Fran Drescher has rarely been as stylish as she says…
A former nanny for Manhattan’s wealthiest people reveals all about her kids’ designer clothes, being forced to chase golf carts, and the cranky celebs she drives them to and from school in a new tell-all book.
Stephanie Kaiser, 32, worked for three different families and frequently met celebrities, including Drew Barrymore, Steve Martin and Robert De Niro, at the Episcopal School, a private school for children ages 2 to 5 on the Upper East Side.
De Niro, 80 years old Father of seven childrenwas most rude when he picked up his second daughter, Helen Grace, whom he had with ex-wife Grace Hightower.
“He wasn’t waiting in line. He was waiting across the street and the driver got out of a huge SUV, opened the door for him and let him in first, so he could skip the line. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. Maybe they didn’t mean to say hello to him,” she told The Post.
“His nannies were official nannies, so they were in uniforms – pink polo shirts and khaki shorts. So you could tell they weren’t the kind of nannies who were part of the family. They were just doing their job.”
Barrymore was “by far the best” when she came to pick up her daughter. Olive and Frankie.
“She was an angel…I remember so clearly one day walking behind her into the school and she stopped and said hi to everyone who worked there, waving and giving them hugs.”
Martin was more reserved and kept to himself while he waited. His little daughter, Mary.
“I think he thought he was just a normal guy, to be honest with you. He was really cute. He always had his little school bag and his little hat on. He was really quiet,” she said.
Originally from North Providence, Rhode Island, Kaiser moved to East Harlem after graduating from Emerson College to become a screenwriter for film and television.
Her new memoir, “Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant: How Nannying for the 1% Taught Me about the Myths of Equality, Motherhood, and Upward Mobility in America” (Sourcebooks), due for release on August 6, chronicles her life as a nanny, which lasted from 2014 to 2022.
She worked for three billionaire Manhattan families, often working 55-75 hour weeks, and the highest salary she ever received was $110,000 in cash, excluding medical benefits.
“A young, healthy, educated nanny on the Upper East Side is paid in a totally different way than a career nanny from Nepal, which I find a bit ridiculous because they know kids better than I do,” she said.
The first and last families she worked for both lived on the Upper East Side and had three children ranging in age from newborn to age 6. The second family lived in TriBeCa and had a 5-year-old son who still soiled his pants, so she didn’t last long, quitting after five months.
She was shocked to see price tags on items belonging to her children, such as the $425 Oscar de la Renta dress that 4-year-old Ruby, from the first family, wore to school.
“Ruby had 50 dresses that were between $400 and $500 in the two years I worked there. Why? She couldn’t wear those dresses for long,” she said.
Kaiser was also surprised by the costs of her children’s extracurricular activities, including a $500-an-hour reading class on the Upper East Side and a $13,000 day-long camp in the Hamptons that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s son also attended.
Ms. Kaiser also did a trial run babysitting for a New York billionaire who invited her to spend a weekend in the Hamptons watching his 18-month-old child, riding behind him and his son in a golf cart on the way to his moored yacht.
“‘The boat is over there,’ he told me. ‘Just follow the path to the water. I’ll run behind you and meet you there,'” she wrote.
The billionaire had a staff of 50 people, including chefs, sous chefs, servers and butlers, all of whom were present at every meal at his home.
“This guy had a real dry cleaners in his basement,” she said. “As if he had a housekeeper, whose only job was washing and ironing. Five days a week. It was a family of three. How much laundry do you have?”
Kaiser also revealed her worst job: hand-washing her 5-year-old’s soiled linen underwear. “He soiled his pants almost daily, not by accident but by nasty intent,” she wrote.
“It was like an out-of-body experience. I could see myself trying to scrape this poop out with my fingernails,” she said.
“It felt really weird living in a million-dollar apartment… Throw away your underwear.”
Kaiser also shared some of the outlandish demands her babysitting friends have received from their bosses.
“One nanny has to sanitize every toy she touches, down to every single block,” she wrote.
Another had to replace everything he was using.
“When I used diaper rash ointment, I would scoop it into another container and smooth it out to make it look full…” [or] She was reprimanded.”
In her book, she also talks about some obvious red flags she saw in job ads.
“I’m looking for a nanny who can keep a low profile.” [means] “They’re essentially looking for someone without a personality,” she said. “They want a servant and nothing more.”
Kaiser also had to face the sad reality that because she was born and educated in the United States, she was treated differently than many other nannies from the Caribbean, South America and Asia.
One mother in a playroom in the building Kaiser frequented ignored the other nannies and only spoke to Kaiser: “She’s only talking to you because you’re white,” Kaiser was told.
One of her closest nanny friends also lamented that her father would not allow her and another nanny to eat the same food as everyone else at a barbecue.
“We reached for the steaks but Mr Bruce yelled at us to stop and took out two small pieces and said the big steak was for someone else,” the nanny told her.
Kaiser, who now lives in Astoria and works as a senior executive assistant for an advertising technology company, said despite her many struggles, it was hard to leave the children she cared for after growing to love them.
“Yeah, I’ve had smoother breakups before. I was sick for a few days after I split with my last family,” she said.
“But we still see each other. Their moms always keep us updated.”
