The Baby Sitter's Club

When my head starts spinning or Tim and I need a night out we call one of a handful of people. It seems that all of our babysitters have their own occasions...My mom sits when I go to work once a week, my mother in law sits when we go out to dinner, my cousin sits when she is in town and we need to go see a movie, my friend Karen sits when I have errands to run or yard work to do, and Sam sits when all else fails and her busy high school schedule allows it. While we are not really hurting for sitters, we have an intricate web of people who are available to watch the ladies. This has gotten a bit harder now that there are 2 of them. Each sitter has their pros (the mothers are free child care, Karen is a nurse, my cousin is usually available) and their cons (Tim's mom always stays too late, as does my cousin; my mom flakes out on us or she has opinions about where we are going when we should be home etc.). At any rate, I am always on the look out for a new sitter just in case.

A few weeks ago I got an SOS phone call from my cousin in college that she had not found a summer job yet. Knowing that she did not want to work retail, she asked me to ask around to see if anyone I knew needed a sitter this summer. I mentioned it to a few moms, but was somewhat selective, knowing that I would want to use her and that I didn't want her to get screwed by some of the moms the way I did when I was a babysitter. Apparently she set some stuff up and is going to be working this summer for a friend of mine a few days a week, great, right?

Now a while ago, before I had Nora, I had asked my friend Lisa if she knew anyone who babysat. She has 3 kids and is the leader of her church's teen group and she always is sending a sitter home or waiting for one to get there- sounds like a good resource. She got really weird when I asked her about it, and never followed through with a name so I let it go. I was a sitter in high school and if I didn't know then what a hot commodity a good sitter was I do now. She doesn't want to give up the good, fine, I can respect that. Since she wasn't willing to give, I have been leery of asking other friend for recommendations. It would be nice to have a few backups fro those times when my mom gets "stuck at the doctor's office" at 8 on a Saturday night, or for when my mother in law decides to try to find a life. I see teenage girls at the mall, or walking by the park, and I want to stop them and ask if they babysit, but I know that would probably just scare them. Really, though, sometimes it is really hard to refrain.

So today I got a phone call from Lisa and I have been irritated ever since. Apparently Lisa had talked to a mutual friend who mentioned that I had given her the name of a good sitter (my cousin). Lisa got kind of accusatory and asked why I hadn't given her this sitter's name and number. Well, the answer is simple, Lisa's kids are nightmares. Her oldest is really needy, her middle child (a friend of Abby's ) is beyond obnoxious, and while the baby is fine, I knew that my cousin would not gel with her. How do you tell your "friend" that you don't like her kids enough to subject people you love to caring for them? I somehow wiggled out of that when she jumped on me about another one of my sitters, Karen.(Karen is a post partum nurse at a local hospital and a friend of a friend. She took a leave of absence from work right around when I had the baby and started coming over to watch the ladies while I went to work out or run errands. She is the first non family member that I had left the ladies with, and I was really comfortable with it because, hey, she's a nurse. She really only babysits for me, but is going to start helping my neighbor, Andrea, with her boys- she set that up on her own) Lisa asked me for Karen's number and when I told her that she didn't really sit for a lot of people, she really just does it as a favor to me, Lisa got all pushy about it- asking for me to give her the number so that she could hear it form Karen. Again, wiggling ensued and I ended the conversation on a nice note, but still knowing that our friendship had changed.

Am I an asshole for not sharing my sitters with her? Or os she an asshole for demanding them? Are we both assholes?

Probably.

Women rely on eachother for recommendations about hairdressers and manicurists. We allow ourselves to be fixed up by our girlfriends. We exchange recipes and books. We support and console eachother when needed, and we celebrate together. We all share that touchy feely bond of womanhood, but God forbid we share a fucking babysitter.