When I was a kid, babysitting was a rite of passage, falling in the timeline somewhere after learning to ride a bike but before getting a driver’s license – that sweet spot where you were old enough to be in charge but not yet old enough to do anything particularly glamorous with your Saturday night. It was also a pretty lucrative pastime; I could easily make $100 in a single weekend when I was 12.
It was also, thanks to my beloved Ann M. Martin, the stuff of legend. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, I devoured The Baby-Sitters Club books as quickly as they were released, well before I was old enough to be left home by myself, let alone care for actual human children. But it didn’t matter; it was absolutely aspirational for me. Kristy Thomas’ take-charge attitude, Claudia Kishi’s secret candy-and-Nancy Drew stash, Dawn Schafer’s California cool – I wanted in. I imagined myself in the BSC headquarters (aka Claudia’s room), phone in hand, booking jobs with the efficiency of Mary Anne Spier and the fashion sense of Stacey McGill. I could name every single one of the Pike children in age order (I still can), and I made lists of what I’d put in my “Kid Kit” once I was finally old enough.
From 12 until 14, I babysat constantly – for neighbors, family friends, my parents’ colleagues. And then, about halfway through my freshman year, I abruptly retired. Suddenly, there were movies to go to, aimless car rides to take with new friends old enough to drive, and of course plenty of boys to flirt with.
Now, though, decades later, the babysitting bug has returned for the next generation: Georgia (my baby!) has officially started babysitting. Not just for our next-door neighbors (with me lurking on the front porch) – but full-on advertising, networking, and booking jobs. Inspired in part by the Netflix revival of The Baby-Sitters Club, she completed a Safe Sitter course and hung out a shingle. She’s learned the Heimlich maneuver, knows to cut grapes and hot dogs into quarters, and is diligent about asking about allergies.
I’m excited for her. I’m proud of her. And yet, in a year that is already full of bittersweet transitions, I’m also strangely sad.
It’s not that I doubt her competence. She is mature, friendly, not a risk-taker. I love watching her gain independence and confidence with every job well-done.
But it also makes me feel … obsolete. If my baby can babysit, then what am I even here for?
It’s the same jolt I felt when she first walked to a friend’s house without me or when she ordered her own food at a restaurant without my prompting or when she didn’t want to hug me goodbye when I dropped her off for the class trip. Babysitting is more than just a side hustle; it’s a declaration: “Mom, I’ve got this.”
As Rowan settles in to college and Georgia asserts her independence more each day, I’m slowly making my peace with being a supporting character – not Kristy, not Mary Anne, but Mrs. Pike or Watson Brewer or Jamie and Lucy Newton’s mom, hovering in the background, trusting the club to do their thing. (Finding Netflix’s Watson Brewer hot was one of my first reality checks – I am getting old.)
I know realistically, of course, that Georgia still needs me – and not just because no matter how much money she is making babysitting (and she is making plenty for someone with no fixed expenses), she still doesn’t want to spend a penny of her own cash. Even Rowan still needs me, all the way across the country, to answer questions about how many Tylenol to take and how to get a pizza stain out of her favorite sweater (two and Dawn dish soap, respectively).
I still find myself wishing there was an update of The Baby-Sitters Club for middle-aged moms when Kristy tells me pragmatically that you have to learn to let go, Mary Anne sits and cries with me, Stacey (with her New York City street cred) assures me that Rowan will be safe in Central Park, and Claudia braids my hair.
But I know that this phase of parenting is just the next chapter of a book I’m still writing – and that I’m ready to handle whatever comes next.
