cover image Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare, and Caribbeans Creating Community

Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare, and Caribbeans Creating Community

Tamara Mose Brown, New York Univ., $22 (240p) ISBN 978-0-8147-9143-1

The cultural community and work environment of West Indian nannies in the gentrifying neighborhood of Park Slope, in Brooklyn, N.Y., is dissected in this exhaustive sociological survey. Special emphasis is given to how these women meet and support each other in an isolating profession; public parks, libraries, even cellphones are all explored as avenues to find solidarity and collectively define the boundaries of "work" in a job that blurs the borders between the personal and professional. Brown, a woman of West Indian descent and a Park Slope mother, is able to move deftly between the worlds of the parents and the child-care providers, obtaining flashes of insight into both sides. Brisk chapters make for a swift read that gives scope if not always depth—a section on the lack of meaningful overtime pay for nannies especially begs for a more detailed look. Still, as a survey it is a vivid snapshot into the lives of women working in a vast, largely unregulated industry, vulnerable to abuses, and defying odds to create a nourishing community. (Jan.)