A live-in servant has revealed the strangest requests her mega-rich employers ever made of her, and how she handled them.
There’s no denying that being a live-in servant to the mega-rich can have its perks… just ask the gardener who got bequeathed $17 billion or the lucky soul who got to build a Japanese billionaire’s dream race track as prime exmaples. However, getting quite so intimate with the rich and famous can have its drawbacks…
Behind the opulent and often steely facades of America’s billionaires lies a bizarre home life rife with bizarre and sometimes morally questionable demands placed on their live-in staff. In her book, Wanted: Toddler’s Personal Assistant, former nanny Stephanie Kiser revealed some mind-boggling stories from her time spent working for some of NYC’s richest families. Her tales paint a surreal picture of what life is like as domestic help for the ultra-rich.
Outrageous Requests
Among the most shocking requests Stephanie has come across was that of a mega-rich mother who wanted the young nanny to take drugs in order to induce lactation. “The mom didn’t want to pump at work, but also only wanted her child to drink breast milk,” Stephanie says:
“She was looking for a nanny comfortable with induced lactation, hoping to find ‘help’ willing to try hormone-mimicking drugs or herbal medication.”
Despite leaving her asking whether such a thing ‘was even legal’, Kiser has received plenty of other requests that are jaw-dropping, if not outright strange, in a totally different way. Another family, while interviewing Kiser, asked if she would be comfortable running errands in a Porsche because that’s the only kind of car they had available. “Needless to say, the answer was ‘yes,'” Stephanie says.
Her experiences range from the relatively benign to the completely absurd. Working for one family, she had to report every minor detail of the child’s day to the mother. “Once he’s settled in bed, you and I meet to discuss his day. You should be taking notes throughout it so you can keep me up to speed on his moods, any issues, and concerns. It’s all about communication,” the mother said.
$90,000 ‘Survivor’s Prize’
One family really threw down the big-money gauntlet for Kiser when offering her a role: a US$90,000 salary (c. A$140,000) and a hefty bonus if she could last two years. The catch? The 17-year-old boy Stephanie was supposed to care for hated his nannies and had managed to drive every previous person who accepted the roll away… and in record time too:
“As I’ve said, my son doesn’t exactly welcome his caregivers… He can be somewhat hostile with them. But that’s why I implemented the bonus system. A sort of ‘survivor’s prize’ if you will.”
Kiser was to supervise the teenager’s activities daily, make sure he got up in time for breakfast, and report his every move to his mother. Thankfully, Stephanie turned the job down, seeing the red flags clearly and early. In another trial, Stephanie was caring for two toddlers, the offspring of a judge and his germaphobe wife.
“Their clothes had to be washed immediately after they’d undressed. Neither child had ever been on a playdate, and the three-year-old had never had so much as a cold”. After three gruelling days, she moved on, realising she couldn’t bring herself to leave the apartment complex every time she needed to sneeze…
For Stephanie, the moment she knew her career in billionaire babysitting was over finally arrived when she was working for a family in the Hamptons. After being told she would have to run after a golf cart carrying the father and his son to a waiting yacht, she realised the time had come to move on:
“I am 60 seconds into running after a fat billionaire and his baby when I decide that today is the last day I will ever see these people…”
Could you stomach the whims of the mega-rich for an admittedly juicy paycheque? Or does your dignity come first?
