Did you babysit for the antichrist? Were you a nightmare to watch? What tricks do you have for keeping kids in line? Do you think that nine-year olds should watch five-year olds?

Did you end up watching the Manson kids?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

Answers

Oh dear, I was the nightmare. Only child. It's programming, I can't help it. After my parents got divorced when I was six, my mother discovered Happy Hour. She was 34, hadn't been single since high school -- and naturally, went a little bit nuts for a brief while. I went through a string of babysitters -- all students in her Geometry class.

I emptied a gallon of milk onto the living room carpet after I was told to go to bed. I looked the sitter straight in the eyes the whole time I poured.

Once I emptied an entire bottle of Mr. Bubble in the bathtub, turned on the water, and locked the bathroom door on my way out.

I walked a mile to K-Mart to buy candy when one babysitter was on the phone. She freaked.

Once I locked my babysitter outside until my mother got home hours later. (In my own defense, my mother told her not to have her boyfriend over, and she did anyway. So I don't feel bad about that, and my mom wasn't even mad.)

I promise I didn't grow up to be an evil person.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I had lots of uncomfortable babysitting experiences before I gave it up for good. It's always weird to be in someone else's house, watching their strange kids, eating their odd food, trying to figure out how to work their stove, especially when you're about 12 and it's late and you're alone. By far the weirdest experience though was the time I was babysitting for friends of my parents (meaning they were out drinking with my mom & dad and I was *forced* to babysit their bratty child) who struck me as really creepy people. I was hanging out, having put the kid to bed, watching Saturday Night Live or something, and all of a sudden this GUY comes in the house! He just came in! Let himself in with a key! I was all panicking and freaking out, and he was like, "no, I live here." I was about to say, "no you don't, this family with a little boy does," but he explained that he rented a room from them. Oh. Wonderful. The parents had said nothing at all about another person living in the house who might be around. So I had to hang out with this guy who I was not sure I could believe, fully expecting him to murder me and the kid at any second, until the mom called to check in and I asked to talk to my mom, and demanded that they terminate their evening of fun because I was about to be killed by some weird guy. So my mom & dad picked me up, and I think that was literally the last time I babysat for anyone besides my cousins.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

i was babysitting for my cousins (and as the 6th of over 40 first cousins, i did a lot of that!) when they came running downstairs to tell me that their new puppy had "messed" on the upstairs carpet. i figured this meant the kids hassled him until he peed. oh no, it was a big stinking mess of dog do on the brand new pink carpet. promptly followed by my need to vomit at the stench. eventually, the carpet got shampooed, the puppy and all the kids were bathed and promptly put to bed, the windows to the room were opened all the way in mid january in boston to rid the smell out of the house, my mother was called to substitute baby sit, and i went home in tears and showered for over an hour to try and get the grossness away. i was just over 12 years old i think. i never again baby sat for those cousins. (they paid diddly any ways, my time and sanity were worth more than the 10$ I might get in a night)

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I was a really great babysitter. The kids insanely loved me and I raked in the cash. BUT about four years later, I found out that my very favourite sitting parents had fucking videotaped every single encounter I had with their children for THREE YEARS!!!! Not only did I feel sick and violated, but holy shit! Did they think after two and a quarter years of sitting, that I would suddenly turn out to be a crack-whore, or a pederast. I'm still so very pissed at those people who I really liked and trusted. It obviously was not mutual. I must go now, to buy eggs with which to punish them.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I was probably not the best babysitter ever. See, with normal little non-evil kids, I was okay. We'd play games, go to McDonald's, mess around some, come home, watch videos, and I'd put them to bed. No problemo.

But then there was Evil Boy. I babysat him for two goddamn years before I couldn't take it anymore. Then my little sister took over, and she only lasted for two months before she threw in the towel too. The nightmarish things this kid would do are still beyond me. But what pissed me off the most was this one time when he was outside playing with friends, and all of a sudden I hear this shriek and T.J. (Evil Boy) is yelling "Tammi broke her arm! She's really hurt!" So of course I sprint outside and have the cordless phone in hand, dialing 911 as I'm running, and then I hear them all giggling. Ha ha. Not only was Tammi's arm not broken, but there was no Tammi.

I shut him in his parents' room for the rest of the night. Not only were there no toys, but the windows were too high for him to escape out of. No mercy, baby.

I'm not even going to mention the time he called 911 "as a joke." The policemen who showed up did not think it was very funny (although luckily they were more pissed at him than at me).

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I have way too many babysitting stories. I was the only girl in my neighborhood old enough, so I was called all the time. My first time, when I was 10, I sat for a brat that was 7. Too close in age, he had no respect for me. I had been told to limit his sugar intake (he was a chunky kid) so when I denied him a second bowl of ice-cream, he pitched a fit, crawled under his parents' bed and screamed for an hour. I could not reach him, nor could I persuade him to come out. I finally panicked and called my mom, who drove down and tried to coax him out in her own motherly way (threats). My mom and I were both on the floor, peering under the bad at him, pleading with him to cooperate, he was screaming the whole time, when I noticed a couple of extra pairs of shoes. His parents were home.

They were out of breath from running in to the house, because when they saw my mom's car they assumed the worst. I was scared I would be in trouble for not controlling him, but instead the brat got punished. Ha.

Looking back, I think 12 is a better age to start taking on the responsibility of other people's children. And there has to be a decent age gap between sitter and sittee if it's ever going to work.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I babysat for tons of people because my mother was a preschool teacher. All the kids I sat for were three and four years old, which, not coincidentally, are terrible, impish ages for kids.

Four-year-old boys are into molesting their thirteen-year-old babysitters. Am I alone? I had like four little boys attack me for way more than friendly affection. ..." Evil little boys don't know what sex is, but they know what "privates" are, and they are obsessed. "I want to marry you, so then we can..." They used the same lines as guys I would later come to meet in smarmy college bars.

Then, there was this one family... their bedroom was a wreck. Waist- high piles of stuff everywhere, you couldn't even walk. One day, their kid goes in to find a game. She roots through the closet and the drawers. I go in to fetch her. A drawer is ajar. What's inside? A porn mag and something red.

Do I go back after the kid is in bed and do a full inventory? Of course! Here's what they had: HUNDREDS of magazines under the bed, vibrators, costumes, Luv Gel, porn novels, videos, stacks of Penthouse Forum, a knife, an anal plug and a two-foot double-ended dildo.

I'm thirteen; I'm paralyzed with intrigue and disgust. A den of debauchery! Right on my street! I still can't drive by without smirking.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

Most of my babysitting was ok. Except for this one time...

The year was 1980 and I was living in San Diego. It was during summer vacation and I was 14 years old. My best friend's next door neighbors asked me if I could babysit their two boys for a week during the day while the mom was at work and the dad was recuperating from some surgery at the hospital. (This was when I lived in Naval Housing, and I think the mom was the one in the Navy while the dad watched the boys.)

Anyway, most of the week went pretty well. But the second to the last day the two boys (I think they were 8 and 10 years old) were fighting over something, I don't remember what. The fight escalated and, no matter what I did or said, it just didn't get better (I'd always been the calm peacemaker in my family, so I was used to difusing tense situations between siblings).

The older boy ran into the kitchen and pulled out a knife. A big one, like the type used for gutting fish. He was screaming at his brother, who was too scared to moved. I stood between the older boy and his brother, and talked to him, very calmly, telling him to give me the knife, that he didn't really want to hurt his brother, how did he think his parents would feel, basically anything that came into my head. Needless to say, I was terrified, but I knew I couldn't let him see that.

The boy was still furious, but he started to cry. He still yelled through his tears, but he finally calmed down and handed me the knife. I hugged him as he kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't tell Mom and Dad," as he continued to cry. Then he hugged his brother, apologizing over and over.

When the mother came home, I wondered what I should say. I ended up saying nothing of the incident. I honestly don't know why. Maybe I was afraid of what the mother would think of me for allowing things to get so out of hand. I was an intensely shy person in those days, especially around adults (or people of my own age) and I always had trouble speaking up.

I hope those boys are ok now.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I forgot to mention the time I was renting a room from a couple for a month in my late teens and babysitting their very sweet son on the nights they went out. It was kinda scary because this was during the time Richard Ramirez (aka the Night Stalker) was having himself a fun old time and several of the attacks happened quite close to my neighborhood.

Talk about a horror film waiting to happen...

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

When I was in high school, I had a regular babysitting gig for a family with two great kids. There was also a guy my age who had moved into the neighborhood the year before, and we had a couple of classes together and rode the same bus to and from school. I was nice enough to him, but he bored me, and he never even crossed my mind if he wasn't in front of my face. I just thought of him as the guy who saved me a seat on the bus.

He somehow found out one Friday night that I was going to be sitting at this family's house, and after I put the kids to bed that night he suddenly appeared at the front door. He asked to come in, but I said I wasn't allowed to have people over. He pushed past me anyway. Awkward small talk was made, he showed no signs of leaving, so I sat on the sofa to watch tv and ignore him, hoping he would go away.

He came and sat thisclosetome, put his arm around my shoulders and cleared his throat nervously. I gave him a whatthefuck look, and he told me some people at school had informed him that I "liked him". He proceeded to tell me that he was "totally in love with me", and that it was okay for me to show my feelings for him. I basically told him I was sorry but he had been misinformed, and that he should probably leave now. He kept frantically insisting that he had waited for months to be with me, and he couldn't wait any longer, so I was ready to pee in my pants because I had never been around someone so desperate and delusional before.

After what seemed like hours, I finally forced him outta there, but not before he realized how much of an ass he'd made of himself, so he made a parting threat to crawl into my window one night and kill me if I told anyone about what happened. I promised I wouldn't tell, locked the door behind him, and went back to watch tv. I had the remote control in my hand, and was propping my head up with the same hand. A little later, he comes back, REALLY pissed off and scary. He said he had been watching me call my friends and tell them what happened. (it dawned on me later that he had spent quite a bit of time peeping at me through the windows...creepy!) I told him it was the remote I was holding, not the phone, and said I would call the police if he didn't get lost. He made a few more threats, and left again.

I pushed chairs up underneath all the doorknobs, turned off all the lights, grabbed the baby and took him into the 3 year old's room, and hid in there with them until the parents came home. The parents were alarmed to see that I had barricaded the house, and I ended up telling them that I'd gotten some prank calls that scared me. I knew they would have been mad at me if they knew I'd let a boy in, as well they should have been. That was stupid, stupid, stupid of me. And it never happened again, even when I was older and my boyfriend wanted to come by.

Incidentally, that guy ended up spreading around school that I gave him blowjobs all weekend. What a nutcase.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I was the nieghborhood Babysitter for close to five years. Even after my mother and I moved out of the nieghborhood I would still get calls from the families willing to drive over to get me. I babysat for the Wilcox Trolls-two of the ugliest meanest twin girls you'd ever met I sat for the all kinds of good and bad children and I always managed to do just fine, they were hell spawn but I always won. I never gave in. Untill one day I was called to sit for Jimmy. That child broke me. He was evil he chased me around with knives (which he got out of a child proof drawer) he called me every nasty name a 6 year old can come up with, but the straw that broke the camels back the part that made me never accept another job there ever again, was the day he hid from me up a tree in the front yard and while I was running around looking for him, I happened to step underneath the tree and he peed on my head. I had, had it I called his mother demanded she come home told her what happened nad never went back there. never even accepted her calls after that.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

The worst night I ever had babysitting is not that bad, but it sticks out in my mind. There were two boys, one 4-ish and the other about 2. They were in thier pjs watching movies in the basement when I got to the house and about 3 seconds after the parents left, I noticed this smell, very reminiscent of burning popcorn. I ran upstairs to the kitchen, but the smell was only where the kids were. Smell became overpowering very quickly. Baby had taken a monster dump, the kind that came out of the armholes and neck of his sleeper. It took me over an hour to remove the poo from every crevasse of that kid's body. I could not eat popcorn for months after. Kids went to bed, and I got myself a coke from the fridge. It was a bit warm so I open the freezer to get ice. All of the ice cubes were either green or orange. It was very close to Halloween, so I figured they were some cute way of entertaining the kiddies. I choose the green ones. Peas. Mushed up peas. Took me over a decade to drink Coke again. Also, the parents had left me money to order dinner, so I ordered some Chinese food. I woke in the middle of the night (after I went home) with the flu, and puked bean sprouts out of my nose. Cannot eat chow mein to this day. I know that this is more about me than the babysitting itself and I apologize for the graphic nature of the content.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

My babysitting story is unlike most, I actually liked the kids. But this is nothing stort of a horror story. I was babysitting for two beautiful sisters that i had watched often. One was 3 and the other was still in dippers. They parents had just left and the girls had already ate. I think it was like 6:30 pm and the youngest had a gross luv's, so all three of us went into to the baby's room. While I was changing her, the 3 year old started playing with the door. I thought nothing of it when she closed it. As soon as I had the baby all powder fresh, I reached for the door so we could all go outside and play before I put them to bed. And can you guess what happened next? That is correct, sir! THE DOOR WAS LOCKED!!!!!! It was a new house and somehow the doorhandle had been put on backwards without anyone noticing. The only phone in the room didn't work!!! The alarm was on and the windows were high up. The girl had locked us in a 10 x 10 nursery for SIX HOURS!!! Needless to say I had to pee so bad by the time the parents got home.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

When I was like 13 or 14, I was babysitting for a couple that my dad worked with. I always thought they were strange, but I didn't think they were out of the ordinary strange. I didn't particularly like either one of them, but their kids were tolerable and they paid pretty well for someone who was unable to find any other source of income. So one night I was bathing the toddler and the baby was already asleep, when he wanted me to read to him. So I saw the stash of books in the bathroom for just such occasions and i pulled one out that had hand written entries in it. So I promptly put it back and got out a Dr. Seuss book, read to him while he splashed about in the tub, finished him up and put him to bed. And then I promptly went back to read the diary. I mean, it wasn't really a diary - it didn't say DIARY on the front, and it was in the bathroom they let their guests in. I couldn't help it - I was 13! So anyways, I started reading it, and it was so damn creepy. Apparently, the couple had like 6 or 7 miscarriages - really early for each, like 6-8 weeks into the pregnancy for all of them. But they named them and buried them in the backyard (note: I'm not sure exactly what they were burying). At this point I was a bit freaked, so I left the bathroom and went out to the big living room and turned on the tele. I kept reading though, and it went on and on calling each child by name and telling the things they had said to them that day, or what they had done that day, saying their spirits were in everything in the house and they showed themselves. I was totally panicked! I called my sister who I read it to, and she came over to sit with me for the rest of the evening (read: to read it for herself for the rest of the evening). We were so freaked out by the time they got home, we barely remembered we were supposed to get paid. We never took a job there again unless we took it together.

I guess looking back, maybe that was the only way the couple could deal with their inability to have a child. I know that it's got to be tough and sad and hard, but damn! I had nightmares for days about that - it totall

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

ok, here is the short version: giving toddler dinner. turn back for a minute. peas up nose. decide on tweezers to remove said peas. parents walk in finding me apparently attacking laughing toddler with tweezers. my babysitting career ended at 13....

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

It was the Devlin boys. Papa Devlin was a jerk. Mama Devlin was incompetant, and the Devlin spawn were attrocious! Always causing trouble... I had them pretty much under control that day since a friend was over (equally evil) to play with the elder spawn. I asnwered the phone (Grandpa Devlin checking up on us since I'd had problems before). Diverting my attention was his plan, I'm sure! I got off the phone in a moment, only to find elder Devlin and Evil co- operative gone. Vanished.

I circled the house three times... Then noticed the ladder. They'd been jumping off the roof onto their trampoline! At age 8. Shits. Wrangled them down. Returned them inside to go to their room -- which was no punishment since they had every piece of electronic entertainment known to man there. But where was Junior Devlin?

Flourescent wad of gum (the entire Hubba-Bubba pack) in his hair. I buttered it out while he snivelled and hit me every time I pulled the comb a little too hard. Meantime, the elders had escaped into the kitchen for pop (which was not to be touched since it was mix for Papa Devlin's party that night). Two 2 Litre bottles shaken and sprayed until empty all over the kitchen. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned... and closed them in the bathroom to wash themselves up. Bad Idea.

They were comparing their penises to their uncircumsized friend's. Walked in on that. They were proud of it. I screamed and thought for sure I'd be going to jail for seeing these boys unclothed -- thank God they were too dumb to dream up sexual assault charges. At this point, pop still sticky on the walls, I picked up the phone and called Mother Devlin at her grocery store employment to return home in 15 min. or I'd be gone. She swore. Papa Devlin came home. I got on my bike and zoomed home. My Dad picked up my pay for me. And told Papa Devlin I was charging double for the trouble and kitchen cleaning. But I said I didn't care as long as I never had to go there again! Thanks Dad!! I treated him to an ice cream cone... and the boys grew up to be as evil and horrid in Mom & Dad's High School classes as the day I spent with them. Only Mom & Dad just kicked them out and let the administrators deal with them.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

The family who lived across the road from our farm was very poor. How poor? Poor enough that their front yard was pure dirt and mud, and their father took a long piece of sheet metal and formed it into a circle, creating a makeshift swimming pool for the kids; the bottom of the pool was the dirt yard, so they poured in a bunch of water and made mud soup for their kids to splash around in all day. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with poor people, but they knew I felt too sorry for them to accept more than $1 an hour for babysitting their spawn, and they took advantage of that.

Part of me felt ashamed of myself for not trying to hide the disdain I had for the boy (10) and the girl (6), but I guess I felt worse because I DID try to hide it when the parents were around. As soon as they were gone, I pretty much ignored the kids and let them beat each other up: for a buck an hour, I wasn't playing Chutes and Ladders OR referree.

The other thing that sucked was that their house smelled like farts. I've been to a few houses before that smelled like farts, so I'm thinking it's some sort of phenomenon, but anyway. The smell of this house got into my clothes and my hair and (look away if you're squeamish) my snot. So I would take loads of Kleenex with me to their house (cos theirs were probably infected with fart smell) and blow my nose non-stop, then as soon as they got home (inevitably having called and asked me if it was okay if they went to just a few more honky tonks) I would run across the road to my house, where I de- loused and stood for 40 minutes in a scalding shower.

I'm pretty sure I spent more on soap and shampoo for my post-child minding scrub-down than I even made by watching the little heathens.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I babysat from age 6 (no kidding) until--on rare occasions--after college (was probably 24 or so). I eventually was earning $10 an hour, $12 for multiple kids. Not bad money.

However, I have no desire to have kids and am not a maternal type. I figure that part of this is just how I am and part of it is because I've had responsibility for children for 18 years. I did my time.

I had some bratty kids, but was also the only babysitter who didn't drink their booze, rummage through their things, steal, smoke [anything] in the house, make long distance calls, hit or scream their children, tell them Jesus hated them, have friends over or eat everything in the house. I'd make an effort to clean up and enforce their rules and regulations. Kids liked me and I was making fair money and was in enough demand and had references out the wazzoo and didn't put up with shitful bratly kids. (I actually enjoyed babysitting because at my house we didn't have cable or soda pop and most of these parents had both, plus I would be left all by myself to read or watch a movie on TV once the kids went to bed. Untold luxury!) Therefore parents were highly motivated to continue to be able to ask me to sit for them. Therefore very few children ever misbehaved hideously. Those that did, I never sat again. Also, parents that lied never were sat for again.

Two families I stopped sitting for:

* I was 14 and elder brat child, Lex, was 11 and a handful. He was disrespectful and (typical of most pre-teen boys) evil which is why he wasn't allowed to stay at home alone with his younger brother Page. (I thought Page was a girl for hours due to an ambiguous pageboy haircut.) They talked back, cursed, hit each other, snuck out of bed to watch cable in their parents' room...some of it wasn't so bad, but they made sure they did all the things they weren't supposed to be doing because they were both grounded for prior bad behavior. They didn't go to bed until their mother's car pulled up outside the house. I was a total wreck. Then I got home and was shocked to find red marks all over my legs. Now, they walked around the house avoiding contact with the carpet by leaping from one item of furniture to another and when I asked them to settle down and to just walk on the floor, they passed it off as a game. We sat and watched some TV and they both were on the couch swaddled like onions in layers of sheets and blankets even though it was hot. I kept thinking the couch was scratchy, and looked for the pin that was sticking me in my legs over and over and I couldn't find it. Just when I thought I'd figured out what part of the couch to avoid puttin gmy leg on, I'd feel that pin or whatever jab me on a totally different part of my leg. My legs were extraordinarily itchy...but again, my suspicions weren't adequately aroused. The red marks were flea bites, of course. We'd never had flea problems before and I was apparently highly allergic. I had oozing bite marks and red lumps all over my legs and feet. Utter misery. I still have a few scars. After dealing with sass and anarchy for five hours--and the mother was unsurprised that they'd raised so much hell in her absense--the fleas were the crowning touch.

* My favorite parental lie was when I was about 10 or 11 and had always babysat children who were able to walk and talk. The parents of this child called up and I confessed that I wasn't confortable caring for infants yet, but if they had a toddler, that'd be fine. They immediately swore that they had a toddler and to come on over, he's independent, a regular live wire. So smart! So talkative! He's practically potty-trained! All I have to do is hand him the bottle and he'll do the rest. So I agree and when I get there, early, they are curiously disinterested in showing me the baby when I ask, as they're in a hurry and the child is asleep. If/when he wakes up, I told that I am to do the usual routine and feed, clean, etc. the child. When they leave, naturally I go in to check on the kid...and it's the smallest 'toddler' you've ever seen. Well, actually, it's a baby so new that there's still a band-aid on the navel where the umbilical cord was cut and his head is red and squashed. I freak. I'm in a sparsely-furnished apartment with an infant and he has a wound of some sort and a misshapen head! Aiee! I don't relate to babies. I haven't ever read anything about baby care, all my babysitting experience is with older children. He head looks WRONG and I'm scared they'll blame it on me. I had no idea that babies' heads did that. I'd just read some article in the newspaper about child abuse and this kid looks pretty traumatized (as you would, under the same crushing circumstances he'd JUST been through). We live in the same complex, so my mother comes over and gives me a crash course on infants and coos over him and says everything will be just fine. I am terrified that he'll break or die or something all night. He ended up being extremely well-behaved (of course!) and he slept the entire time they were out. When the parents return, I'm fussy that they were so irresponsible as to leave this new person in my well-meaning but woefully under-experienced hands. When I go home, my mom and I joke about their incredibly small toddler, etc., etc., which prompted me to ask, politely, when the parents called back later, how their teenager was doing (lie by one year, why not ten?), and they got the hint.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

Once, I was about 8, my dad's girlfriend at the time was watching me along with her kids. We were away on this houseboat, and her little girl, who was 7 or 8, and I were playing on the top deck. I didn't like this child at all. Basically, to cut a long story short, the child ended up falling 2 floors over the outside railing into the river below, and breaking her arm, and my babysitter/dad's girlfriend was quick to break up with my dad :)

I was an evil, spoiled, only child who was also daddy's little girl.

Eden

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

I always loved to raid people's food closets after the kids went to sleep (hmm, could that explain my neverending weight problem? I wonder). Well, one night I thought I hit the jackpot... RASPBERRY ZINGERS! Yes, they would be mine.

But I should have known better, because these parents were, like, models.

One bite of the zinger later, I realized that raspberries are NOT green and hairy.

and I stopped raiding people's food, even if they said I could.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2000

This isn't really a horror story, but it's the worst thing that happened to me while babysitting and it kind of traumatized me.

I was babysitting for my cousins. The younger one, Jonathan, was probably less than a year old, and needed to be changed. I went into his room and set him on the changing table, removed the required clothing and diaper, cleaned him up and started reassembling the whole deal. I turned around for a second to grab something, and I'm sure you can see where this is heading. As I turned back around, Jonathan was falling head-first towards the hardwood floor! I caught him by the heel, and I'm not kidding. I got him back on the changing table and had to stand there (with one hand holding him on the table to avoid a repeat performance) for about ten minutes trying not to freak out and picture what almost just happened.

I just confessed this incident to my aunt (his mom) at Christmas, and Jonathan is now 16 years old. Even then, I pretended I caught him way before he actually fell. Jesus, it still shakes me up.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

Funniest babysitting incident:

I was watching these two kids, a boy who was 5 and his sister who was 1. The boy had been complaining that his arm was itching all day (his mother told me about it before she left), and while I was changing his sister's shitty diaper, he asked me if he could put his lotion on it. I asked him where it was, and he said it was in Mommy's bedroom (next to the room we were in, and about 20 feet away). The parents had pretty much no rules as far as what the kids could do or where they could leave trails of poop and food, so I told him he could get his lotion while I took care of his sister.

The kid comes back with a tube of what looked like prescription ointment. I took it from him and read the label:

'Lubricant, for use with diaphragm'

After deducing that this was not his special itch lotion, but rather Mommy's special itch lotion, I asked him where he got it, and he said it came from Mommy's drawer. There, in the bedside drawer was this woman's diaphragm, and it was... how do I put this delicately?... fucking huge. We're talking hula hoop. I was so freaked out that I called my best friend and said, 'If THAT's what having babies does to your [vagina], you can count me the fuck out.'

It still scares me to think about it...

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

I used to babysit all the time in high school -- we lived in a small town, so everyone knew everyone else, and for a while, I was Resident Babysitter. Most of the kids were fine -- I liked them, they liked me, we'd have fun. But there were a couple of families that just freaked me out.

One family had three kids, a little boy and a little girl, maybe about 5 and 6 years old, and an EVIL, nasty, rotten ten-year-old boy. The ten-year-old literally terrorized his younger siblings -- this was beyond just roughhousing, he really tried to hurt them. The thing was, the parents were very religious. They believed that anything that happened to their kids was God's will, and they shouldn't intervene. If the kids got hurt, it was God's will. If they behaved like animals, God's will. If they played in traffic and got squashed by a truck, well, that would be God's will too. So they were always completely out of control, and nothing I did had any effect on them. I always went home with a migraine after watching them.

Another family used to hire me for "just a couple of hours" on school nights (I was 15) and then not come home until long after midnight. Their kids were really good, it was the parents who were freaky. One night, while getting the three kids ready for bed, one of them tripped on the bathmat, fell over, and whacked his front teeth on the edge of the sink. Very bloody, and very painufl. So I sat and held him on the couch with ice on his mouth, worrying, until his parents showed up. They had promised to be home by 11, and they arrived at 2 a.m. They never left the phone number where they'd be, so I couldn't call them. By that point, the little boy had fallen asleep and I'd tucked him into bed. I told them what had happened, and said that they should look at his front tooth, because it had been knocked loose and was really hurting him. The mother's response was "Oh, he does that all the time, it's no big deal."

The last time I ever babysat for them, they came home very late, as usual. I had fallen asleep on the couch. I woke up to find the father standing over me, just staring at me. I have no idea how long he was there. He said he'd drive me home, and, as I was gathering up my schoolbooks and such, he stood so close behind me that he was pressing up against my back. As we were leaving, he insisted on holding the door open for me so I'd have to duck under his arm and squeeze past him. Instead of taking the highway to my house, he took all these dark, winding back roads. He kept asking me if I had a boyfriend, if I'd "gone all the way" with anyone (I was 15!!! And very freaked out!) I told him tha was none of his business. When we finally got to my house, he pulled off the side of the driveway where it was dark, and just sat there and stared at me. I finally said "Are you going to pay me, or not?" He started saying things like he just felt like talking, blah blah blah, and I said that I was going in, and I'd have my father come out and collect my money. He paid me then, laughing, like the whole thing was funny. I'm sure he could tell I was pretty scared by that point. I woke my parents up and told them, and from then on, whenever those people called wanting me to babysit, my dad would tell them off. The thing was, they kept calling for months after that. Weird.

Mary Ellen

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

Should 9 year olds watch 5 year olds? Well, if your child was deathly ill all of a sudden one night, would you happily rely on your local 9 year old to handle it? That's plain crazy. I think 12 is really young as well. Around 15 or 16 is a bit more like it - at least somebody that age is able to communicate intelligently with the 999/911 people if necessary. God, when I was 9, if something had gone wrong while baby-sitting I'd have lost the plot big-time.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

OK, these stories reminded me of another horrifying night of babysitting that I had once.

See, I was used to babysitting for my cousins. I had a regular gig on Saturday nights. I'd come over, we'd play some Nintendo, watch some movies, order a pizza with the money my aunt left, and then they'd fall asleep. I'd carry 'em upstairs into bed and then come back downstairs and watch TV some more. Fall asleep in front of SNL, then wake up when my aunt came home around 12:30 a.m. to take me home.

OK, so this one time a family from the neighborhood needed a sitter, and they knew I was about the right age, so they asked if I wouldn't mind. I said OK, although I didn't really like babysitting for strange people.

So I get over there, and the first thing I notice is that there's dog hair covering EVERYTHING. I soon discovered why. They had two HUGE dogs -- I think wolfhounds -- who lived in the house. And when I say lived in the house, I mean they took the dogs outside to take a crap, and for nothing else. The house smelled horrendous. Also, all the furniture was torn up with stuffing coming out of it because the dogs would scratch at everything. They were really enormous.

So then the Mom (turns out there was no dad, apparently he left them a few years previously) announces that she's leaving, tells me not to give the kids too much cereal, says she'll be back around midnight, and leaves. The kids are aged maybe 3 and 5, and both of them were totally filthy. I mean, it looked like they'd gone and smeared mud all over themselves and let it dry. They were totally grungy. Luckily they were also fairly well-behaved, or at least they were willing to space out in front of the TV for a few hours.

OK, so as per usual, I fell asleep in front of SNL, after the kids were in bed. I got a bunch of blankets and put them on the couch so I wouldn't have to sit on dog hair. However, UNLIKE usual, I woke up on my own at 3 a.m. The mom still had not come home. I started to freak out a little. I mean, even if she'd gone out to the bars, the bars closed at 2. Where the hell was she?

I couldn't go back to sleep again because I was so freaked out. I started to have fantasies that maybe she'd decided to abandon the kids and leave them with a hapless babysitter.

Finally, at 5:15 a.m. I looked down the hill at my house and saw the kitchen light come on. Mom was awake! I decided to take a chance, and ran down the hill to get her. After a hurried conference, she told me to go back to the house, get the kids, and bring them to our house, so at least I could get some sleep.

However, as I was walking back up the hill, the mom came home. She seemed totally unsurprised that I wasn't in the house watching her kids. In fact I'm not sure she even noticed. She was incredibly trashed, and smelled like a beer brewery (she drove herself home too, nice). There were no apologies for coming home five hours late, just "oh, here's your ten bucks, thanks."

That was the last time I babysat for neighborhood kids. Ugh.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

I just remembered something shitty I did once to a family I used to babysit for. I feel bad about it still, and it was 13 years ago.

The lady called me one night and asked if I was busy on a particular Saturday night that was about 6 weeks away. Like most teenagers, I didn't keep an appointment book, so I probably just thought for a second and said okay, because I never planned that far in advance. I still don't, actually.

6 weeks later she calls me on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I was getting ready to go out on a date with my boyfriend. She said she was just confirming that I was still coming that night, and I had no idea what she was talking about. Slowly it all started coming back to me, with a little help from her shrieking into the phone, "But I called you way in advance about tonight! You said you would be here!" I told her I was sorry, but I had a date and I wouldn't be able to make it. I mean, I never considered for a SECOND calling off the date so that I could fulfill the obligation. I knew that would have been the right thing to do, but no way was I going to do it.

Luckily, they were able to get someone else at the last minute, but they never asked me to sit for them again. And that was okay, because by then I was into my boyfriend and really over the whole babysitting experience. Still, it was rotten of me. I hate guilt, I can never shake it.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

I never babysat. I am SO glad after reading all these stories.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2000

I can't agree with the girl who said babysitting at 12 is wrong. I babysat one year ago (when I was 12...) two kids, a boy who was 3 a girl who was 6, and it went perfectly... while my sister babysat them like two weeks after (she was 14) and it was a horror for her -- she couldn't get them to sleep when the parents came and I got them to sleep around two hours before, only 15 mins after the hour the mom asked me to put them to bed.

so HAH! =)

-- Anonymous, April 13, 2000

I babysat from age 6 upward, but what I forgot to specify is that when I was 6, the kids I babysat were right next door, it was always during the day, they weren't infants, and their parents were spending time at MY parents' house at parties and neighborhood functions. So we weren't left to our own devices.

I babysat as a pre-teen sporadically within the neighborhood, again during the day and close by while my parents were home to call with any questions I might have, or I watched the children at my house with my mom within calling distance. Not too unsafe, really, and I always asked for a list of contact numbers because that was drilled into me. The kids were supervised and the parents all got a break. One lady liked to take long baths with the door shut, and she had a toddler. I'd sit the kid for an hour or two downstairs while she soaked in the tub upstairs.

My first across-town babysitting job didn't happen until I was 12 or 13. Most jobs occurred within the apartment complex we lived in.

I throughly agree that small children shouldn't sit children, and I probably horrified everyone saying that I babysat from age 6 upwards, even though it is the truth. Freak not. I never lost one.

I still don't want to have any of my own, though. I changed ten years' worth of dirty diapers, broke up more than my share of bratty fights, dealt with amorous 4-year-old boys (you're not alone, earlier poster! precotious little things, truly), boo-boos, pet death (twice it was fish, once it was a mouse--TRAUMA! and you don't know what the official parental line on life after death is so you have to struggle to be comforting without getting a lecture on your supposed religious intolerance, though I suppose telling wailing children something more than that Mr. Cheezit was in Mouse Heaven wouldn't have gotten them TOO tweaked), strained peas and carrots, bugs in the house, strange people calling and stopping by (I have empathy for the gal who said that the boarder arrived unannounced, I'd freak!), flooding toilets (baby shoes don't fit down them), barf, drool, pet amour (get OFF me), fleas, disobedient children, etc.

This is why I learned to announce my rates and terms up front. Like it or lump it.

M

-- Anonymous, April 13, 2000

I've only watched the kids of a single family across the street. I started when I was 12, and the kids were 9 months and 3 years. I wasn't, however, left alone with them for I think at least another year. It was a regular gig, every Saturday morning from 9 to 12, and the mother did freelance writing and other things on the back porch while I occupied the children. I sat for the kids regularly until the 10th grade, it always paid extremely well, and the two girls were dolls. They rarely fought and adored me. I had it made. But I recently agreed to sit for their three-month-old a few months back, and although I'm used to kids at every stage, I get freaked out when I can't keep a kid from crying. She was tired and screamed almost the entire time the parents were gone, and I felt like it was my fault, even thought I knew it wasn't. The wife told me to lay her down for a nap and even if she kept on crying, leave her there -- she eventually quieted down. I did, and felt like shit as I tried to color with the kids in the living room and could hear her squalls down the hallway. I was terrified she'd choke or roll over funny or vomit and I wouldn't know about it. Needless to say, I wanted to stand over her crib the entire time, and left with a headache from the anxiety and screaming.

The elderly couple next door to them sought my services as well -- for the husband's 104 year old grandmother. I've never been so freaked out in my entire life. I assembled her dinner, and that was about the extent of my "work" -- other than freaking out that she was going to keel over and die on me at any second. She couldn't hear at all, so conversation was out of the question, and she'd have regular coughing fits in her bedroom that would wake the dead. Never again.

-- Anonymous, April 16, 2000

just checking pamie

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2000