This blog post is a bit delayed because I wanted to be far away from this family’s arsenal of power tools and guns when I published this…for lack of a better word…exposé.
The St Louis Arch
During our recent in-between, lost, struggling-to-figure-out-what-to-do-with-our-lives, boomerang stay in southern Illinois, I took on a routine babysitting gig that I would rank as a top ten surreal experience in my life. Everything about this family and their lifestyle existed in a web of contradictions. On the one-hand, they were total hicks and on the other, total hippies.
Babysitting can be great because the hours are usually pretty flexible, the pay is ok (and under the table), and it’s very easy and fun for me. So, when I found a family with three kids needing a “little bit” of weekend help, I was only too happy to try. The parents would be there and I would help with the three children, mainly the two older boys, and do some “light” cleaning. Generally, I don’t like babysitting when the parents are around because I feel judged and I’m worried that I’m coming off as too lenient or too strict. This was especially the case with this family because they were both hyper-aware and completely oblivious at the same time. The children I watched were 5 years old, recently 3 years old, and 5 months old. For the sake of storytelling, let’s name the 5 y/o Julian, the 3 y/o Lucas, and the baby: Baby.
The kids were hyperactive, unruly, spoiled, demanding, dirty, mean, but affectionate and endearingly curious. Though the kids gave me a LOT of grief, the really trying part was dealing with the parents, especially the mom. She was moody, judge-y, cheap, gossipy, lazy, ignorant, and was an online shopaholic. She hardly played with the kids because she was always eating and breastfeeding, but she was sure she would soon be receiving an award for “Mother of the Year”. She was doing “everything right” according to her online “mommy groups”. She spent the whole day watching NCIS and HGTV, which was ironic because the house was a dump! And they had a weekday nanny who cleaned a lot AND a professional cleaner. And I cleaned just because the mess of constantly sticky floors was unbearable. So the fact that the place was constantly trashed was actually impressive. Anyway, the dad was a redneck who spent the weekends cutting down trees with his chainsaw and driving around in his tractor. The fact that I was there when they were both home I think clearly indicates a problem with their priorities but they did love their children, even if their behaviors sometimes suggested neglect and pure stupidity.
I was there three days a week for several weeks. I would arrive at 7:45 and would immediately be overwhelmed by bare-bottomed boys smashing firetrucks into my legs or building collapsing towers of heavy cans of beans. The younger boy spent most of the day in a sweatshirt and leg warmers to facilitate easier potty time so, needless to say, I did not enjoy playing Skin the Cat with him. Every half hour or so we’d be sent away for being too noisy to the cold basement, the muddy backyard, or to the jam-packed toy room. We played lots of imaginary games such as cops and robbers (“let’s shoot him!”), hunting (“let’s shoot it!”), puppies (“can my dog have a gun too?”). When they would tell me to “shoot” something, I would refuse.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like guns.”
“Why?”
“Because they are dangerous and often misused.”
“So you mean you don’t like going hunting with your daddy?”
“…No.”
“Why?”
My creative juices were in constant demand. I used my imagination mostly to name the 890 cats they found daily (there were always exactly 890). I usually just listed Harry Potter characters but was still 800 or so short. Aside from trying to facilitate play, I also spent much of my day diffusing fights, opening “pouches” (of mashed fruits and veggies which have probably lost all nutritional value), wiping the remains of the pouches out of every orifice of the boys, and getting climbed on (sometimes when the little monkeys were still fighting the pants wars). At 3:30 or 4, the end of the day rituals would begin and these were absolutely excruciating, especially because at this point I was starved, physically and emotionally fatigued, and desperate to leave in order to maintain my personal safety/sanity. Dinner was a nearly impossible affair that the parents rarely participated in. After heating up a frozen meal, I would split it between two plates (God forbid they were the wrong color plates–cue temper tantrum), and Julian would quickly poach the best tray segment off of Lucas’s plate (cue temper tantrum). Then they would delight in showing me mouthfuls of chewed food and then spitting these into their milk cups. Their parents were definitely around and aware of this erm, lovely display, but they never intervened other than to tell me to “Just ignore them, they’ll get bored!” or “Can you give me some their frozen fried starchy mcmeaties?”. After I got them (the boys, not the parents–I wasn’t worried about them wasting away any time soon) to eat a bit, I’d chase them around and try to wrestle (quite literally) them into their pajamas and brush their teeth. As soon as I was done brushing their teeth, they’d help themselves to some sugary snack. And then they’d run around some more–clearly not that tired at 4:30 in the afternoon. But then they were each given a dose of Benadryl (“It’s cold season”, perpetually?) and I was free to go.
The food habits in this household were strange. Every day, boxes and boxes would arrive from Amazon Pantry full of “organic” this and “corn syrup free” that and I was instructed to wash all apples in organic, chemical removing wash. Yet, they ate bacon or sausage nearly everyday for breakfast and had fast food most days I was there. The mother ate twice a normal serving size at every meal and I often found empty candy wrappers stashed in the boys’ play house. As I said, Julian always stole whatever was “yummy” on Lucas’s plate, even if he had some too and would throw absolute tantrums if he did not get the food he wanted. Usually, once you gave it to him, he decided he didn’t want it anymore. He once gave me an unopened piece of chocolate wrapped in a paper bag. How sweet, I thought. Then he ate it.
One night, Julian decided he wanted bacon for dinner. He clambered up on the 4 1/2 feet high counters and was laying out strips of raw bacon “by himself”, as he demanded. I was holding Lucas up to the sink so he could wash his hand when, without warning, Julian, fingers covered in bacon slime, launched himself onto my back. I buckled, trying not to drop either boy and trying not to be strangled by the 60+ pounds gripping my neck. I now have two herniated discs in my back…I’m not saying there is a correlation but…Once I got them down and regained normal oxygen flow I said, “Julian, I love when you give me hugs and but you can’t jump on me, you’re too big.” His 250+ pound mother, “He’s not too big, he’s just the right size!” Ok, no I do not want to give him a complex but I’m pretty sure that 5 y/o’s consider being “big” an achievement and, given his genetics and environment, it might not be a bad thing for him to be aware of his body…I’m just sayin’
We frequently played outside and the boys liked to watch their dad needlessly sawing down the beautiful, healthy trees on their property. While they were playing with him at the logging site, I would enjoy making passive aggressive mother earth comments. Once, the dad started a big brush fire and the boys and I were sitting around it to warm up. Then Julian wandered over to his dad, picked up his ax, and started swinging it around. “Should I let him do that?” the dad asked to no one in particular. “Well, it might not be the best parenting decision, but oh well.”
Julian and I were on a walk one morning when he found a Ghiradelli wrapper (probably his mother’s) on the side of the road.
*NOTE: Julian pronounces his /L/s as /W/s*
“What’s this?” he asked me, his big eyes staring curiously up at me.
“Trash,” I responded.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is it here?”
“It probably blew out of someone’s trash can.”
“Why?”
“Because it is light. Easy for the wind to pick up and blow away.”
“So it’s white?” (meaning “light”)
“Yeah, it’s light.”
We walked on a ways, getting yanked by their big smelly dog, and I had all but forgotten this exchange when Julian picked up a white styrofoam cup with a McDonald’s logo on it.
“So is this white trash?” he asked.
“What?! Well I guess it is white and it is trash and…”
“It blew out of someone’s trash?”
“Oh, you mean McDonald’s is light trash!”
“That’s what I said, McDonald’s is white trash.”
There were plenty of other cute encounters like this, such as little Lucas insisting that every imaginary astronaut we encountered, and there were many, “said Spanish” (spoke Spanish) and Julian distributing imaginary money to his imaginary cows when I “paid” him for them. But overall, I got physically and mentally pummeled every day. More than once, when I got a semi-calm moment to sit down and eat a banana, one of them would decide they wanted my banana and attempted ripping it out of my hands. When they would smash me with their toys the mom would vaguely say “We don’t hurt people,” which they couldn’t hear over the drills on Love It or List It anyways. She told me that they interviewed some other people for this babysitting job and that one girl left the house without telling them, leaving her packed lunch and water bottle, stating in a text message that she “felt her personal safety was at risk.” “In what universe would someone feel that way in our home?” the mom asked me as the boys ran their scooters full speed ahead into each other and then grabbed some butter knives out of the dishwasher to challenge me with. Oh, and let’s not forget the time they knocked a 7 foot cabinet down on me (and I saved them from getting injured. Cat-like reflexes, I know).
Sometimes the parents gave me bonuses which they were proud of themselves for offering, such as letting me off an hour early for my birthday or paying me a $2 tip, especially spiteful as they were already paying 1/3 less than my hourly rate. Once, on a Friday, the parents and the kids were talking all day about how they were going to this awesome kid-centric museum/play-space the next day (and I was always over on Saturdays). The boys were so excited and kept asking me if I would play with them there. Given that the parents won’t even go to the pediatrician, let alone a big, child-filled building, without a babysitter, I assumed I would be there and eagerly told them I would do every activity with them (hey, it really did sound awesome)! As I was getting in the car at the end of the day, the dad popped out of the house and said “You know, I think you can have tomorrow off. The wife and I can handle the kids.” In other words, “We are too cheap to buy you a ticket too.” And they thought I’d be glad to stick around…
When Brian got this opportunity in New York, it was doubly sweet because it meant I could quit this job (which he’d been urging me to do since day one). I hated the long days, the contradiction of homemade baby wipes and Walmart triple packs of Pampers, the desperate need to change my snotted-on clothes as soon as I got home. I had always warned them that, given the current fluidity of my life, I could up and leave with little warning. Yet, I received a series of passive aggressive emails from the mom when I messaged her that I was leaving within the week but that I could come say goodbye to the children to give them some closure. “Yes, you must do this for them at the very least.” The children were indifferent. I played duplos with them for an hour, there were three fights in that time, and then they gave me a hug goodbye. I waved to Baby who cried, this was our MO, and the mom said “I hope you don’t think Baby doesn’t like you–she does!” (Yeah, I don’t really care, Baby. You’re cute and all but your tears don’t offend me).
They gave me a 4 out of 5 stars on care.com and said I “played well with their children and had good imagination.” Whoopie.
-Sophie
idaknowwheretogo (I don't know where to go!) 