Babysitting: What One Mama Will Do For Another

By Jennifer Savage, 9-27-07

Last night when I got home I handed the baby to Seth and plopped down on the couch. I leaned my head back and felt the full weight of my body sink into the ancient cushions. I was so, so tired. Maybe as tired as I had been those first few weeks of pregnancy or after a really long run, maybe even more tired than that.

I am not pregnant (can you hear that hallelujah chorus, too?) and I’ve not been doing any long runs. I’ve been babysitting for two days in a row and I think it is official the two little creatures I’ve been chasing have worked me over good, sent me down for the count, made me cry mercy.

Thank God these two little girls are cute.

I asked my friend’s child the other day over a snack of cherry tomatoes if she knew any new words.

“Yeah, they’re up there,” she said pointing to a dry erase board with a list of words on it.

She’s not even two.

So we went through a few of the words and when we got to “dichotomy,” she pronounced it with disinterest and ease as though she were saying, “truck” or “milk.” By the end of the day we were practicing “subvert the dominant paradigm” which I looked forward to surprising her dad with when he walked in the door.

We’re still working on that one but yesterday I asked her what her baby sister’s name was going to be.

“Susie Q,” she said without flinching. 

She calls Eliza “Iza” and “Iza” thinks this little blonde who can jump up and down, count to ten and “be so crazy” hung the moon. She watches her, plays with her toys and steals her sippy cup.

Yesterday, Eliza wasn’t interested in napping so I put her and my friend’s child in a two-seater stroller and walked them downtown. Eliza fell asleep within minutes from the motion of the stroller and my friend’s child and I talked about the river, the park. After a little while she was quite too and I looked to see that both girls were asleep. I found a quite bench on a side street downtown to sit for a minute and drink my Dr. Pepper because on my second day with two babies I was pounding caffeine like a college freshman during finals. I sat sipping for a few minutes in the still and quiet then some guy walked by talking loudly on his cell phone. I shot him a look. He looked back, started to whisper and gave me a sheepish wave.

Normally, I’d argue that anyone at anytime should be able to shout, turn a cartwheel, sing like they were on Broadway on a public street but yesterday, with two sleeping babies in a stroller, I wanted to snatch the stranger’s cell phone and throw it the river.

But I just smiled and waved back keeping the stroller moving back and forth with my foot until Eliza woke up a few minutes later.

As we walked away I wondered how that nicely dressed, seemingly successful stranger spent his days. Had he ever watched a friend’s kid so his friend could go to work?

As part of a one-day-a-week trade, a girlfriend and I are watching each other’s children. And because of a daycare hurdle in her household I watched her child two days in a row this week. In return, she watched Eliza this past Sunday so Seth and I could finish a house project.

Honestly, I am thrilled that we hatched this plan a few months ago. It means I can have one day a week to work, to get organized, to go to the grocery store. I think she is happy too because it means her daughter only has to have two days a week at daycare. We do love each other’s children and are happy to help each other out, but the reasons we swap care one day week go deeper than that. We are both trying to balance working part-time with full-time baby care; trying to find a flexible, affordable daycare we feel good about is next to impossible; and no matter how many degrees we mamas collectively hold or how many years it’s been since our mothers’ generation fought for equal rights we are still the ones largely responsible for childcare.

I don’t think the cell phone stranger or men in general are to blame. This problem is far too complex than that kind of finger pointing would allow. In our society, men and women are both caught between a rock and paying the mortgage. I wish quality childcare were a priority in this country, that our whole system was family-friendly.

I wish Seth and I could split childcare. I think he wishes so too. When I was pregnant we naively thought we could come close but the reality is that as a carpenter Seth makes three times what I do working at nonprofits and freelancing, even though I’m the one with the master’s degree. So it works out like this: I do the bulk of baby care and Seth does the bulk of bringing home the bacon. It isn’t much different from the arrangement many women had 50 years ago but if I think about that too long, I might go crazy.

My simple analysis is that we do the best we can. Me, Seth, my friend and her husband – each of working in our own way to keep everyone afloat.

I just hope when these little girls have children of their own, this conversation has shifted and that mamas and mamas, dads and dads and mamas and dads are all having ones like my friend and I have at least twice a week.

“She pooped this morning, ate some mac and cheese for lunch and took a two-hour nap this afternoon. See you Friday?”

Is this really too much to ask?

Jennifer Savage writes as Savagemama each week at www.newwest.net/savagemama.