JC Penny circa 1977

I will actually write something one of these days but this is so hilarious that it would trump anything I have to say.

This ran in The Montgomery County Gazette, a local newspaper, yesterday.

I submitted this to the Post but it never ran...may as well dust it off and use it here.

Babysitters. Nannies. Childcare providers. Or, if you’re lucky, grandma. Whatever term any of us chooses to use, one thing is certain: without them, the issue of work/family balance would be dead in the water. An understanding boss, the ability to telecommute, a flexible schedule—for most of us, no matter how ideal an arrangement we have, we are, at least to some degree, dependant on some form of childcare if we’re going to be able to be working parents. Even for those who don’t work outside the home, a reliable babysitter is worth his or her weight in gold.

This issue recently reared its head at girls’ night at a friend’s house. Even though it was Friday night and the sangria was flowing, somehow the conversation steered to babysitters. A woman I’d never met before mentioned, in passing, her babysitter, whose name I recognized. I said that I have a babysitter with the same name—let’s call her Mandy--and wondered if it was the same girl. Suddenly the light-hearted conversation screeched to a halt and she glared at me in sudden recognition and said, in so many words, “You’re the Maggie who stole my babysitter!”

Super long story short: this woman, who I’ll call woman #1, had started using Mandy when she was 14 and has been using her regularly for over 5 years. Woman #2, a friend of mine, had met Mandy when she picked up her son from woman #1’s house and asked Mandy whether she’d be willing to sit for her sometimes. They worked out a schedule and now Mandy was working for woman #1 and woman #2, as well as occasionally for woman #3, the hostess of this Friday night gathering. Last spring woman #2 recommended the girl to me and I, too, started using her sporadically.

At any rate, there was woman #1, suddenly lecturing me about how Mandy is a college student and is now so overworked because woman #2 “and others” are taking advantage of her, and also how now “her” sitter is never available because she’s spread so thin. She went on to say that when a family initially finds a babysitter who turns out to be reliable and good, that babysitter “belongs” to that family and other families are not allowed to “steal” him or her.

The whole thing half amused me and half disturbed me. I hadn’t realized there was apparently such a feeling of ownership when it came to babysitters. I couldn’t help but think “slavery”; in fact, I was curious about the parallel and Googled “stealing a slave from owner.”

In 1732, Virginia enacted a law stating that “wicked and evil-disposed persons…who steal any…slave …from the possession of the owner or overseer of such slave…shall suffer death without penalty of clergy.” Yikes. By 1732, the laws were a little more lax; a statute of Tennesee’s Laws on Slavery stipulated that any person found guilty [of] tempting an enslaved [person] to leave his owner's service… was to pay a fine of $62.50.” Ok, $62.50 or death—you choose; the fact is that those laws were applicable back when slavery was legal and accepted; these days it is neither.

Slave, babysitter—the fact that this woman kept referring to Mandy as “hers” made it clear that—at least in her case, but I suspect others feel the same--there is a sense of ownership when it comes to long-term, reliable caregivers. What do you think—is a childcare provider so necessary to the balance in your life that the idea of someone “stealing” him or her makes you indignant?

Soccer Rage

I just came from my daughter's soccer game--the championships. I sheepishly admit that soccer is generally her dad's territory; I take her to practices but usually skip the games. Yeah, bad mom--whatever. Going to this game made me remember why I never go.

So it's a beautiful, sunny fall day and the 6th grade girls are playing the last game of the season. Big soccer complex--the hub of the suburban community I live in--parents on the sidelines, girls presumably excited--as my friend Temperance would say, life in the big city. I guess this is the thing all the soccer parents live for, what makes the ridiculous amount of driving to endless activities and practices worth it.

I should have known it was a bad omen when, at the start of the game, my friend, the mom of one of Mimi's friends, sat down beside me and, when I turned to her and said "Hey--what's up," she stared intently at the field, skipped a beat, then said "Look, I'm not even going to make any bones about it--I'm not talking right now, I'm watching the game." Yikes.

The game started. I tried to be interested but frankly, watching soccer, to me, is like watching a movie with Japanese subtitles and trying to understand what's going on. I just don't get it. I suppose if my kids were more into it I would be too, but neither of them are into it in the slightest; their dad thinks it's a good idea for them to play a team sport so there they are, standing on the field, staring into space or, in Matthew's case at one game, doing handstands on the field throughout the whole thing. Each season I mean to put my foot down and say that we're not doing soccer because the kids don't even like it and it's a pain in the ass to get to all the practices and games, but I always end up relenting to keep the peace.

Anyway, fast forward--the game's going on and I'm still reeling from my friend's brush off and contemplating what it means about me as a mom that I couldn't care less about watching my kids' soccer games and I realize there's quite a stir going on around me. I could hear out of the corner of my ear the other parents shouting but had managed to tune it out, but as the game went on, I realized the shouts were not actually cheers but vein-popping screams.

"GODDAMNIT! STOP BEING STUPID AND PAY ATTENTION!!!!"

WTF? This from a dad a few seats away from me with a road-rage look on his face. He continued, veins bulging on his forehead, "TAYLOR, GET IN THERE!!!" "TAYLOR, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? LOOK ALIVE!" Then his sidekick, presumably the girl's mother, echoed everything he yelled in an equally agressive tone. (Somehow it was easier to understand from the dad--he looked like he was probably a football star back in his day; the mom looked and sounded like one of Marj Simpson's sisters and would have probably died of a coronary if she so much as ran down the field herself.)

I swear, if I had balls they would have crawled up into my abdominal cavity--that's how alarming these people's horrible, abusive "cheers" were. Meanwhile, the rest of the parents were all yelling at the ref because they thought all her calls were wrong; god forbid anyone actually be paying attention to the kids and the game. The coach even had to come over to address the parents, asking them to please go easy on the ref, she's just a kid, she's doing her best, etc.

In all my years as a parent (11 and a half) I have never seen any supposedly kid-centric activity turn into the agressive free-for-all that was this game. The whole thing had absolutely nothing to do with the kids or the sport--the actual game took a backseat to the parents' sideline antics. I felt horrified for poor Taylor--whose parents did eventually cheer for her when she kicked the ball into another girl's face: "YEAH--WAY TO GO TAYLOR--GET AGGRESSIVE!!!" and I felt sick that Mimi and the rest of the kids had to listen to the never-ending onslaught of parental yelling and screaming.

After the "GET AGGRESSIVE!!" comment I couldnt' take it anymore; I packed Matthew up and we left (daddy was still there). Maybe it makes me a terrible mom to walk out on my kid's game but I just couldn't help it; I couldn't take sitting two chairs down from these assholes screaming at their kid, or watching the other parents rip the 16 year old girl ref for every other call.

To me, this whole experience is evidence of what happens to parents when they become totally wrapped up in their kids' lives to the point that their kids are pratically their sole focus in life. Maybe that's a leap but honestly, how else do you explain the outright aggression these parents show? This was far from love of the game, standard issue competetiveness; this was just anger and hatred. These parents were not cheering their kids on--it seemed to me they had showed up primed to fight. How are they going to teach their kids sportsmanship when they are busy moving their chairs on the sidelines because they "can't take sitting next to the green team parents" and harassing the officials?

Interestingly, last night I took Matthew to his hockey game (check me out; two sports things in one weekend. Mother of the Year award here I come!) and there was a big sign on the wall outside the rink. I only noticed it when we were leaving and didn't stop to read the whole thing, but it said something about a zero-tolerance policy and that the game would be stopped if a parent was disruptive. That is exactly what they need to have for soccer. However, can you imagine being the one to have to tell bruiser dad that he and his kid were OUT of there? The guy would probably go postal on the kids and the parents at best, and at worst would probably take his rage out on the daughter.