I Might Be a Bad Babysitter

I'm honestly just not sure. I know that, once upon a time, I was an awesome babysitter. But now? There's a good chance that I'm pretty terrible.

When I was the tender age of 12, my mother informed me that I would soon be old enough to be allowed to babysit other children, just like my older sister. What an exciting time for me! I was considered grown up enough to have a job!

She also informed me that now that it was possible for me to make my own money, I was expected to do so. Gone were the days of parental financial excess. My parents would pay for necessities, but if I wanted to go out with friends, buy a cute new outfit, or buy lunch at school, I was on my own. (This may sound harsh, and believe me, at the time I thought it was too, but now I am so glad my parents forced me to learn the value of a dollar early. It instilled in me my ability to be a financially independent adult, which I'm sure will be the topic of a post someday.)

So I jumped right in with both feet. I took a babysitting course through the Girl Scouts and became what we called a "mother's helper." A "mother's helper" is a babysitter who is not yet old enough to legally be left alone with a child, so he/she comes over while the mother is at home and occupies the baby so the mother can have a little alone time and get some damn work done. Once I turned 13, I was offically allowed to babysit, and it became my bread and butter.

I. Was. AWESOME.

I showed up with a bag of games and toys for the kids. I cooked. I let them cook. I played with them. I ran around outside with them. I read stories. I watched movies. I pretended to lose at air hockey and basketball and tag. I changed diapers and cooed and complimented. I took them to the pool. I let them stay up late and eat (a moderate amount of) junk food and watch TV. I was a fun babysitter.

The marketing team insisted it would sell better if I was more ethnically ambiguous.

Because I wanted to be exactly like my favorite babysitters from my childhood. (Megan Truxel, if you're out there - you were the BEST.) They were the ones who got involved and had fun with me. I felt so special, because this ADULT! (who was probably all of 16 at the time) wanted to play with ME. I felt cool and grown up by proxy, and I wanted kids to be excited because someone so cool, who made them feel special, was coming to hang out with them. And I really believe that I usually succeeded in that goal.

Slowly but surely though, my babysitting activities slowed down. School started getting more time-consuming. I had to get "real" jobs. By the time I graduated college, my babysitting gigs were all but non-existent.

Even worse, I started getting old. Gone was my energy to spend 4 hours running around the park with toddlers. I started spending more time sitting on the sidelines and yelling encouragements than being involved.

"Yeah, you guys run on ahead of me! I'll catch up in a second!"*

Occasionally though, someone calls me up and asks me to hang out with their kids for an evening. And the other night, as I was spending some time with a former teacher's daughter, I wondered if I'd forgotten how to be a good babysitter. Cynthia** is a great kid. She's smart, polite, and helpful. She behaves and is happy to make me feel at home for the 3 or so hours that we're sharing the same space. But she's not really interested in playing games or running around. She's a child of this millennium. She's interested in sticking her ear buds in and watching Hulu while I'm in the other room on the couch trying to figure out their TV set.

And I feel like that puts me in a weird position. On the one hand, I don't want to interrupt and bother her if that's really what she wants to do with her evening. On the other hand though, I wonder if she'd have a better night if I suggested that we play a game or do each others' nails. Does the thought even occur to her? Is she not asking to do anything because she's content or because she doesn't think I'm interested? Would she think it was weird if I asked if she wanted to play mancala, or would she be more excited the next time I come over because she knows I'm going to want to actually hang out with her?

Am I being a complacent babysitter because she's letting me be one, or am I being a good babysitter because I'm letting her spend her evening the way she wants to?

This is mancala.

I'm really not sure, but I didn't feel very good about the way I earned my money at the end of the night.

And I didn't even set anything on fire.

*For the record, this never ever actually happened.

**Name changed for anonymity

What Do You SAY to That?

Sometimes kids expose you to things you wish they hadn’t. I’m relatively certain that my mom wishes she’d never seen “Jizz in my Pants,” but I showed her anyway. And when I was in college, I spent one spring weekend babysitting for a family while their parents were on a trip. Unfortunately, it happened to be about six weeks after the original High School Musical came out. The Disney Channel repeated it multiple times that weekend, and those kids watched it (or at least had it on in the background) Every. Single. Time.

I wish I could say that was the worst thing I heard and saw that weekend.

Now please understand, I like this family. The kids are a little spoiled, but for the most part, they’re nice.  There are four of them, but the older three were mostly able to take care of themselves, and I just had to make sure nothing catastrophic happened. My job was essentially to take care of and entertain the youngest girl (9) and her cousin (11).

NOTE: For the sake of anonymity (and for the amusement of any UMD Theatre kids), any names in this story have been changed. Let’s call the youngest member of the family Little Sally and her cousin Young Jane.

Little Sally’s parents left me some money to take the kids out and do something fun, so on Friday night I suggested we go see a movie.  The three of us piled into my car and headed out to the Hunt Valley shopping-complex-extravaganza to see She’s the Man. (I’m not going to lie, I might have pushed a bit to influence that decision. I neither regret it, nor am I ashamed to share that fact here.) Things started to go downhill as soon as we pulled in the parking lot and started looking for a spot. The girls looked toward the entrance of the movie theater, and upon seeing people hanging around outside (because that, after all, is what the entrance to movie theaters are for – loitering), I suddenly heard from the backseat:

“Ew! Black people! They always ruin EVERYTHING.”

Excuse me? WHAT. Do I SAY to that?! I think I stammered out something like, “They have as much right to be here as we do,” but truly, I was far too flabbergasted to make any kind of response at all, because I had no idea how to react to this situation. I was offended and horrified, but it wasn’t my job to educate/chastise/punish these kids! So I ignored it and we went inside.

While standing in line for snacks, I told them that we were only going to wait once, so get everything they wanted. They had fair warning, but they still decided not to get drinks. When, 20 minutes later, they wanted soda, I reminded them that I was not getting back in line, and suggested they take a drink from the water fountain that was five feet away. (We had already spent, in one hour, half of the money for the entire weekend at this point anyway, which was my primary reason for avoiding over-priced Sprites.)

You would have thought I had suggested they drink out of the dirty toilets. “Ewwww, you are so disgusting! Other people’s mouths have been on that! I’m not touching that dirty thing!”

Seriously? News flash, you stuck-up brats: long before companies started bottling water from the fresh, clear springs of Deer Park, kids drank water from fountains.  I am neither dead, nor a freak of nature for having done so, as you are so strongly implying right now.

After the movie I took them to Cheeburger Cheeburger for dinner. I was fasting on Fridays during that particular Lent (something unfortunately probably tied more to body image than to Jesus, but I digress), and they couldn’t figure me out. Young Jane kept trying to force french fries into my face. “Just eat one.” I took this as an opportunity to explain a bit about how meaningful Lent can be. Their response?

     Young Jane: Oh yeah, that’s right, you work at Beachmont. (A local Christian day camp where I          was a junior counselor and then a swim instructor for a number of years.)

     Little Sally: Oh my gosh, like, EVERYONE goes to Beachmont.

     Young Jane: Yeah, OH, but except they don’t let Jews in.

Oh. My goodness. I calmly explained that yes, they accept campers of any race or religion. Everyone is welcome there, they just TEACH Christianity.

And in my head I slumped in defeat as I realized that these girls were, at such a young age, learning to polarize themselves from culturally divergent groups. A nine year old and an eleven year old spent the evening being racist, rude, offensive, and elitist. Where were they learning this behavior? Probably from their parents. Welcome to your post-race America.

Should I have said more? Years later it bothers me that yes, I probably should have. It just didn’t seem like my place.

And what, oh WHAT, do you SAY to that?