So I watched the Jonah Hill comedy The Babysitter recently.
It wasn't very good.
It was, however, a memory jogger for me. I had pretty much forgotten about the fact that I used to do a fair bit of baby-sitting in my pre-driving teenage days.
I don't really know why it strikes me as so odd to have spent as much time as I did taking care of other people's kids. I guess it strikes me as weird, and it must have struck others as weird too, just from the context. Some kids at school raised an eyebrow. A boy baby-sitting! Defying gender stereotypes! Imagine what the papers would say! It didn't even register for me at the time. Now I think back and laugh at the odd choice for me. I mean, yeah, I got paid for it...but I was never that big on kids.
You know how some people do really well with kids and can play with them and entertain them and be patient? Parents and kindergarten teachers, i think they're called. Not really my deal. I didn't dislike kids and I still don't, it's just as a 14/15 year old, they were mostly just noisy and distracting. Their parents always told me I was a good sitter and that their kids liked me, but I just kind of shrugged and thought "Okay, so I hang out at your house, make sure your kids are fine and you give me money to watch TV once they go to bed? Deal."
One time the parents said their kids liked me because I treated the kids like they were peers instead of kids, but really they weren't that much younger than me. I guess I was 15 and they were like...10ish? I don't recall, exactly. I remember thinking that it seemed like the right thing to do. Why talk down to them? Maybe that was it - I didn't really patronize them. Maybe not the best tactic as a babysitter, but then I don't recall any difficulties either. Kids listened when I asked them to go to bed after a night of goofing off. It's not like I fed them junk food and let them run wild, but in hindsight, what was I doing, anyway?
I think I started down that path because some family friends were in a bind and I was socially (and generally) awkward, which meant my weekends were open. Once I equated the money with the loafing around, I was down. Basically it was watching kids for a bit, then I could simply sit and watch TV or read a book I was way into while getting paid for it. On top of it (and I suspect this was the crux of it) I was in a new school and feeling super anxious about anything social. It was an easy out for a Friday/Saturday night - sorry, busy making money, can't hang out! I didn't feel like as big of a loser as if I was sitting at home doing nothing. I was making money!
My secret favorite part of it, though, was the walk home after the parents returned. It was always people in my neighborhood, so I could walk. In the winter, it would be super late (in my teenage mind 11:00pm was late to be wandering around the West Hill) and cold and dark, but the moon and streetlights would reflect off the snow, giving the quiet nights this strangely serene, isolating quality. I would walk home in the cold, money in my pocket, the whole town asleep. It was this secret little adventure I would go on by myself. That's what I thought of when I saw that mediocre movie.
Winter is never far off in Minnesota. When it comes, I think I'll have to have a redux on these weird walks, only now I have the benefit of a better half and a glass of wine. It's only August and I'm thinking of winter all because of a bad comedy. See what we put up with here?
It wasn't very good.
It was, however, a memory jogger for me. I had pretty much forgotten about the fact that I used to do a fair bit of baby-sitting in my pre-driving teenage days.
I don't really know why it strikes me as so odd to have spent as much time as I did taking care of other people's kids. I guess it strikes me as weird, and it must have struck others as weird too, just from the context. Some kids at school raised an eyebrow. A boy baby-sitting! Defying gender stereotypes! Imagine what the papers would say! It didn't even register for me at the time. Now I think back and laugh at the odd choice for me. I mean, yeah, I got paid for it...but I was never that big on kids.
You know how some people do really well with kids and can play with them and entertain them and be patient? Parents and kindergarten teachers, i think they're called. Not really my deal. I didn't dislike kids and I still don't, it's just as a 14/15 year old, they were mostly just noisy and distracting. Their parents always told me I was a good sitter and that their kids liked me, but I just kind of shrugged and thought "Okay, so I hang out at your house, make sure your kids are fine and you give me money to watch TV once they go to bed? Deal."
One time the parents said their kids liked me because I treated the kids like they were peers instead of kids, but really they weren't that much younger than me. I guess I was 15 and they were like...10ish? I don't recall, exactly. I remember thinking that it seemed like the right thing to do. Why talk down to them? Maybe that was it - I didn't really patronize them. Maybe not the best tactic as a babysitter, but then I don't recall any difficulties either. Kids listened when I asked them to go to bed after a night of goofing off. It's not like I fed them junk food and let them run wild, but in hindsight, what was I doing, anyway?
I think I started down that path because some family friends were in a bind and I was socially (and generally) awkward, which meant my weekends were open. Once I equated the money with the loafing around, I was down. Basically it was watching kids for a bit, then I could simply sit and watch TV or read a book I was way into while getting paid for it. On top of it (and I suspect this was the crux of it) I was in a new school and feeling super anxious about anything social. It was an easy out for a Friday/Saturday night - sorry, busy making money, can't hang out! I didn't feel like as big of a loser as if I was sitting at home doing nothing. I was making money!
My secret favorite part of it, though, was the walk home after the parents returned. It was always people in my neighborhood, so I could walk. In the winter, it would be super late (in my teenage mind 11:00pm was late to be wandering around the West Hill) and cold and dark, but the moon and streetlights would reflect off the snow, giving the quiet nights this strangely serene, isolating quality. I would walk home in the cold, money in my pocket, the whole town asleep. It was this secret little adventure I would go on by myself. That's what I thought of when I saw that mediocre movie.
Winter is never far off in Minnesota. When it comes, I think I'll have to have a redux on these weird walks, only now I have the benefit of a better half and a glass of wine. It's only August and I'm thinking of winter all because of a bad comedy. See what we put up with here?
