Help-wanted ad for nanny: 'My kids are a pain'

NEW YORK -- It was an unusually honest ad for a live-in nanny, a 1,000-word tome beginning, "My kids are a pain." But it worked, attracting a brave soul who's never been a nanny before.

"If you cannot multitask, or communicate without being passive aggressive, don't even bother replying," Rebecca Land Soodak, a mother of four on Manhattan's Upper East Side, wrote Aug. 19 in her advertisement on Craigslist.

"I can be a tad difficult to work for. I'm loud, pushy and while I used to think we paid well, I am no longer sure."

This being the age of instant communications, the ad took on a life of its own, making the rounds of parenting blogs and e-mail inboxes and inspiring an article in Thursday's New York Times.

Soodak, a 40-year-old painter whose husband owns a wine store, eventually hired Christina Wynn, a 25-year-old University of Virginia graduate, to take care of their four children.

Some other excerpts from the listing: "If you are fundamentally unhappy with your life, you will be more unhappy if you take this job, so do us all a favor and get some treatment or move to the Rockies, but do not apply for employment with us."

Soodak said, "I hope she likes it here. I sent the ad to one of my old sitters and she said she felt it was pretty accurate, which sort of stung a little bit."