Adventures in Babysitting -- your stories

In My Humble Opinion
1

I never did any babysitting, but I have a memory of this one sitter in particular.

This was back in the 80’s. I’m not sure which year exactly, but I know that Labyrinth, starring David Bowie, was out on video. (Labyrinth was that movie where this girl that was supposed to be watching a baby (her little brother?), then some evil sorcerer kidnaps the baby into some parrallel world and she has to go marry Bowie or the baby dies. It’s been a while and that’s what I remember, I don’t know how accurate it is.)

How do I know that Labyrinth was out on video at the time? Because this babysitter would bring the tape over every time she would watch me. My memory of this girl is that she was what I would consider the stereotypical “80’s teen.” She had this very distinct perfume, or maybe it was just the smell created by all the Aqua Net she used. I also remember several times when she would wear one of those kind of cut up sweat shirts, and, yeah, leg warmers.

What really made the times she sat miserable was that I’d have to watch the movie with her, she’d make me. I also had to listen to her comment on the movie. For example, whenever the sorcerer (Bowie) would say something about how she had to marry him, the baby sitter would declare, “Oh my God, I would marry him in a second!”

I must have seen that movie 20 times, at least. It’s kind of surprising I don’t remember more of the movie. Maybe I’ve tried to repress it.
So, have any good stories of times that you babysat or had a babysitter? Any stories that have anything to do with babysitting will do. I don’t want to be the only one that was ever left with a bad babysitter.

Let’s hear 'em.

2

How about a story from the babysitter’s perspective? :smiley:

Actually, this tale could possibly go under the heading “Worst Summer Job Ever” as I took a job at 19 for the summer as a “mother’s helper.” Firstly, though, I should state that this was 30 years ago. LOL But yes, the memories are -still- fresh! :stuck_out_tongue:

Up front, it sounded like a dream job–a summer at the shore, where I’d spend most of my days on the beach, be making my own money, and have at least one day a week to myself. The interview with the family went fine; the mother mentioned that one of her sons had a “minor” problem with bleeding and had to be careful not to get hurt. Uh oh, that should have clued me in there, right? :eek: So when they offered the job, I accepted.

Well, first surprise was that the house really had been rented by the sister and brother-in-law, and guess who was in charge in reality? Yep, the sister, who was three months pregnant and -very- bossy! LOL She thought I worked for her! Now there were three boy I was helping with–7, 5 and 3. The five yo was the one with the bleeding problem. I never did find out exactly what it was, but suffice it to say that it was MAJOR rather than minor! He was a sweet kid too, but had been born with disabilities and a blood disorder as well; he was on some major, heavy-duty meds too, including one with testosterone. So, he had a deep voice, pimples… and … well, other characteristics that testosterone causes! :o It turned out that it was very dangerous for him to bleed in any way. I remember calling my parents towards the end of June, begging to come home! LOL Between the bossy, pregnant sister worrying me to do things for her, and trying to make sure that the kid with the bleeding disorder wasn’t going to get hurt (as well as trying to watch the other boys, who were typical boys and quite active), I was quickly at the end of my rope. My parents told me that I’d accepted the job, and it would leave the family in the lurch if I up and quit. So… I stuck out the summer.

We did have one incident where the five yo had to go to the hospital and was hospitalized for a few days, but it wasn’t because he’d been injured in any way under my watch–he’d had a nose bleed that wouldn’t stop. Oh, btw, my pay for this job?! LOL $20/week, yes, that’s right $20 a week. I did have Thursday off (never on a weekend!), and of course didn’t have to pay room and board. I think I blew most of that money though! LOL Ah well, I can also safely say that I knew at 19 that I was nowhere near ready to have kids yet either. :smiley:

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! LOL The names have not been revealed to protect the… yeah, to protect the innocent. :wink:

tarragon

3

In 1984, when I was 14 and just starting out in babysitting, I got an offer from a woman my mom knew peripherally, through bowling league or some such. I accepted the job: two girls; they sleep well; parents home by midnight by the latest. A few minutes later, she called back. “Rilch? I just remembered where I know you from! I’m Jason’s sister!”

I should have said right then, “Well, in that case, I can’t take the job.” Jason, and yes, that really was his name, was a fuckwad who had demanded sex with me the third time I’d seen him. Not a date, just our third meeting. Well, he didn’t get what he wanted, and I’d assumed I’d never see him again.

But I went, to my everlasting regret. On arriving, I was briefed, and told for the first time, that the older girl was epileptic. “She hasn’t had a seizure in a long time, but IF she does, call Neighbor Woman at 555-BLAH.” Parents left, and I awkwardly played Barbies with the girls for half an hour until their bedtime.

I was checking on the older girl almost obsessively, until I finally forced myself to stop worrying. I turned on MTV very low, and danced to a few videos. Then I thought I heard a noise outside. Called Neighbor Woman, who said not to worry about it. I got the fireplace poker and sat on the couch shaking until the parents returned much earlier than expected. Mom seemed grim for some reason, Dad paid me and drove me home.

About a week later, I got a call…Long story short, Mom and Dad had closed circuit TV in their house. Why? It wasn’t in an isolated area, and they didn’t have things noticeably better than the average person in that neighborhood. But no matter. Mom had played back the video for Jason, and he’d watched me dancing, “and laughed my ass off.” And what was I doing with that fireplace poker? Then it took me forever and a day to get rid of him. Looooong story. I never told my parents because I was mortally embarrassed, but I did find out much later that it’s illegal to video someone without their permission. Not to mention tacky in the extreme to (presumably) play back the video for your asshole brother. Oh: he had her convinced that I had this hopeless crush on him…

When I was in 11th grade, I had a long-standing job babysitting William and Stephanie. They, and their parents, liked me a lot because I respected the fact that they were just hyper, and didn’t force them to be Brady kids. Also, the mom liked it that I never had a boyfriend, so I was always available. But there were two problems. First, the parents would never just go and be done with it; they would return from the driveway three or four times to offer reassurances, which gave them the impression that they could play anyone if they squealed loud enough. Second, the house was a stone’s throw from the fire station, and every Saturday night, that alarm went off. No amount of hugging or consoling would stop them from wailing in harmony with the siren until it stopped. Finally, I committed myself fully to schoolwork, lacking romance, and that was over.

4

When I was thirteen, I babysat once for two kids–a girl who was about eight and a boy who was five or so. He was a really hyperactive kid who, when I got there, was tearing around the house knocking over plants, throwing toys, etc. The parents didn’t seem to care. I was a little worried about how rambunctious he was, so I said something to the mother like, “Boy, he’s full of energy, isn’t he?” She said, “Oh, yes, and he hates babysitters, but you know, we’ll be giving him some Nyquil [or something like that] before we leave.” I wasn’t sure if the child had a cold or if they just wanted to dope him up.

So the parents get ready to leave, and the dad gets the cold medicine, which was in one of those syringe things you squirt in the child’s mouth. The dad practically pinned the child down to get the medicine into him, and the mother cheerfully said, “He really hates it!”

The parents left and I sat down on the sofa to play with the girl. The little boy was still sitting on the floor sort of sulking, but he was quiet, so I left him alone. Maybe five minutes later, he came over and climbed up on the couch with us. He was standing up on the sofa and walked over behind me. He then proceeded to spit the cold medicine out on top of my head.

I never babysat for them again.

5

I babysat regularly for years – until I was old enough to get a job – so I have lots of stories.

One that sticks out:

I watched Megan and Brandon for several years. This particular incident, Megan was around 8 and Brandon was around 4. Generally I wasn’t the type of babysitter to sit around watching TV, eating and talking on the phone with my friends. Usually I got down on the floor and played with the kids.

We were playing and I decided it was time to wind things down and get the kids ready for bed. I asked Brandon several times to settle down but he was just too wired. With my voice getting more and more stern, I reached out to catch him by the arm as he darted past…

I caught his arm and he immediately began screaming, holding his arm. The elbow joint was dislocated.

Having seen this once in gym class, my gym teacher instructed us – anytime we encountered someone with a dislocation – to lay the person flat on the floor and try to get them to relax. She claimed that sometimes the muscles will relax enough for the errant bone to pop back together. This didn’t work on poor Brandon.

So I called the parents and asked them to come home. Mom said, “Oh yeah, that happens all the time. We’ll be right home.” Mom and Dad get home, Mom grabs kid and pops his elbow right back into place with a really sickening “pop”. End of crisis.

It was quite a while before they asked me to babysit again, but eventually, they did.

6

Yikes! Babysitting stories! I think my problem was always that I seemed to end up babysitting 4 or more kids all by myself. There was one night I had agreed to baby sit for this coworker of my mothers. She had two kids. When I arrived at her house, it turned out that the people they were going out with hadn’t bothered to get their own babysitters, but brought their children over for me to watch. I ended up with six kids. All very bad. They hit each other, bit me, found and opend all the Christmas presents while I was cleverly being distracted by another child who’d cut himself. No, I never babysat for them again.

I did have one positive experience with a big group of kids. It was an all summer job. The mom worked nights and just wanted me to watch them while she slept. The kids tried everything in the beginning, but stopped after I woke Mom up one day. She gave me a paddle and permission to use it. When it came time for me to back to school, the kids bought me a dozen yellow roses.

7

Yikes! Babysitting stories! I think my problem was always that I seemed to end up babysitting 4 or more kids all by myself. There was one night I had agreed to baby sit for this coworker of my mothers. She had two kids. When I arrived at her house, it turned out that the people they were going out with hadn’t bothered to get their own babysitters, but brought their children over for me to watch. I ended up with six kids. All very bad. They hit each other, bit me, found and opend all the Christmas presents while I was cleverly being distracted by another child who’d cut himself. No, I never babysat for them again.

I did have one positive experience with a big group of kids. It was an all summer job. The mom worked nights and just wanted me to watch them while she slept. The kids tried everything in the beginning, but stopped after I woke Mom up one day. She gave me a paddle and permission to use it. When it came time for me to back to school, the kids bought me a dozen yellow roses.

8

I hear ya. I am a 16 year old girl, and there are a total of 12, yes 12, kids ranging from 3 to 10 on my street. Guess who gets to babysit them all! They all are very good kids and are extremly well behaved. I have never had a problem and the seem to like me, but that’s the issue. Whenever I have a job, a lot of them find out and come over. So instead of watching 2 or 3 kids, I wind up with 7 or 8. It’s even worse in the summer because we are usually all outside and then everyone comes over. I know I could send them home, but it’s difficult (since they oftentimes see me more as a big kid coming to play rather than an authority figure) and I’m afraid they will go tell their parents that “Kbean is a meanie!” and therefore it will get around the neighborhood and I am out of a job. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care, but my parents will not let me have a regular job during the school year, but they will let me babysit. From September to June, it’s my only source on income.

9

I was babysitting one evening for two brothers who were probably old enough not to need a babysitter. And all of us knew it (I’d play and read with younger kids, these guys didn’t really want/need me to do that) They had been behaving pretty well all evening - the occasional “that’s my _____” “no it isn’t _______” fight, but they’d also managed to work it out by themselves. So, I left them upstairs to watch some show while I went downstairs to watch something else. I checked on them - and I was sure they were fine.

Then I heard a horrible yell, ran upstairs to find that they’d had a fight and the older one had picked up the family cat and thrown it at his brother. Luckily his brother had turned his back, because the cat, not too happy with his sudden flying ability, had unsheathed his claws and planted them in the brother’s back when he landed. Little brother now had two sets of claw marks from the top of his back down and a bunch of stray ones.

They were cleaned up, disinfected, bandaged, and sent to bed.

10

The summer after my 8th grade year (1997, IIRC), I baby sat for five children on weekday mornings while their mother worked at a part-time job. One of the girls was my sister’s best friend–still is, as a matter of fact–and our families had been friends for quite some time.

Pay: 50 dollars a week. This worked out to roughly 2.50 an hour. However, the mother did help me to get a 1,000 dollar scholarship last May, so I’m not going to even touch the pay.

The kids…3 of them were on medication for varying amounts of hyperactivity. All three of the boys, incidentally. The older girl, my sister’s friend, disliked me intensely. I guess she felt she had to impress my sister. The family also had a dog, two cats, and a bird. The youngest kid was–still is–a sweetheart, and the youngest boy was pretty cool. They all had moments of humanity.

However, I had fudgesicle smeared into my shirt by an 8 year old, had kids refuse to tell me what the dog did when she needed to go to the bathroom (I specifically TOLD the older three to tell me when she needed to go out. They said they would. I’d never had a dog. Guess who ended up cleaning dog piss off the carpet?). I had toys systematically thrown at me. At one point, I grabbed the oldest boy by the throat and pinned him to the wall (he was only a year younger than I, and rather much stronger than me, so…not abusive).

…I was very, very glad when the mother decided to stop workingl.

11

Kbean, you have my sympathy!

12

When I was about 15 or so I babysat the neighbors two children five days a week for the entire summer.

The boy, about 9, had a thing for laying on the living room floor and using his erect penis as a perch for his pet budgie.

The girl, maybe 7, thought it was hilarious to give her brother a glass of “apple juice” and then roll around on the floor laughing when she told him she’d pee’d in the glass. And yes, it really was pee.

It was hell.

13

post-babysittee story -

To set the scene, I was in a regional planning meeting. Coffee, conference room table, a dozen or so reps from various organizations and communities. It was a very big deal for me and I was feeling very important.
During a 5-minute break, one of the reps came over to where I was sitting. “upperdeck, is your last name ‘fan’?”, she asked. I told her yes. Then it happened. She said, “You probably don’t remember me, but I used to be your baby-sitter. My name was _____ before I got married.”

Honest to God, my mind jettisoned back 30 years. I suddenly remembered things like how this woman saw me naked when I was a pup. My crying fits. You name it. Here I was in this meeting, thinking, my baby-sitter’s here?..

Keep this in mind, down-trodden baby-sitters. You may have blackmail material!

14

I have a good one. It was during spring of 1998, and I (nearing the end of my freshman year in high school) was hired to baby-sit four kids (three boys and a girl. The boys were 10, 9, and 5, and the little girl was 1) a couple of days a week in the afternoon while the mother went and helped an old lady at her house. Now, I’m not the religious type–in fact I’m agnostic. This woman’s house was almost like Carrie or something. The family was very, very, very devout Catholics. So devout that they had their own kneeling bench for prayer (do all Catholics have this? 'Cause I’m assuming they don’t). I had the unfortunate experience of baby-sitting the kids during Lent. They could not watch TV or play video games. Now if it was only one kid, I could handle it. But it was three boys. The ten year old was my favorite, but the nine year old was the biggest brat. And the baby was no picnic either.

It was a miracle (no pun intended), but we found stuff to do. By the time Lent was over, I was almost ready to quit. “I don’t want to have to baby-sit the baby-sitter” the mom once told me because her son was telling lies about me. Anywho, Lent was over. But even though they could watch TV and play video games, it wasn’t much better and I ended up quitting. I said that my mom had things for me to do. The mother I baby-sat for was extremley pissed (she didn’t even say good-bye to me when she dropped me off).

And that, my friends, was my adventure. It doesn’t seem much writing it down, but to experience it was once in a lifetime. Hopefully only that once.

15

My father, stepmom, stepmom’s sister, and sister’s friend used to go out to beef and beer type outings once a month or so. I was put in charge of ss’s 6 yo daughter and friend’s two boys, ages 4 and 6. The daughter wanted me to constantly play games with her - barbies, house, supermarket, etc. while the boys spent the whole time running around the house, fighting with each other, falling down, and just being typical brothers.

The one memory that sticks out the most from my babysitting them is the time that the younger brother called 911. I was occupying the daughter in the livingroom watching Barney or something of the sort and the younger brother was in the kitchen getting a snack - or so I thought. He had actually picked up the phone, dialed 911 and then hung up. A police officer arrived at the front door soon after. I of course had no idea why the officer was there. Thankfully, the boy was scared out of his mind and confessed immediately to the officer what he had done and that nothing was wrong. The officer told me that this happens more than you’d realize and left. I had one hell of a story to tell the boys’ parents when they returned from the beef and beer that night…

Oddly enough, I didn’t quit after that incident. Because I was babysitting for family, there was an unspoken built-in guilt trip already in place. I just couldn’t say no. As I’ve gotten older, my schedule has become so hectic that I can say no to them without feeling bad about it.

16

I have a couple of babysitting in hell stories. The first occurred when I was about 12 years old. We lived in a area of new homes and we were the only family there with “older kids”, so we got all of the work on the street, from babysitting to lawncutting, etc. To set the scene, I was to babysit for two girls down the street on Saturday night. On Friday night my brother had a bunch of the guys over to spend the night and we stayed up all night. I think I may have caught a nap on Saturday but my father was of the opinion that we shouldn’t be allowed to sleep during the day just because we were up all night.

So I went down the street to watch these two girls. They were nice girls and there was no trouble from them. But their parents were supposed to be home about 10 pm. Ten o’clock came and went. Nothing. Now also bear in mind that this was in the days when there were no video games, cable television was rare and not in our neighborhood, Saturday night television was boring, and I wasn’t bright enough to bring my own diversions. I didn’t have any girlfriends at that age, and no one I could call after 10 pm anyway. The clock moved mighty slowly, my friend, and I was dead tired. 11 o’clock, still no parents coming home. I fell asleep on the couch.

It was after midnight when I woke up. It was very quiet in the house. I was sleep deprived. I got up, and somehow my addled brain came to the conclusion that the folks I was sitting for must have come home and decided to let me sleep. So I went home, being very careful to lock the door on my way out. I crawled into my own bed and settled into blissful, deep sleep.

Unfortunately my decision was founded in wishful thinking, not reality. I never babysat for them again. I don’t recall whether I even got paid. The kids were okay, but I don’t think the parents were too happy.

17

No real “baby-sitting in hell” stories, but one time when I was watching the two little girls (probably around 4 and 5 at the time) down the street I sat for regularly, we were being silly and taking things from around the house and saying in funny voices: “Here is a present for you, Miss!” The oldest girl disappeared for a few minutes and came back with one of her mother’s maxi pads. “Here’s a present!” The younger girl got really excited and started saying,“Open it, open it!”

I explained that it was a grown-up thing and she should put it back where she got it. No problems after that. :slight_smile:

Another time we were watching a video. The older girl was on a chair and I was laying down on the couch with the younger girl alternately sitting on me and laying down on me. At one point while laying down she said, completely out of the blue, “Kendra, your boobies are so soft - they’re like pillows!”

Every guy I’ve dated since then has gotten a kick out of that story.