Esther McCarthy: Think the rich are happy? Think again
Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn
Last week, I was learning future parenting lessons by being a nanny for an uber-rich family in New York City.
I figured out a lot that J1 summer of 1997. We flew from New York to Long Island one weekend, on their private plane, natch.
When we landed, their driver brought us to their Montauk mansion. Now, I grew up in a house full of people.
There were four of us in the girls’ bedroom, hand-me-downs were the norm, good luck getting the bathroom to yourself, and the younger you were, the further down the seat pecking order you were, which meant for the first half of my life, TV was enjoyed from the floor.
But I never remember anyone being too bothered about it; it was a happy house.
This family had every possible luxury, no thirdhand bath water for them, and yet, they had this aura of dissatisfaction oozing out of them. It was not a happy house.
It was a good lesson for me at that age, when I was very conscious of money and how it can equate to freedom and fun and travel.
Saving money from stacking shelves in Roches Stores for two years equals a plane ticket to America. Now that may not sound like much of a sacrifice, but you didn’t see the uniform.
Calf-length, mawky green, thick material. Great for when you had a clean-up on aisle four, but not so good for the fashion reputation.
(Side note: I broke SO many jars of jam and honey, I sometimes wonder if I was in some way responsible for Roches going out of business. WHY did they insist on putting me on breakables? It was like putting Frank Spencer in charge of a Fabergé egg collection. I begged my manager for the nappies and pet food gig — begged!)
Anyway, money seems monumental when you don’t have a lot of it. But seeing firsthand how being disgustingly rich didn’t automatically equate to domestic bliss was priceless.
She was due to have sailing lessons on her own yacht the day after we arrived. But I never got to bring her, because the first day we arrived, they invited me to play pool basketball.
The game couldn’t start until the dad finished berating the guy who looked after the property because the pool temperature wasn’t satisfactory. Big thick head on him, like a spoiled brat.
I remember being so embarrassed for the man, having this dressing down in front of everyone, and my respect for Mr Big Shot plummeted. Then we played, me and the brother against the kid and the dad.
Well, how was I supposed to know they don’t value competitiveness in the help? I don’t want to brag, but they were dealing with a power-forward ex-WASP (Wilton and Surrounding Parishes).
I was in it to win it, my friends. Then the dad and the 12-year-old threw a hissy fit after their annihilation, and I was ordered out of the pool to go and unpack the luggage.
The kid stomped to her room, screaming about the cheating Irish while the dad muttered something about elbows into the throat being poor sportsmanship.
I went to the kid’s room to make up and she took a decorative plate off her wall and threw it at me, I ducked and it smashed off the wall.
This is crazy, I thought. Her parents must be informed.
Well, the young one didn’t lick it off a stone, because when I went downstairs to talk to the mother about it, she started screaming at me, then she picked up a plate from the marble counter in her perfect kitchen and smashed it on the floor at my feet.
OK, I’m calling it. I went upstairs, rang my aunty Norma and she said get out of there, so I packed my bag, pleaded with the pool guy to open the electronic gates, stuck my thumb out, and this pickup truck brought me to the Tipperary Inn, where I ended up in a motel room with five smelly fellas from the Midlands, sleeping on the floor, and having to wear shoes in the shower for fear of the unidentified fungus on the tray.
I couldn’t have been happier.
So whenever my sons ask me for something out of our budget, I tell them this fiscal fairytale of New York.
“Sons,” I say at the end, “material things don’t make you happy. Be content with the simple things, recognise the difference between the price of something and the value of it, and always be respectful to those doing a job for you.”
By the time I’ve finished, they’re so bored they’ve forgotten what they were bugging me to buy them.
I don’t tell them about the private detective the family hired to follow me afterward. He couldn’t find me for weeks because I went to so many different parties and then straight to work on a boat at 6am still half-flutered from Long Island Ice Teas, and the boat sometimes doubled up as somewhere to crash to avoid the stinky motel. Kids don’t need to know EVERYTHING.
Money can’t buy you love, happiness, class, or pool basketball prowess.
