The movie version of The Nanny Diaries opened last week, and my good friend and fellow traveler Heather Hewett, Coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program at SUNY-New Paltz, has an extremely smartypants op-ed on it all today in the Washington Post titled “Who’s Your Nanny?”. Muses Heather,

I can’t help noting how little the story has to do with reality — either with the situation of parents like me, who depend on nannies and babysitters to care for our children, or with the lives of most women who work as caregivers.

She goes on to contrast reality (the feminization of migration) with the nanny fantasies that currently abound in pop culture — not only The Nanny Diaries, but a slew of so-called reality tv shows and plays. I find Heather’s op-ed an excellent example of accessible writing that surveys the latest theory and pop thinking on the subject and makes us all think. GO HEATHER!