Last weekend, I sat down to have lunch with my daughters. My husband and sons were playing tennis for a few hours nearby, and without them, the house seemed downright calm. No matter how many — or how few — children you have, when you are down a child or two, the load seems lighter. But still, as any parent knows, there’s always work to be done.

While I chopped a melon for dessert, doled out napkins, cut food into small bites, and played silly guessing games with the girls, I noticed that my weekend baby sitter sat down on the couch. Then I noticed that she opened the new “Harry Potter” book and started to read.

Ten minutes later, she was still reading. What a great job she has, I thought as I silently fumed. Don’t worry about the toys that need sorting out, or the clothes that need folding, or the sheets that need to be changed. Why should she bother, when she’s found a fool like to me to pay her while she reads “Harry Potter”?

When the movie version of “The Nanny Diaries” — about a recent college graduate’s experience working as a nanny for a detached, narcissistic Park Avenue matron who all but ignores her 4-year-old son, the precious Grayer — is released this Friday, I will not be crying any tears for any nannies.

Over the years, I have had my fair share of relationships with nannies. There are plenty of nannies who are paid less than they deserve, whose employers arrive home later than promised, who are treated poorly by bratty children and their entitled parents, and whose hearts break as they struggle to develop relationships with children who are neglected by preoccupied parents.

But, the truth is that most families I know cherish the women who help them raise their children and run their homes while they work (or just work out). I know countless families — especially those in the socioeconomic bracket that star front and center in “The Nanny Diaries” — that have helped their nannies buy apartments, as well as pay for college prep courses, special evaluations, and tutors for their nanny’s children. Plenty of families have helped pay for their nannies’ and their nannies’ children’s college and graduate degrees, as well as treat them and their children to clothes, camps, laptops, and cars.

Many such generous families — or those that are less munificent but also have less means, or those that are well-off but less generous, or those that are involved with only their own family’s concerns — have found their nannies stealing money, telling lies, showing up progressively late, and taking more and more sick days. I’ve heard of nannies taking long paid vacations and never returning to work, without a phone call or letter. I’ve heard of prima donna nannies who, many years into a job, decide that they will only take care of the children and not do a drop of housework — even when the children are in school eight hours a day.

“If so-and-so’s mother could never see this child, she’d be just fine,” a nanny told me last spring on a playdate.

“You cannot believe how much so-and-so’s parents spend on their clothes and on their fancy parties,” another nanny told me out of the blue. “Sometimes I want to cry when I see how much the mom spends on this little boy’s clothes — which just get stained and thrown away. And then you would think I was asking for a million dollars when I asked for a raise last year. They gave it to me, but in a way that made me like they were doing me a favor,” she said before asking me if I knew anyone looking for a new nanny.

Does anyone know how to spell the word “inappropriate”? I could certainly skip these conversations with chatty or vengeful nannies.

More than once I have interviewed nannies who worked for families I knew in a six-degrees-of-separation kind of way. When the women began to dish on the families’ problems or cheapness, I wouldn’t deny my own interest.

But I’ve always wondered why a job-seeking nanny bothers to air dirty laundry, making her about as appealing an employee as a tame gorilla.

The bottom line on “The Nanny Diaries” is that in the past decade, I have never come across any situation that remotely resembles the horror tale told by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. While the book is (and no doubt the movie will be) amusing, much of the intense interest in this city comes from speculating on the identities of the authors’ former employers, and which one most closely resembles the book’s lead character, Mrs. X.

There is no way to generalize about a very complicated personal relationship, except to say that eventually most families find the help they need, and most nannies find a considerate family. Sometimes this is through the help of dreaded and expensive agencies, and sometimes this is through the parental grapevine that certainly feels more reassuring — until you realize that each individual has a very different idea of what the ideal nanny situation resembles.

The first time I was looking to hire a baby sitter for my son, my mother gave me great advice that I frequently retell friends of mine when they are on their first nanny search. “You should only interview someone who has a reference of at least a few years at the same job,” she began. “And you should never hire someone who has worked in a fancy home where there are several people dividing up the same responsibilities that you would expect her to do alone. And you should always keep looking until you found someone who you think is great. This may take longer than you like, but when it comes to your children, you can’t settle for anything less.”

I’ll be keeping these words in mind when I interview new weekend nannies this week.

sarasberman@aol.com