Babysitting for Hardknocks

Babysitting for Hard Knocks:

Narrator: “Omg I can’t wait for the day I will be given the chance to be a babysitter”, said no one ever. Look, no one want’s to hang out with a little human being that can’t wipe their own ass, communicate their feelings properly and has yet to master walking, efficiently. I mean in regards to, if this little human being’s existence wasn’t somewhat your fault. Meaning, wiping your own child’s ass is way different then wiping someone elses child’s assist’s almost like going through puberty for someone else. Like going through all the hurt and shame of forehead acne, shedding baby weight and enduring the reprucusions of following several dead end fashion trends. To then finally be out of the clear, tall, acne free and confident and not being able to reap the benefits of such sexually.
“I went through all this now I can’t even get the pay off”

         That’s kind of exactly what babysitting is like, enduring all hardships so a parent can come home to a clean, quiet and inviting home. That parent has no idea that just about an hour ago you accidently smeared there child’s Dr Seuss looking poop onto your right eye brow, while trying to secure their child’s position to properly remove their soggy, nightmare of a poop diaper from their tiny little ass. It might not even seem so bad to them because when they are changing their child, they probably assume a little poop won’t hurt because they most likely have the same kind of poop, at least that’s how I would see things. But, a babysitter well they know that they can’t find an easing common ground when regarding your child’s shit.
         Not only does two-year-old poop come in all different shades of green, it tends to come in tiny little round servings (kind of like dip and dots), which makes it hard to harness the mess. There is occasional poop that falls behind and nine times out of ten the child takes notice of this and then immediately decides to step in it. The babysitter might then lose their threshold of grossness and start to gag while the child laughs it off because after all stepping in your own poop is no big deal; in fact I’m sure its some sort of “infant right of passage”.
         If you are with a child for approximately 6 hours a day, this means your averaging a two poopy diaper situation a day ordeal. This of course depends on the amount of milk, what kind of milk and how many ounces your little one can vouch for. Is your little one a “milk on the go” type of kid? Do they drink on the job? are they making their morning commute with a 4oz clenched tightly between their two front teeth? The typical, active and on the move type doesn’t have time to sit and is known for taking his milk on the road? Well, in that case the babysitter is looking at a 4 bottle a day, (if the child’s parents are up to speed with proper infant feeding technologies) the child most likely will be drinking from a bottle that is 4 ounces, which means that child is ingesting 16 ounces of milk per day (6 hours). I’m talking “The standard” Initial AM Wake up bottle, a bottle for the park, a bottle for the couch during the downtime segment of the day after park and the not so final, final bottle for nap time. Yes a three-poop diaper situation day is possible, because there is always the post nap bottle that is often disregarded.

(But normally)


4 ounces x 4 bottles = 16 ounces of milk ingested in total
1 poop diaper = per 8 ounces of milk

         I’m working with only the best in infant feeding technology currently, I know now because I just did extensive research. Extensive research should be done in trying to perfect any set of life skills or occupation. I currently take care of a two and six year old, I know everything about Mickey Mouse in its entirety, I know that goofy has a son named max, as well as an alias “Super Goof”. I also know that “Pete” is indeed a cat, which is very odd because he is much bigger than goofy who is a “dog”. Which is consistent with mickey mouse being a mouse and mouse’s being known for being small creatures, being larger in size than goofy (a dog) Which as we all know is, dog’s are much larger in size than mice, every where else in life except when concerning the cast of Mickey Mouse.
         I also know that plastic swords these days will put you back a pretty penny, on average $25 - $30 dollars, batteries are not included, batteries being included with any toy these days is simply a pipe dream. Add “batteries included” to the list of things that happen in a fantasy land like, Unicorns, pensions & people in their twenties one day receiving the social security benefits they spent their whole lives paying into. Please, get real.
         Life is a crap shoot these days, you go to college thinking that this will act as some sort of safety net or qualify you for the better things in life but it doesn’t. People have to know several different trades to be able to survive these days. I know how to do four things really well these days, I can run really fast on a treadmill, I can make people laugh, I know pretty much every New York State law pertaining to any rental situation, tenant, subtenant, residential and commercial, lease agreements, loft laws, loft board, loft law rules and regulations (as well as an almost memorized list of lofts that were approved by the loft board in all 5 boor’s, I also know a great deal about restraining orders in general, obtaining an immediate order of protection and the proper steps and precautions that need to be made in the actual delivery of this sort of documentation, aka “Cliff notes: Don’t go and die or anything”. My last but not least important area of expertise is babysitting, it’s more than a job it’s a long-term investment. If you see the time you spend with a certain small person as simply an occupation you will fall them, their parent’s and all of their future romantic partners, business partners and people they chose to form close bonds with. A babysitter is just as much at fault for ruining a child’s development then that child’s parent’s are.
         If you are spending more than six hours at a time regularly with a child then you are going to have a tremendous impact on some part of their developmental stages, it’s a toss up as to which one you will effect but nonetheless you will effect something. So affect it correctly, do something good for society. Aid in the raising of an upstanding human being, one that can handle constructive critic, one that doesn’t suffer from entitlement issues and last but not least one that is capable of forming and maintaining relationships successfully with other human beings. A lot of people seem to be confused these days, you can’t just plop your child on the couch and hand them an iPod and expect them to have social skills. Parents have become lazy, babysitters have become lazy, teachers have become lazy, these kid’s are like lost puppies walking out into the world crying out for critic and feedback of any sort.


DO NOT BE A YESSER: What I mean by this is, do not be the type of person that just yes’s a little one to death, confirming, re –confirming their weird little fantasy thoughts, because it will blow up in your face. People think by being passive and always agreeing with a little person that it will result in a win win situation “They aren’t bitching and I’m not having to deal with an endless slew of questions or rebottles smooth sailing, ship on cruise control”.

Nope.
Nope.
         Not even a little bit, your negligence and inability to roll with the punches in life in general will cost you a hell of a lot more than the last twenty minutes of a boardwalk empire episode. Wait until your child grows up to have a real dumb personality, can’t get laid and has a bunch of friend’s that have a running tab of “funds owed” to your child, that they never plan on paying. Your child will become in the eyes of his or her peers like a bad student loan, the kind that gets ignored, the kind that gets delivered to apartment addresses that your child’s friend hasn’t lived at in years. No notice of changed address, no notice of phone number change, nope.

Go to the collection agency and try to claim those “feelings” because no one cares. In fact all of your child’s feelings, emotions and good intentions will be sent to the collection agency of “no one cares at all P.O box (some where in Arizona where no one really wants to live, ever)”.
         I know all of this might be a lot to take in, but better now than later. If you spend all your time yessing a small child this child will began to develop a false sense of reality, assuming that they without a doubt are capable of winning everything at all times and if someone tells them otherwise, that person is wrong and they must deal with this new found rejection in several unhealthy, unethical, weird ways of dealing with a situation. Since this child was never told or informed that they might suck somewhere down the line during their personal journey in this life. A life without disappointment and minor set backs is no life at all. Robbing someone of the experience of not only hitting rock bottom and falling into a temporary life hole is bad as it is then, robbing them of finding their own inner strengths and ability to climb his or her way out of said hole, that’s just evil. Everyone must face their own problems, everyone must encounter uncomfortable situations and everyone must learn how to internalize situations and feelings properly. It is very important that a child knows right off the bat, two generalizations about life.

         “You’ll win some and you’ll lose some” & there will be more room for wins as time goes on and you learn to lose effectively. Learning how to lose is EVERYTHING. Learning how to Admit defeat and to “own up” to a situation might be the single most important thing a human being must learn. Winning starts at the end of a very great loss, often times. At least in my life it seems that in order for things to go up, they must first come crashing down, ninety miles an hour in all different directions. Sometimes a human being must face their insecurities head on, some people make the choice to find out what scares them and actively pursue those fears and other people just get punched in the face dead on with insecurities and situations they weren’t even capable of conceiving prior to the initial hit.

         Shit happens, no human has the same life journey, but one thing is for sure losing is inevitable and learning how to deal with it is everything. Some people are able to make a lose come off as a win, just by their demeanor and how they carry themselves. Some people wear their heart on their sleeve and demand in others what they demand of themselves and these people end up hurting and suffering a lot harder and more frequently then others. Hey, you want to self loathe yourself into a hole go ahead, be my guest. Just don’t take down innocent bystanders in the process, grieve your own defeats. Because after all they ARE YOUR OWN.
         Parents fuck up. Babysitters fuck up. After a while, not only will you have to understand these things, but make a choice whether or not you will sink or swim. Perhaps you’ll pick up a few defense mechanisms that will help you to navigate pain more effectively and actually help you in your pursuit to form relationships with other human beings. You may develop a good sense of humor, good problem solving techniques & you may become one of those assertive human beings that walk into a party and own everyone hopes, dreams and aspirations in under a minute. Some people are just natural born leaders. Some people just know exactly what to say at all times, but remember they only know exactly what to say now because at one point they didn’t know what to say.
Life is a big mess, “divide and conquer” NAMASTE.
         So, when you are given the opportunity to watch a small human begin their life journey, do the right thing like Spike Lee. Do not yes them into antisocial isolation. Tell them what’s up, they might be mad for a few minutes, a few hours but eventually they will understand why and their world will not end. If you are a babysitter, put yourself in the position of the parent’s. One of these days you to might decide to have children of your own, think about how you would like a person to treat your child during crucial phases of their development. For example would you want a really cool child or a strange child?
         I am a big fan of doing things to the best of my ability; I don’t like to co sign my name to something that I believe isn’t up to code or standard. I enjoy pushing the envelope if anything. If I said I wanted to lose five pounds, I would settle for nothing less than a seven-pound weight loss. I don ‘t dig minimum payments, I don’t want to just do the bare minimum that is required of me, that’s just boring.
         So although I didn’t go to college to be master of the poop diaper, life-training program I still put my heart and soul into my duties as a babysitter aka molder of mind. My job description traditionally would be basically to make sure this child stays alive, eats a few meals and avoids sharp edges. These sounds rather “bare minimum” if you ask me, so allow me to emphasize what I believe to be my duties and tasks in their entirety.
Babysitter = Parental stand it, under study

         That’s right, doesn’t that put things in perspective. Now all of a sudden the position of babysitter just got a little more serious. You cannot be an understudy if you haven’t already memorized all of your lines. Well, same with babysitting. There is no, “I didn’t know that I shouldn’t have done it that way”, “I didn’t think babies ate three times a day also” and “I thought it was totally fine to let the six year old watch the two year while I engaged in a violent public out burst with a former flame”.
Nope.
Nope, not even close.
You text, the child falls.
You sleep, the child falls.
You cry, the child finds something sharp.
You stutter, the child owns you.

Never leave it wide open ladies and gentleman, age means nothing. You can get housed at any age or any size. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Two year olds have more fight in them then most 21 year old's these days, especially because they haven’t been exposed to any bad rap lyrics or have become slaves to designer labels and Gucci mane lyrics. Also, they are mad cute even after they let out some neon colored green ass liquid. Still cute, untainted and soft. The odd’s are in their favor. Do right by these little humans, because these little humans will be watching over your little human one day and karma is so real, so so so real.

Babysitting for Hard Knocks:

         How successfully attend to/ watch over a small human being while offering them love and compassion without having to resort to “spitting on their cupcakes and telling them it’s frosting”.

The 7 No’s:

         Since I have developed quite an impressive portfolio of mind molding over the past 10 years or so, I wish to share my philosophy. Every child that I have babysat for has been able to survive on their own, form and maintain meaningful relationships, deal with their short comings proactively and last but not least have acquired a good taste in music and film. These children are sailing through life with overall hustle mentality. This mentality wasn’t achieved by listening to early jay z albums, but rather instilled within them via real life delivered hard via “The 7 No’s”.

         Well for one thing, putting the word “No” in a title is risky to begin with, risky with a side of intrigue. At an early age people begin to associate the word “No” with “Negativity”. This is not always the case, because I am in it to win it in all faucets of life and I would never come up with a methodology that was negative or misleading, especially since it has delivered such positive results. So with that being said I give you, “The Seven No’s”

         (1). I will always talk to you as if you were an equal counterpart, NO I will not sugar coat a situation for you to offer you temporary relief. If I tell you three times not to run fast and you fall on the third well, you deserved it. Now lets see how you pick your little self up and put yourself back in the game.

         (2). No you can’t occupy more than one entertainment device with the same television show, for starters you are taking away from the experience completely because you wont be able to focus in on either story line. When both shows end, you will feel completely cheated out of a good story and you will be in a baby ass daze and you will have wished you chose one story to focus on, because now you have a million unsolved answers. Two Mickey Club house episodes collide and your little baby ass doesn’t know at all how you feel after spending a confusing hour trying to divide your concentration into two separate learning experiences. Everyone knows babies can’t multitask, if you think you can handle taking in two separate Mickeys Club house episodes in at one time effectively then you can figure out how to change your poop diaper. Either way it’s a lose; you have all the time in the world to watch mickeys clubhouse, why are you cheating yourself out of the experience. It’s not like your parents don’t have DVR and it isn’t recorded, come on. What’s the big to do diaper butt? Sit your little baby ass down, choose one device to watch one mickeys playhouse episode on and invest your attention into one thing at a time. Life is full of choices, choices never end. Choices are a good thing; a life without choices is a bad thing. Learn about choices, know how to navigate correctly and manage your time effectively. Having effective time management skills will offer you the choice of whether or not you want to take Friday classes or not in college and it is a great thing to list under the “skills” portion of your resume.

         3. No, I will not let you address me by my job title. I am not just a babysitter I am a human being, I have a social security number and a birth certificate just as you do so unless you want me to refer to you as infant, I’d learn to say my name. People aren’t there job titles and its wrong to generalize. If you start generalizing too early in life you most likely will get beat up a lot in high school, maybe karma will give you a bad case of forehead acne to take you down a few notches. However all of this can be avoided.

         4. No, you can’t expect me to respect you nor do I expect you to respect me. No one should ever expect respect, it has to be earned. Show me some really cute baby stuff, cuddle up with me, and hold my index finger show me you come in peace. I have a few years of experience under my belt and I cant just show my softer side unless someone gives me a reason to. Show me I’m not just some babysitter to you and that you are willing to make an emotional deposit into my life mailbox. I will in return match your baby emotional deposit and then some. Show me something cute and I will show you the same.

         5. No, you cannot expect me to wipe your but and retrieve a fresh diaper as well. Relationships are about give and take, meeting half way and compromising. Know that changing another humans diaper, and smelling their own personal brand is not something that is pleasant. A lot of you babies seem to have tiny round poops that fall out during the process, a lot of you babies see these little little fly away poop situations and you decide that stepping in them and trailing your baby poop all over the bathroom floor might cause you a certain amount of entertainment but its harsh, you should never (out of general human courtesy) make this situation last longer than it needs to last. Also, you should come prepared. Be accomidating, after all this person is wiping your butt, perhaps you give them the heads up so they don’t have to venture into the unknown by sticking their finger down your diaper and figure things out on their own. Not cool, you take a poop, you address it. Take matters into your own hands and meet that person half way, “Here’s a diaper, I pooped”. No words exchanged, diaper in hand “situation recognized”. Done and Done.

         No, you are not the best at everything that would be impossible, I am clearly better at coloring than you are, I have several years of experience under my belt and you can’t honestly sit here and tell me that you are better at coloring when you cant even stay in the lines and your color palette is completely off. First and foremost everyone knows the color “sand” is the only appropriate Crayola crayon color to color a Disney princess’s face, unless she is Pocahontas than you can press a little harder or use burnt amber to shade in around the hair and neckline. African American Disney characters need to color properly does not be a weirdo and use black, gauge your coloring with the amount of pressure you apply to the crayon. No one has a neon orange face, no one is green, this is wrong. Even if you were trying to do this to take some sort of creative stand, it would be unacceptable because you aren’t at that decision making part of your life yet. So no, I will not sit here and tell you that your picture is better than mine because it isn’t. If I said that it was better than mine then you would stop pushing yourself to your full potential and you would live an unfulfilled life and you would always feel cheated. Sorry, I won’t do this to you, I can’t be held responsible for this sort of outcome. You suck at coloring, but the good news is so does every other baby don’t set yourself up for unnecessary failures, figure it out for yourself over time and don’t expect that you’ll be good at anything, just have a healthy amount of faith in your ability.

         No, it wasn’t cool for you to act like a giant Dick when your mom came home. You know that we were totally vibeing ten seconds before she opened that door, don’t try to make it like I’m not owning up to my responsibilities. If I ask you to tell your mom what we learned today don’t leave me hanging, making me look like a delusional half-wit. That’s not cool, I treat you exactly the same at all times, do not front like you weren’t cuddling up to me with your polar fleece blanket, mid bottle resting your little head on my arm because you were.