The babysitter speaks

Okay, so the woman made a mistake. She had an affair with a married man. She says she did not know about the wife until she announced her pregnancy and he said, as a married man he had no interest in divorcing his wife and marrying the young woman.
He disappeared from her life as emphatically as he had arrived.
She refused to even consider abortion, but, adoption – perhaps – but she chose to keep the child, a boy.
She did not, however, take the next step and embrace the mantle of motherhood. As an infant, baby and then pre-schooler, the boy needed her loving direction in his life and a sense of her commitment to him – and he did not feel it.
By the time he was three, after yet another person had given up on baby-sitting a child who screamed and threw tantrums, his mom went to a woman she had met at the church she had begun attending.
“No one wants to baby-sit him. They can’t control him. Would you please babysit?” the young mother sighed in defeat.
The baby-sitter, a mother of three and grandmother of two, agreed to try.
The first day the pre-schooler overwhelmed with the frustrations that every little kid experiences began throwing a screaming temper tantrum.
The baby-sitter began singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”
“Stop singing,” he screamed at her.
“You do not tell me what to do,” she said bending down to look in his eyes. “I am 50; you are 3. I am the boss, not you. When you stop screaming, I will stop singing.”
He looked at her dubiously.
He screeched. She began singing.
He stopped. She stopped.
He screamed; she sang. He stopped and looked at her. “You’re the boss?” he asked tentatively.
“Yes.”
He sank down inside himself to think about that.
He tried the scream a few more times and discovered she would not yield to his tantrum. He pretty much quit screaming around the babysitter.
The baby-sitter told the workers in the church nursery, “If he starts screaming, sing.”
But it was not all discipline for the child. This baby-sitter enjoyed children. She spent her days interacting with them, playing and even doing a bit of roughhousing and tumbling about.
“You want to play with me?” he asked bewildered at this strange adult.
Yes, and she even encouraged him to jump on her second hand couch from Goodwill and to learn to fall into the cushions.
“But, I told him to be sure to ask before he did it at any other house because not everyone would want him to jump on their couch,” she said.
He looked at her in astonishment. She didn’t just want him to sit in front of the TV and just be good?
The mother told the baby-sitter she would not take her son out in public because he did not behave.
“Well you have to train him how to act in public. He won’t learn unless you take him,” the baby-sitter said.
So the mom took her son shopping and was surprised at how well he behaved.
The baby-sitter was surprised at how long the mother held onto her guilt for having had an affair.
“Maybe I should have given my son up for adoption,” the mother said one day as she wallowed in her misery.
“No. You made the decision, now forgive yourself and choose to have a good time with him,” the baby-sitter urged her.
“If I had given him up when he was born, I would not miss him,” the mother mused one day.
“Yes, you would. Once you are pregnant, even if you never have the child, it changes you forever. Now grow up and become his mother.”
During their daily visits the mother expressed astonishment at all that the baby-sitter knew. “I wish I knew how to do all that,” she sighed
“Look, I am a baby-sitter. I am a mother of three and I have taken care of many more children. I just have had more time with more children than you have. You’re a first time mom. You’re not supposed to know all this. You are still learning. That is normal. You’re supposed to ask questions and not know how to do it all, So ask, watch, listen and learn. That is what you do at this time.”
“I don’t have to be the best?”
“No, but you do have to ask questions from experienced people. Talk with other moms, talk with teachers … and listen. They have had more time and experience. That’s what it takes.”
Or as it says in Titus 2:4, “let the older women teach the younger” … and let the younger ones learn.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)


Posted

in

by

Tags: