In a world where pictures of Brangelina's baby sold for millions, it's not surprising that celebrities have a large say in which child-care choices become hip and which do not. Celebrity baby mania has been in full swing for several years now, but so has celebrity involvement in raising kids. What child-care occupations have been the biggest celebrity trends? Read on to see.
Nannies
Nannies had a tremendous surge in popularity in America after the 1964 release of the film Mary Poppins. Americans enthusiastically embraced the nanny, previously considered a British institution, after being beguiled by Julie Andrews in song and dance. But nannies have also entered the limelight quite a bit in the past few years. The Nanny Diaries, written by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Krauss, flew off the shelves after its release and will soon hit theaters, starring Scarlett Johansson. You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again, an expose written by Suzanne Hansen, a former nanny to the Hollywood rich and famous, fared slightly less well but still had a large audience. Both books showed nannies struggling to "make it" in the world of the wealthy.
Onscreen, Julia Roberts has become an informal beacon for mothers seeking nannies. Roberts, the voice for the audiotape version of The Nanny Diaries, reputedly interviewed copious numbers of nannies — doing full background and credit checks on them — before picking several for her twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus. Less luminously, celebrity Fran Drescher also cemented the nanny in popular culture when she starred in the hit TV series
The Nanny, about a high-pitched, lowbrow nanny from New York City.
