Wednesday night Mac's aunt Sharon came over to babysit while Mac and I had a nice dinner at the Tuscany Grill. As we were preparing to leave we told Sharon to help herself to anything she wanted to eat.
As a teenager I did a lot of babysitting and parents always gave me permission to help myself to food in the kitchen; however, I still felt like I needed to sneak my snacks, as if parents would not re-hire me if they knew I had consumed large numbers of calories from their cupboards. But since my own home offered a miserable junk food selection, babysitting was my chance to indulge and I had my own little set of "rules" for doing so:
*I only snacked after the children were asleep. Kids are tattletales; I didn't want my charges ratting me out. But as soon as they were unconscious, I was in the kitchen.
*I tried to eat only as much of a particular item as I thought would go unnoticed.
*I always placed the items back in their exact positions.
*I hid any wrappers below other items in the wastebasket so as not to be detected.
So as we left Sharon with instructions to help herself to anything, it struck me as very funny. First, we don't have anything in the house worth sneaking. Second, Sharon is a grown woman with the ways and means to get her own junk food; she doesn't need to snitch it from us! And last, I really wouldn't have cared if she ate everything in our house, and I am sure my employers didn't either, so why did I spend years engaging in such ridiculous behaviour? I don't think i ever could have eaten more than $1.50 in food - a very small price to pay for a night out without the kids! I never would have guessed parents were really being sincere with their food generosity!
(Cathy F. - if you still read this, please forgive me for ransacking your cupboards!)
Wow! I think I had those exact rules for myself when babysitting! How funny! I never wanted it to apprear as if I had eaten anything at all.
ReplyDeleteThis is so true! A friend and I were just talking about this a few months ago. We're in a babysitting coop, and she felt all brave when she actually finished off the carton of Ben and Jerry's that another friend had offered. (Because of course, finishing an item violates the unnoticed quantity rule.) Funny to think how little we mothers care now, as long as the babysitter is nice to our child.
ReplyDeleteYep, I did this as well during my brief baby-sitting career. The one time a kid discovered me enjoying a popsickle they kicked a huge fuss and, indeed, tattled on me. I also did a lot of snooping around the house, though, rummaging through personal belongings, so I was probably the 'sitter that makes all the other 'sitters feel they need to maintain a sterling reputation.
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