Confessions of an ex babysitter

And babysitting was the least of it

Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash

My daughter and her son-in-law rarely use babysitters. That’s because the going rate is about $10 million an hour. I think of how much babysitters get paid now and I can’t help but remember what it was like when I babysat. $.25 an hour, and then I got a raise to $.35 an hour. I have memories of babysitting experiences that I think will never leave me.

There was one six or seven year old boy for whom I babysat, though really he ended up babysitting me. He was infinitely smarter than I was, patiently explaining what cache meant, in reference to a place where he kept his toys, for example. He made me feel that should a catastrophe such a fire occur, he would handle it just fine, probably dragging out a fire extinguisher and putting out the blaze like John Wayne might. I had been given a bedtime for this boy, and he tried hard not to snicker when I told him it was time for bed. He stayed up exactly as long as he wanted, which was just before his parents came home: he saw their car pulling up to the house and dashed into his bedroom. We had agreed that I would tell his parents he had gone to bed when he was supposed to. This I dutifully did. The mother’s eyebrows rose, she called the child’s name, and he came strolling out of his bedroom. The mother looked at me. I blushed. I got paid, and I never babysat for them again.