What’s the going rate for babysitting these days?

Because somebody’s mother or father owes me for an hour’s worth of watching their out of control seven or eight year old twins who were determined to find a table to fall off of, a set of stairs to tumble down, or a railing to climb over and to send themselves plunging from the gallery at the dojo where my son has his karate lessons to the gym floor below.

Somebody else’s parents owe the woman trying to read her newspaper at the table next to mine for making sure another out of control second grader didn’t lose the same challenges to gravity.

The parents of the little girls who were running around with those three little boys get a pass because they didn’t climb on anything and they were stirred up by the wildness of the little boys.

But still, those girls were up in the gallery unsupervised.  I assume their parents were just downstairs, gabbing with other parents while they watched their older kid or kids working out on the floor, and they were keeping one ear open for screams of pain, anger, frustration, or impatience from above.

I don’t know how comfortable I’d have been leaving kids that young out of my sight for an hour because I don’t think I ever did it when the guys were that age.  I wasn’t worried about whether or not they’d be safe.  I was worried they’d get into trouble.  But maybe their parents know that, usually, their darlings will behave when left up there and play quietly with the toys over in the corner.  That’s what they were doing before the boys charged in. 

The parents of these little boys have to know, though, that their kids won’t behave, because they never do.

I’ve seen them there before.

Last night they were calm to the point of appearing sedated compared to the way they’ve behaved on other occasions.

The dojo is not a mall or a supermarket or some other public place full of strangers and with lots of doors small, inquisitive, and adventurous children can wander in and out of.  It’s a confined space, crowded with people who know each other by sight if not by name.  The one door in and out is always blocked by knots of adults who can’t be budged come hell or high water.  Believe me.  I have to try to budge them at the end of class every Thursday night.

What is it about doorways that attract people who need to hold long, involved, intense, personal conversations in public?  Isn’t that what corners are for?

That’s a question for another post.

The question for this post is what is it with some parents that they think it’s ok to let their children run loose and unsupervised in public?

The dojo isn’t a mall.  But it isn’t a playground either.  It’s a school.  Given how respectful the instructors and students are to the traditions of their particular style of karate, the place sometimes feels a little bit like a church.  Is this how these parents let their kids act in church?

Dumb question.

The backs and basements of many churches are teaming with children whose parents can’t divide their attention between the sermon and their kids, whose devotions to their prayers are such that they can’t be disturbed by bored and squirming children in the pews beside them and so those kids are set free to terrorize all the tax-collectors whose humility has them kneeling at the back of the temple instead of standing up front and boasting of their goodness with the Pharisees.

And ask any librarian, store clerk, waiter or waitress, or responsible parent or guardian keeping  a watchful eye on their own charges at the playground.  They’ll tell you.  There are many parents who think the world is full of free babysitting and taking advantage of it every chance they get.

When Oliver and Young Ken were little, it used to surprise the blonde and me when waitresses and store clerks would compliment us effusively on how well-behaved the boys were. 

We never thought they’d been exceptionally well-behaved.  We just thought, with relief, that they’d behaved themselves properly.  And we never felt comfortable accepting a compliment when it seemed more directed at us than at the guys themselves, because we didn’t feel that we’d done anything particularly deserving of it.  We just felt lucky that we had a couple of kids who enjoyed being taken out to restaurants and stores and had temperaments that kept them patient, polite, quiet, and in their chairs or at our sides.

If they’d been the sort of kids who couldn’t behave when we took them out, we wouldn’t have taken them out.

The only thing I can remember ever doing that might have influenced their thinking about how to not to act up is making it clear at times when they were on the verge of acting up that we’d be out of wherever we were in a flash if they did act up.

Young Ken has loved going to Barnes and Noble since he was the youngest Ken he ever was.  And the staff at the Barnes and Noble in Syracuse loved him.  One day when he was about two he got cranky while I was trying to pick out a book.  He wouldn’t sit still in my arms and he wouldn’t stay put when I set him down and whenever I picked him up or pulled him back he got angry and he let me know it.  He let everybody in the store know it.  And one of the assistant managers, a woman about my age but not a parent herself, came bustling over.  She was another one of Ken’s fans, but she knew what had to be done.

“Take him out,” she said firmly but not with anger or recrimination.  “Take him out right now or you’re going to have this problem every time you come in here.”

Up to that point I was still thinking I could reason with the kid.  I almost told her that I didn’t think it would be necessary to take him out, he’d calm down as soon as he realized he wasn’t going to get his way, and then I realized that we were long past the point when he should have realized it if he was going to realize it.  He was two years old, for Pete’s sake.  How reasonable could I expect him to be.  So I thanked the assistant manager for her advice and said to Ken, “Sorry, buster, but we’re out of here.”

He stopped squawking and gave me a cynical look.  You wouldn’t think a two-year old had a look that crafty and mean in his repertoire. It was the look Mark Twain must have had in mind for Injun Joe when Tom told him he didn’t know where the gold was.  It was a look that should have been followed by Ken’s taking the straw out of his mouth and spitting sideways before saying, “Yeah, right, old timer.  Pull the other one.”

I’d set him down again at this point and he took advantage.  He made a bee line for the children’s section…

…and found himself strapped into his car seat, whizzing home, with a fuming father refusing to look back at him from the driver’s seat while he yowled and cried and said, “Take me back!  Take me back right now!  I’ll be good!  Take me back!”

I did.

About two weeks later.

That’s the last time I remember pulling that on him.  That’s the last time I remember needing to.  And I don’t remember ever having to pull it on his little brother.

But I must have, and I must have had to pull it on both of them more than a few times.

Little kids are little kids.  They have only so much patience, understanding, and self-control.

But it could be that because of the problems Ken had dealing with crowds and big, open, noisy places that when he was overwhelmed and had to be scooped up and whisked out of there and we thought he was relieved he was actually feeling remorseful, thinking he was being punished instead of rescued.  And it could be that Oliver, watching from his perspective of three years behind, only understood what was happening as Ken’s punishment for acting up and he took it as a warning.

I don’t know.  They don’t remember.  However it worked out, the blonde and I never thought of ourselves as particularly wise and effective parents because we were able to go out to restaurants and the grocery stores confident that the kids would not disturb the peace of other diners and shoppers.

I think this is how most parents teach their children, unconsciously or reflexively setting good examples, laying down rules and enforcing them, making sure that actions have consequences, making sure that their kids learn that there are such concepts as cause and effect.  They don’t deserve and don’t expect medals for this because it’s just what parents do.  It’s part of what you sign up for.  You change their diapers when they’re babies, you show up for their concerts and little league games, you teach them how to drive, hand them the keys, and wave goodbye as they set out to make their own way in the world, and all along the way you do what you can to teach them what you know about how best to do that, knowing that the only trophy you’re going to get is the mug that says World’s Best Dad or World’s Greatest Mom and which for several years, the ones between when they’re around thirteen and when they’re twenty-one, will be a source of ironic amusement, if not a taunt and a rebuke.

You teach them to control themselves when they’re out in public and mind their manners the way you teach how to brush their teeth and put away their clothes and their toys and pick up after themselves generally.

But there are parents---and by parents you know I mean guardians and caregivers of all types, right?---who seem to take it for granted that, whatever rules there are at home and however strictly they’re enforced there, once the kids get past the front door they are other people’s lookouts.

Those twin boys intent on learning that they can’t fly last night are not always that out of control.  But I’ve never seen them in control and I’ve never been able to connect them with any adults there whose job is to control them, which makes me think that they get dropped off at the dojo with only the big brother or sister, who is busy with the karate lesson, to keep an eye on them while their parent, parents, or guardians go off to do whatever it is they think they have to do that’s more important than minding their own kids.

But the other little boy, who is also always up to mischief and mayhem, is usually there with his grandfather who normally tries to keep him from running amok.  I’ve watched him try to help the kid with his homework some nights and I suspect the little boy has some problems that may require medication and counseling.  Last night, however, I guess he had no homework, because the grandfather brought him up to the gallery, where the twins were already dancing on the tabletops and testing the railings and exciting the little girls to run up and down the gallery with them when they weren’t climbing things, and left him there to “play” with the other children.

Before the grandfather disappeared downstairs, though, he spoke to the woman trying to read her newspaper and looking as though what she wanted to do was roll it up and start whacking away at anything she could reach under four feet tall.

“Are all these yours?” the grandfather asked her with a too jolly sympathy as if he was glad to find a fellow prisoner of the whims of small miscreants.

“No,” she replied pointedly, “None of them are.”

He didn’t say anything to that.  But in a few moments he was gone, having bid a fond farewell to his grandson whom I twice had to talk down from the railing he was leaning over so far that his legs stuck straight out behind him.  This was in between the several times when the woman with the newspaper had to haul him out from under her table where he apparently thought there was ample room for running and sliding.

I think he was imagining he was Anakin Skywalker landing his starfighter on the hanger deck of General Grievous’ battle cruiser.  At any rate, there were explosions from underneath that lifted the table several inches off the ground.

Part of not teaching kids how to behave in public is not teaching them to respect other adults.  No matter how many times the woman or I told the kids to simmer down, they just kept boiling away.  Most kids, when a strange adult scolds them, will go running to find the adults that brought them there for comfort and reassurance.  Not these kids.  They just stared at us blankly and then went back to work.  It got to the point where I was ready to grab the one kid by the seat of his pants and carry him downstairs to drop him in the lap of his grandfather.  But that was a scene I didn’t want to be a player in.

I think I know what I’m going to do next time.  But I’m taking advice.

What would you have done?

Besides charging their parents for the hour.

__________________

A tall drink of water orders a tall drink of hot chocolate:  Young Ken Mannion at a place he grew up in and where he’s always been on his best behavior.

Comments

[Mike the Mad Biologist]

I would have grabbed the kid and dropped him in the seat of his grandfather.

I agree with the whole post, but I would add one thing: kids who aren't well-behaved typically have parents who are inconsiderate in many ways, not just 'public' babysitting. Don't feel bad 'returning' the child; I'm sure the parents are jerks.

[minstrel hussain boy]

i would add it to the ever growing list of shit that isn't my job, or my business.

i've been doing my play christmas carols in the high end mall thing this month. four days a week i set up two celtic harps (one nylong strings, one brass strings) and play carols for the shoppers.

i have to keep a sharp eye out for kids that will be compelled to go to the harp i'm not playing and fuck with it. i try to be very tolerant but dude, harps are expensive. even the small ones running upwards of 1K. over and over i have seen parents plop their kids down near me and disappear.

usually when i see that this has happened i end the set right there, and try to engage them. if they refuse to engage and are determined on a course of destruction i let them engage with the mall cop.

even though there was a lot of freedom in our house, my kids were expected to behave themselves in public. that was simply something that was expected of me, and i expected from my kids.

my son got his nickname of "booger" from those early forays into public. when he was about three i was very used to getting unsolicited compliments on his extreme cuteness and his exemplary behavior. most of the time he would be asked "how old are you?" his game was to pretend that he was shy so he would either burrow his face into my shoulder or look down and away while holding up three fingers.

the next question was always "can you tell me your name?" that's when he would shout "BOOGER!" and laugh hysterically.

even at that tender age he knew that booger is a funny word.

[Susie from Philly]

I'd go over to the parents and say, "You know, you might not be thinking right now what it will mean to have undisciplined children with no self-control on the loose when they're teenagers, but I'm a probation officer and take my word for it, it's not fun. You should try to get a grip on them now. It can save you a trip to court later."

[Sherri]

I've been in that situation too many times; I was a stay at home mom (still am, but she's 15 now.) So I had to deal with this kind of situation regularly, and I no longer have any compunctions at all about taking said kid right to the parent. I learned the hard way that I had to demand respect from the kid and the parent, or I was going to spend a lot of time watching other peoples' kids for free. Like the time a "friend" was over two hours late picking her daughter up from my daughter's 6 year old birthday party...

[Sue]

Is the business owner willing to accept the liability that comes with having a secluded location (the gallery) that will attract children who wander away from parents for JUST ONE MINUTE, really I just turned my back and before I knew it my kid's upstairs bleeding?
Because that's how the lawsuit will go.
And it would not be fun to be part of that lawsuit because you were there and either did or did not help. I suggest you find a different place to wait out the lesson.

[Mary H]

What to do? My cousin has a sign in her kitchen that says, "All unruly children shall be given an espresso and a free puppy!"

[Rana]

Sympathies. My brother and I were children who got carried out of a few places, screaming, under a parent's arm when we were small and ill-behaved. I'd like to think we're decent adults now. (My mother still has a splendidly fierce glare and hiss, further honed by years assisting on occasion in the children's room of the library, that can stop nearly any small child in its tracks. I'd like to think that some day I'll have that power, too.)

[voxpoptart]

If there's two troublemakers with no visible parents, you should talk to the dojo's manager -- and if possible, haul them to the manager directly. If you can't bring them, though, it sounds like you'll have no problem pointing them out. Suggest that the dojo is at risk of losing customers. It is, or should be, true, after all.

[Rob]

Maybe I'm cynical, being without children, but the way I see it is if the owner / manager of the establishment is unable to convince parents that order is expected in their establishment, I just never go back there. I don't want to give my money to a business that sets itself up as a jungle gym for hyperactive kids.

Because there's nothing I *can* do. This is America, which means that anything I say to a parent whos "busy" on a cell phone call or kvetching with someone or getting their drink on with old college buddies while their children run wild *will* be met with an indignant and self-righteous, "Don't you *dare* tell *me* how to parent *my* child!" Which accomplishes nothing except to make them feel they got one over on some interloping jerk and make me feel like I am one.

So yeah: the business owner takes it in the seat, even though it's not their fault that some parents are the worst people in the world.