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[00:00.00]喜欢hxen.com，就把hxen.com复制到QQ个人资料中！A Male Nanny
[00:01.98]1  The woman next to me in the bread cafe
[00:06.55]on 67th Street wants to know how much my baby weighs.
[00:11.09]I don't tell her that he's not my baby because I'm tired of explaining.
[00:17.17]Instead, I look at Sam's year-old body.
[00:20.70]I have never been good at guessing weight,
[00:24.62]but I know Sam feels awfully heavy when I carry him around the city all day.
[00:29.81]2  "Forty pounds," I tell her, none too confidently.
[00:34.63]3  "Forty," she says. "I don't think so.
[00:38.59]Try somewhere around twenty."
[00:40.97]4  Sam twists in my arms and I look at my watch.
[00:45.54]Ann, his mom, is due back from her hair appointment any minute.
[00:50.47]In the meantime, I bounce Sam, sip my coffee and wait.
[00:56.56]5  "Honestly," the woman says to her friend,
[00:59.54]"What kind of parent doesn't know how much his child weighs?"
[01:03.72]6  I want to tell her that I'm Sam's nanny,
[01:07.90]but I don't because I'm a guy — a "nanny",
[01:12.76]you might say. Whenver someone learns that I'm taking care of Sam,
[01:17.90]they turn on me — telling me not to bounce him too much or he'll throw up,
[01:23.59]demanding that I give him another bottle of milk.
[01:26.69]7  I have two younger sisters.
[01:29.53]I was a summer camp counselor for five years.
[01:33.28]I had a girlfriend with young nephews.
[01:36.19]I read the books What to Expect the First Year
[01:40.66]and What to Expect the Toddler Years.
[01:44.51]My experience with kids is probably just as good as,
[01:49.33]if not better than, any high school girl who watches kids.
[01:53.69]Still, I'm not the one thing almost everyone thinks I should be for this job
[02:00.46]— a woman.
[02:01.82]8  When I look up, Ann is walking through the door.
[02:05.82]She kisses Sam, then looks at me. "How was he?"
[02:10.57]9  "Fine," I tell her. "How much does he weigh?"
[02:14.68]10  "Twenty-three pounds. Why?"
[02:17.30]11  "No reason." I say.
[02:19.86]12  I'm sitting on a bench at the playground,
[02:23.28]eating a chicken salad next to four woman nannies, all twice my age.
[02:28.28]Sam is now a year and a half old,
[02:31.63]big enough to cross the playground's bouncy bridge himself.
[02:35.70]I watch him and the other children jump up and down.
[02:39.44]13  "I didn't get paid until last Thursday" one woman says.
[02:43.98]She takes a bite of her sandwich.
[02:47.00]"Olive tried to cheat me on the extra hours I worked."
[02:51.43]Everyone nods, sympathetically.
[02:54.56]14  "You guys get extra pay?" I ask.
[02:58.99]15  "After 40 hours a week," someone says.
[03:02.38]"Don't you pay your nanny that way?" one of them asks me.
[03:07.24]16  "No," I tell them. "I AM the nanny."
[03:10.80]17  They stare at me with suspicion.
[03:13.32]18  Is it really that big of a deal?
[03:16.56]Women are soldiers, truck drivers, and construction workers.
[03:21.82]Why can't a man be a nanny?
[03:23.90]I began watching Sam as a favor to Ann when I was in graduate school.
[03:29.56]Before I knew it, though,
[03:31.61]I slipped into the nanny position almost full time.
[03:35.21]It's a job I like, and it helped pay for school.
[03:39.46]But why does everyone have a problem with it?
[03:42.91]19  Insulted,
[03:45.18]I throw my lunch into the trash barrel and let Sam lead me to the swings.
[03:49.97]I tell him to hold tight, and back and forth he goes.
[03:54.94]20  "How old is he?" the woman at the next swing wants to know.
[04:00.52]She has a French accent and looks to have much energy to be a new mother.
[04:07.39]21  "About 17 months." I say.  "And I'm 324 months."
[04:13.48]22  She gives me a wary smile.
[04:16.54]Her baby is in the bucket swing,
[04:18.98]big brown eyes and wild curly hair.
[04:18.99]23  "She looks like you," I tell you.
[04:21.83]24  "Thanks," she says. "He has your blue eyes."
[04:26.44]25  "Oh, no. He's not mine. I'm his nanny."
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