Annie Braddock

Child-rearing around the world boasts a wide variety of customs and mores. But perhaps the most bizarre social patterns can be found within the small island community of Manhattan... The inhabitants of the region known as the Upper East Side have the most prosperous, yet idiosyncratic social systems on the planet. After successfully mating and producing offspring, the men are often distant and uninvolved, leaving their women to hunt, gather and provide for their families. Yet the resourceful mothers of the Upper East Side have plenty of time to participate in a variety of sex-role specific activities. These include body mutilation, sacred meditation, even fasting rituals. Which brings us to our focus on child-rearing: Who actually does it? Well, in Africa, they have a saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." But for the tribe of the Upper East Side, it takes just one person: the Nanny.