Petrusso is a history and screenwriting scholar and freelance writer and editor. In this essay, Petrusso compares and contrasts The Nanny Diaries: A Novel with perhaps the most famous nanny story in literature, Mary Poppins, arguing both authors put nannies and their charges on a pedestal, while de-emphasizing the role of the parents who hired the caregivers.

Nearly every nanny in literature, and perhaps reality, has to live up to the literary archetype created by P. L. Travers: Mary Poppins. In Mary Poppins, the nanny blows in with the east wind, wins the hearts of the four Banks children, and leaves months later when the wind blows west. While the book is a fantasy targeted at children, Poppins is a caretaker many people really want for their children. Even the fictional Nanny in Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus's book The Nanny Diaries: A Novel feels the burden...