hollywood awards show, it’s usually customary to thank the award selectors, your agent, your mother, and, if you’re inclined, God.
Do you know who rarely gets hailed off stage? The people who helped you get there in a much more practical way.
Last month, when actress Melanie Lynskey received a Critics’ Choice Award for her role in Yellow jacketsshe took the opportunity to thank her childminder in a room full of industry colleagues.
“The most important person I think I have to thank before I’m done is my nanny, Celli,” she said. “I love her. She is with my child and my child is safe and taken care of and she allows me to go and do my work. Thank you Celli.”
Lynskey isn’t the first celebrity to give credit where it’s really due. Jessica Alba paid tribute to her own nanny in a 2018 Instagram post.
“It really does take a whole village to raise children, whether they are your blood family or your adopted family,” Alba wrote. “I’m so thankful for Connie for being there for me.”
More recently, Vogue Williams was “lauded” for being “honest” about the fact that she paid for childcare. A completely normal and understandable decision in a working family, but apparently not.
“People think having a nanny is fun,” Williams said in a recent Instagram Q&A. “We wanted a nanny because I’m home a lot and I spend as much time as possible with the kids in between work. My job is never the same, so I never know my schedule. I couldn’t work without her. The kids love them and we love them.”
There’s the key phrase, “I couldn’t work without her.” And yet this open acknowledgment of help seems rare in the celebrity world. Most of the time, cooks, childcare, personal trainers, housekeepers, and drivers are the glue that holds the entire show together.
A show if you are an actress that involves endless travel, 16 hour days of filming and endless physical demands. Instead of acknowledging those who keep the home kingdom afloat, they are simply never mentioned. Plenty of A-list actresses will take the opportunity to bitch endlessly about how rewarding, beautiful, and life-affirming parenthood is. Well of course it is! You have a household help or at least you can comfortably afford it!
Whatever domestic arrangements celebs agree on isn’t really our business, but something about it eventually seeps into the public consciousness. You’ve probably heard the saying that women feel the pressure of parenting like they’re not working and work like they’re not parents. There is very little room to openly acknowledge the third-party help that allows us to do either.
If I didn’t have a childminder to look after my child five days a week, chances are you wouldn’t have read this column. She is an absolute godsend and, having raised children of her own, has skills and an emotional arsenal that I just don’t have.
She does some of the most responsible, demanding, and meaningful work you will ever ask of anyone. Taking care of children may look easy, cute and fun, but most people will tell you that it is exhausting work.
What’s more important than making sure your child is happy and safe during the day and giving you the emotional, physical, and mental range to make a living?
Cherished home is not feasible for most
home of the year The winning house was a 150-year-old farmhouse in Wicklow, owned by a fourth-generation couple.
Kate and Shane Byrne took the original farmhouse structure and extended and renovated it to create a light-filled home that is a striking blend of traditional and modern.
It is a perfect example of what can be achieved with the more traditional, less “fancy” house structures found all over the country.
This week there are 188 homes for sale in Ireland priced under €75,000 although it is estimated that there are around 180,000 vacant properties and land in Ireland.
For those with deep enough pockets and the constitution for a big company, this seems to make perfect sense.
Last month the government announced plans to offer grants to first-time buyers to make run-down properties livable
anew.
As much as we’d like to think that buying run-down properties for a song and renovating them into beautiful homes is a great strategy, no one ever really talks clearly about the often prohibitive costs of renovation.
home of the year Winner is proof of what magic can be achieved.
But let’s be honest and transparent – in the current financial climate and with the tightening of the construction industry, creativity and imagination will only get you so far.
Don’t rely on airbrushing
It’s no secret that the Kardashians are fans of Photoshop and Insta filters, but it seems they took artistic license a step too far this week.
As part of Kim Kardashian’s Skims lingerie campaign, the image of Tyra Banks went through the airbrushing process, giving her the kind of curves that Kim has. So much for body diversity.
Given that the Kardashians have made a billion-dollar empire out of creating unattainable and borderline toxic standards of beauty, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. But that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/if-i-didnt-have-a-childminder-five-days-a-week-you-probably-wouldnt-be-reading-this-column-so-wheres-the-harm-in-thanking-them-41527987.html If I didn’t have a nanny five days a week, you probably wouldn’t be reading this column. So where’s the harm in thanking them?
