Baby

Nannies looking to work for Brangelina, take note: The celeb family's job requirements have gone public, and the average teenage babysitter definitely wouldn't make the cut. 

Apparently, each Jolie-Pitt kid gets his or her own individual nanny. Said nanny must have a degree in child development or education and speak a minimum of two languages (Cambodian for Maddox, Vietnamese for Pax, and so on). Right about now, you might be thinking, "Jeez, that's a pretty tall order for a nanny."

But here's the thing -- the average Jolie-Pitt au pair makes between $50,000 and $150,000 to start. 

I know plenty of people with degrees in education who bring home a lot less bacon than that, and they're teaching addition and subtraction in inner-city classrooms, not conjugating verbs en francais on the banks of the Riviera.

Some are saying the star couple is asking (and paying) too much, but I'm not so sure. Shouldn't we all hold childcare workers in higher regard? And if you were a gazillionaire, wouldn't you buy a team of full-on Mary Poppinses for your brood? (And/or life-sized Kung Fu Pandas for on-demand entertainment?)

So clearly, Brad and Angie value the people they've chosen to help raise their kids. Here's a novel idea: Maybe the rest of the country should follow their lead! Perhaps if we treated our teachers and childcare providers with the same level of respect, there really would be no child left behind.

I totally get that most of us only have so much cash to spare on daycare and/or nannies (what's the point of being a working mom if you're not even going to break even?). But way back in the day, I was a nanny, too, and that job is no walk in the park (though it often involves actual walks in the park).

I'll never forget the one and only time I babysat for a particular 2-year-old girl. The kid was quite a handful, as were the family's two irritating toy poodles, but the mother was the reason I never went back. Upon my arrival, she launched into this long speech about how nice and normal I seemed, and how her last babysitter, a woman with several children of her own, had recently locked herself and her kids in a shed and set it on fire in an attempted murder/suicide. I almost thought she was joking, until I remembered seeing the story on the news a couple of weeks before.

Did I mention yet that this mother never even checked my references?!?!

Oh, and since that whole no-background-check approach worked out so well for her the last time, the mom figured she'd pay me the same rate the shed-on-fire woman got: Four bucks an hour.

That was years ago, but whenever I think of the little girl and her way-too-laid-back mom, I still worry about that kid.

You know who I don't worry about? Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax, Knox, and Vivienne.

Do you think Brangelina's standards for childcare are over the top?

Image via marcof/Flickr