Musings on Child Care
Baby-sitting seems like a rite of passage for most girls growing up in America. It’s a heavily female-biased occupation, and when one is a female coming-of-age in suburbia, it’s one of the only viable options to make money when you’re not old enough to drive.
I started baby-sitting when I was eleven years old. There were a lot of families in my neighborhood, and they all had young children. This trend continued as I went through high school, and so I was never lacking in baby-sitting opportunities. When I was old enough to drive, I also found gainful employment at the local SuperTarget, but most of my earnings from that job went into saving for college, so sitting was my go-to for spending money.
As I worked toward my teaching license and now, as I’ve been searching to get a teaching job anywhere in the metro area, baby-sitting has been a primary source of income. I have a whole rotation of families that I sit for, and for the most part, I can fill up at least one weekend night a week with a job. A few of the families I work for are wealthy, and their pre-school-age children need day care while the mothers (and it is always the mothers, and once in a blue moon, a completely disinterested and slightly put-out father) go on school tours around the cities, looking for the best school for their child. It’s work, and it’s money in my pocket, but I could be making more than 3 times what I make an hour baby-sitting if I could find a teaching position.
Believe me when I say that I’m not being modest when I state that I’m not now, nor have I ever been, a terrific baby-sitter. I don’t particularly like children. I prefer to set the kids up with a movie or a bunch of toys and then curl up with a book or my journal. It’s not that I’m neglectful or hostile towards my wee little charges; it’s just that I’d rather sit and watch them play than have to try to play with them. I’ll engage in conversation with the kids, and I’ll feed them and keep them happy. I have some kids that I sit for that I genuinely like, and those jobs
While my interest in small children is small at best, infants and toddlers flat-out bore me. The other day, I jokingly said to The Boy, “I don’t recognize children under the age of 10 as actual humans.” While that isn’t true, infants could not attract my attention less. At family gatherings, when all of the aunts and cousins are crowded around the newest child to spring from someone’s loins, oohing and ahhing over the constipation faces the baby is making or cooing about the shit that the kid just spit up, I’m more likely to be hiding out by the cheese plate. It’s not just because I like cheese (I do, though).
There’s a fundamental disconnect between me and small children. Which is probably why it’s a good thing that my license is 5-12, right?
Trace them to your youth.
Yesterday, I attended a pool party thrown by one of my aunts for the entire extended family. It was a huge party, with quite a few of my second cousins present. It was also a way for the family to meet new additions to the fold (in the form of babies, wives, fiances, and boyfriends) in a semi-non-threatening environment. Me? Well, I find any event that requires a bathing suit to be a threatening environment, but I’ve been told that I have issues.
The party itself was pretty standard fare. People sat around having the same conversations over and over again, drinking soda and munching on chips and salsa. A meal was served at an awkward time of day, around 3:30, when it is neither lunch nor dinner and thus ruins your appetite for the rest of the day. Some people swam.
Perhaps the best moment of the afternoon came when my cousin V. was getting ready to dive into the water. She was still dry and well-made up, and was standing near the edge of the pool, fussing with her bikini and getting ready to do a showy swan-dive into the water. Out of nowhere, her boyfriend came running at her from behind and fucking tackled her, taking her sideways into the water, catching her completely by surprise.
She surfaced a few seconds later, spluttering and clearly pissed. “That was NOT fun!” she managed to get out, but everyone was laughing.
I nearly peed myself with glee, so perfect was his execution.
