Let’s get something straight
I don’t understand why people always say, when looking for a childcare provider, that they want to find someone “like Mary Poppins.”
In the books, Mary Poppins was a care provider of her times — cold, strict, sneering, and a snob. She was not a cuddly or particularly loving person. Of course, she could take the four Banks children on some pretty wonderful adventures, but she always denied the veracity of them once everyone came back home. Gaslighting, basically, and always with a peremptory sniff. By our modern American standards, magical powers notwithstanding, Mary Poppins would end up on a 20/20 nanny-cam exposé.
Then there’s the movie. As played by a smiling Julie Andrews — singing with a spring-time robin and leaping into chalk drawings — she is awfully appealing. But the whole reason the movie Mary Poppins shows up is to bring the family back together. She helps the father recognize that he’s too preoccupied with work. She helps the mother see that her ridiculous obsession with votes for women is stealing too much of her attention from her children. In other words, hire the movie Mary Poppins and she’ll convince you that you don’t need a nanny after all by heaping coals of guilt on your head.
I was thinking about this because I am fan of both of the Poppins incarnations. Noah is listening to the first book in the series right now in the other room and we’ve been talking about the differences between the book and the movie.
Now if I needed to hire a childcare provider from literature, who would I choose? Ole Golly, maybe. I can’t think of anyone else. Can you think of anyone else? Maybe Nana.
Ole Golly, yep. Man, I loved that book.
I would hire Caroline Ingalls. Or Matthew Cuthbert. Or all four Boxcar Children.
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle!
I was going to say Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle too! But I’d settle for Matthew Cuthbert (or Anne for that matter!) as well.
Jim from Huck Finn.
Ida Early (by Richard Peck I think). If you don’t know these books (they’re pretty southern) I *highly* recommmend them. She is such a wonderful character, one you would like to meet IRL.
Best!
How about Aunt Beast from A Wrinkle in Time?
I was just re-reading Mary Poppins last month, and I read the next couple books in the series and was greatly irritated to find that they are, IMO, rather much just re-hashings of the first one in terms of structure (i.e. Chapter 1 is the arrival, chapter 2 is the visit to Mary’s odd relative, chapter 3 is a fairy-tale sort of story, chapter 4 is Michael & Jane visiting a mysterious magical event at which MP turns out to be the guest of honor, etc.). And then, at the end of each book, she just LEAVES. No warning, she’s just GONE. Feh.
Talking about irritating children’s books–has anyone else been as freaked out about the part of the original Peter Pan where the mom is “tidying up her children’s minds,” with the metaphor being that she takes and sorts and folds their thoughts just as she would with the clothes in their dressers. Lingering over the sweet little things, putting other things way in the back.
I read that as an adult and it still gives me nightmares.
Aunt Beast! Yes! Or Uncle Merry from the Dark is Rising series.
Yes! Yes! Why the obsession with Mary Poppins?
As a nanny, I find this slightly bizarre. I am working as a nanny as a break between degres (or so goes the current plan) and I was surprised and rather creeped out by the abundance of references to M. Poppins in the on-line writing on finding a nanny.
Thanks for echoing that feeling of mine, it’s nice to not feel alone!
Was Amelia Bedelia a nanny or a housekeeper? I forget.