Marianne does most of the babysitting for our family these days. She's nearly 12, and a pretty responsible kid. We're cautious in when we use her - how long we'll be away, and how far, and whether we'll be easily reachable all factor in. If we have a couple babysitting needs close together, I'll ask if she'd like me to hire someone for one night or the other, but more often than not she says she'd like to do it. She loves the freedom of getting to stay up after the other kids are in bed. She likes that I'll often leave a treat for her to have in that quiet time, or I'll take her out for a treat later as a thank you. We don't pay her, and so far she hasn't complained. Well, one time she told me one of the neighbor girls gets $10 to watch her one younger brother, but I told her every family runs things their own way, and she grumped for a minute then got over it. She does get her allowance now (all $3 of it!) so that's something.
For those of you whose eldest child is not yet old enough to babysit, or who have an eldest who is a little too flighty or irresponsible to be left in charge yet, hang in there! It's SO AWESOME! Your day will come!
I had the quirky experience, you'll recall, of getting a two year taste of the good life, back when my niece Sara lived here. She moved in when she was 12. It took me a little while to realize what an amazing and convenient thing it was to have her in the house. Once I did realize, I tried not to take advantage of her by leaving her in charge too often. The freedom to be able to run to the neighborhood grocery store after school to grab that one missing ingredient for dinner, though... that's priceless.
After a couple years of having her here, she moved back home, and suddenly our oldest was 5 again and we had to hunt around the neighborhood for junior high and high school kids who could help. And we had to pay them. Bummer.
Basically what that chain of events meant, was that I had had a taste of the easy life and I was antsy to get back there. Now that we're here again, I do not take it for granted. It's everything I remembered and more! Here are additional assorted reflections, in no particular order:
~ There are times when I worry that I should NOT leave Marianne in charge. Particularly when she's been fighting more than usual with her siblings, and I worry that she might treat them unfairly or harshly in my absence. I nearly backed out of going to an event one night because of that, but it turned out fine in the end.
~ So far I've only trained her to keep everyone alive and, hopefully, get them to bed at night. I haven't set expectations of the house being clean when I get home (though I do ask that it be as clean as I left it) and I will typically let them watch a movie as a treat for them all, and to help keep the peace. We don't go out often, so I don't feel like they're getting so much screen time they'll rot their brains.
~ With Marianne and Ruth so close in age, the "she's not the boss of me" thing has been an issue. My solution, for lack of a better idea, has been to tell Ruth to stay out of Marianne's hair and be helpful when needed. Read bedtime stories if Marianne asks, for instance. Beyond that, I've told Marianne that Ruth can keep herself alive, so to mostly just leave her alone and focus her time on the littler kids. It doesn't always work - the power can go to Marianne's head - but so far they haven't done any major bodily damage to each other while we're out... so that's something.
~ One of the absolute highlights of having Marianne babystting is that I don't feel the need to tidy that day before the sitter comes (or even more so, for Grandma Sherri). I can leave it however messy I want, cause no one is going to see it who hasn't already spent the day living in it.
~ Also, no one is judging me for the dinner food I choose to feed the kids. Chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, frito chili pies. Whatever! The kids think it's the BEST, and I don't have to worry that someone is going to go home and tell her mom about the crazy junk food my kids are eating. (Then again, I tend to believe we all feed our kids that way on babysitter nights, right?)
~ One night, at dinner, Nathaniel mentioned a movie he'd hoped to see in the theater but still hadn't. I said I'd like to go, too. So we looked up a time and WENT. I'm not even kidding. It felt crazy, like back when we were newlyweds and it was easy to do stuff like that. That's what it can be like when you have a babysitting aged kid in the house!
~ A blogger I read recently had her 8th baby, and she posted a photo of her 12 year old daughter holding the baby and said something like "every newborn should come with a 12 year old sister". Man, that's the truth. It makes a world of difference having one of those around, whether it's helping with babies or toddlers or just helping make dinner. A 12 year old girl can bring a whole lot of attitude, but she can bring all sorts of good as well. I'm grateful for mine every day!
2 comments:
Eagerly awaiting the day! I know we have some friends who do pay their kids something minimal for babysitting... & pay the "almost big enough" ones 25 or 50 cents to take care of themselves. Sounds genius to me! :) Not sure what we'll do when we get to that point, but man I'm excited!
Oh what a new world lays before you when you obtain the freedom of implementing the sibling sitter! We try diligently not to take advantage, but also to make sure they know that with responsibility comes privilege and so on and so forth. It's just part of living in a big family! At this point they don't really think much of it. We have discovered all kinds of little antics to make it work when it seems likely it may be hopeless...we've paid the younger siblings in secret to promise to listen to the one in charge! At times, the 9 yr old seems much more capable than the 14 year old (I'm generalizing--not making a specific example. :) ). The very best though is when you answer the question "Who is staying with your kids tonight?" with "our 12 year old" and they, being the parents of a 15 y/o and a 12 y/o can not possibly fathom the idea of leaving their kids at home alone! (Generalizing again, as in not ALL families). I think it is wonderful...and even more so that your kids get to see you and Nathaniel walk out the door together to be a couple on a "date" and know that they're helping to make that possible!! Great job mama!!!
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