Adnan has a post on his blog talking about a babysitting experience he just had. I won’t go into the whole story. I’ll just say I posted a comment in which I expressed my dislike with babysitting jobs. My position on the matter is based on some experiences a couple of my friends had.

He replied to my comment asking me

What happened with your friends that made you so against babysitting?

Instead of posting another comment, I decided to use such an opportunity to write a post about it.

Where do I start?

First I want to make it clear from the very beginning that I have never had the chance to babysit myself. So, the truth of the matter is that I can only speak from other people’s experiences. Second of all it’s not really that bad. And it’s not necessarilly that I am against babysitting as a professional job. I’m not even against it as a part time job for students who can very well use a bit of extra cash in their pockets.

What actually bugs me is the attitude from the parents many babysitters must put up with.

As far as I understand the situation, we’re dealing with two large categories here.

The first one includes those parents who need someone to babysit only on certain occasions (they’re going to a concert, they have a date, they have a late business meeting etc.). These folks and their kids are easy to deal with. Mainly because they are part of their children’s lives (they know what it means to deal with a brat who just won’t go to sleep when told to). As a result they understand that, in many occasions, when the child complains about a babysitter is because they’re trying to get even with her (or him) as they could not get away with having and doing things their way.

The second category is represented by those folks who rely on a (professional) babysitter to raise their children. They don’t have the time to do it themselves. This category can be divided further on into two subcategories:
- busy professionals who lack time due to their jobs which require most of their time (they’re not really that bad either);
- “stay-at-home-anything-but-moms” (a.k.a. “Desperate Housewives“) Now the fun begins!

This last subcategory is the one that really got me to make the comment I made on Adnan’s post. It might be hard for you to believe, but you have no idea how many of them there are. All my firiends who used to work as babysitters had to deal with such type of “parents”.

But let’s start with the beginning. These ladies have nothing to do all day long, yet, for some reason, they need a baby sitter. Gimme a break!

Getting back to the actual baby sitter and what she or he has to deal with, probably the best way to start would be by saying that these women have no idea what the heck is going on in their children’s lives. They don’t know their children. They imagine they’re angels. They believe all the lies those kids tell them. And, not that I don’t like kids, but let’s face it: many times children are worse than grown ups when it comes to screwing you over. When you bring into the equation the feeling that they’re ignored by their parents you got yourself a mess. These kids, consciously or not, think that every babysitter is trying to replace the parents. In the same time they want their parents’ attention and time so badly that they do everything they can to get rid of everyone, hoping that will bring the parents back into their lives.

On the other hand, many of these moms feel so guilty about not spending time with the children that they put up with everything and expect the babysitters to do the same thing. This only encourages the child to become a brat, knowing he or she will get away with eveything. I know of multiple situations when the child will refuse to do something because “mommy doesn’t make me do that, so why should I listen to you?”

Another reason many parents let their kids do whatever they want is because they’ve got no idea what raising a child is all about. They don’t realize that many times it’s about saying no for the sake of the child. I know many cases of parents who gave the babysitter specific instructions as to let the children do whatever they want, whenever they want, to let them dress however they want, to let them eat whatever they want whenever they want. “We want to encourage them to have their own personality!” A two-year old? Are ya freakin’ kidding me?!?!?!?!

It’s even worse when such attitudes come from a mom who really stays at home to take care of the kids. Everything gets out of control and, before you know it, guess “Who’s The Boss?” You got it!

So there you have it Adnan. That’s why I am so against babysitting. My response was trigerred by all these facts and when I decided to comment I haven’t really thought of the fact that the question in your title was more for the heck of it rather than a serious matter.

As I said in my comment, it’s the parents that, through their influences over the children, sometimes make me go crazy only when I hear about babysitting.

It’s true that we also have the other face of the coin: babysitters who don’t know what the heck they’re doing. About that some other time. Maybe!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Are Ya Kidding Me?, Family, Human Nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.