The "Gift" of Other People's Children (Ha!)

A lot of women I know who don't have children make up for it by spending lots of time with their nieces, nephews, and the kids of their good friends.  For many of them, it's the best of both worlds: they get to spend time enjoying, teaching, loving them...and then sending them home to their parents.  It dawned on me one day that I am not like them.

Life Lesson #6 from my book, The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree is "Know who you really are, not who you wish you were."  It's all about the moment when I learned that I am childfree for a reason.

Excerpted from The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree.  Copyright 2011.  All rights reserved.


Life Lesson #6:  

Know who you really are, not who you wish you were.

Even though I didn’t want kids, I used to pretend that I would be actively involved with other people’s kids. I was slow to realize that the reason I didn’t want my own is probably the same reason I’m not all that interested in anybody else’s.

The Events That Led To Lesson #6

Sometimes I wish I was more like my friend and fellow spinster, Vita. Actually, I don’t want to be more like her...I just wish I wanted to. She loves other people’s kids. In fact, she more than loves them, she nurtures them, she grooms them, she hangs out with them. She takes them to the movies, out to lunch, out to dinner, has them over for the weekend, lets them spend the week at her house. She’s really into them and it seems to bring her a lot of joy. 

I love my friends’ kids, too. I’m always happy to see them and love to hear what they’ve been up to, but that’s pretty much where it ends. I’ve always known I didn’t really want kids of my own, but I used to think I’d be the kind of cool auntie that would have other people’s kids over for pajama parties on the weekend, expose them to cultural events, and just sort of hang out with them and talk about things they didn’t want to discuss with their parents. It turns out I am not that person.

Yet I am always available to babysit. Said another way, on the rare occasion my friends ask me to babysit, I always say “yes” because it is so very clear that if they’re asking me then they’re really desperate. If they’re asking me to babysit, they have exhausted every possible avenue.  I agree, because it's an emergency, so I make myself available.

Babysitting exhausts me because it requires actually paying attention to the kids. Each time I agree to this, I envision that I’ll give them a book and some juice and crackers, and they’ll sit happily at the table reading or coloring and enjoying their snack. That has never happened. I always forget that it’s not enough to keep them fed, clean, and safe. I actually have to engage with them...which interferes with my newspaper reading or my nap or my phone call or my quiet time.

One Sunday evening, Felicia left 9-year-old Peter with me while she went off to meet some colleagues for dinner. It was nice. I hadn’t seen Peter in a few years and we had fun just chatting and catching up on what he’d been doing. We probably spent an hour just doing that. He was growing into a nice young man. We killed more time going out for pizza and walking the dog. And then I realized we were about to have a problem. Sex and the City (SATC) was about to come on. Even though I don’t have kids, I read somewhere that a responsible adult does not allow children to watch age-inappropriate shows, especially those with profanity, nudity, and sex. Well, SATC has all those things; that’s why I watched it. And that night was going to be no exception. The problem was: what to do with Peter? 

I would tell someone else in this situation that SATC is not appropriate for a 9-year-old to watch. That rule was about to change. I thought maybe I could use the show as one of those “teachable moments” I’d heard about. Maybe it’s okay for a 9-year-old to watch if we discuss the what- not-to-dos on the show. That’s how I decided to play it.  After about 10 minutes, though, I could see there wouldn't really be any teachable moments...just a lot of scenes of Samantha hopping into bed with different men.

I felt irresponsible, so I asked Peter to amuse himself in my bedroom with a book until the show was over. I shut the door. An alternative would have been for me to tape the show and watch it later. I didn’t think about that as an option at the time, though. Next up was The Sopranos, an hour-long show with sex, nudity, profanity, and violence –probably not right for a kid. Yet I knew he wouldn’t stay in my bedroom for another hour since he had already asked to come out twice. I decided it was time for Peter to learn about the New Jersey mob. We watched The Sopranos together and I hoped his mother wouldn’t be mad at me.

One Saturday, my phone rang about 7 p.m. The babysitting plans of my good friends Derek and Susan had fallen through and they were on their way to a dinner party. Could they drop the kids off at my house for “awhile” (“awhile” turned out to be about five hours). They assured me this would be really easy because the kids would probably be asleep by 9 p.m. Idiot that I am, I believed them. Fortu- nately, they came armed with videos so I let them watch them for awhile. Kira and Dillon are both really smart and funny, and I had a good time listening to them and laughing at their escapades. They have very active social lives and I get a kick out of hearing about them. Later, I offered them their choice of some kid-appropriate fruit: apple, banana, peach, grapes. Kira decided she wanted my blueberries. The blueberries that cost $5.99/lb. I explained to her that 4-year-olds don’t like blueberries but she didn’t believe me.  She ate them and I made a mental not to hide the expensive fruit the next time she visited.

Then, I decided it was time for bed; we piled up in my bed and Dillon asked me to read to them from his favorite book. I was happy to; this was just like on TV. They should fall asleep before I finished the story. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work. Instead, when I finished reading, he asked me to read it again. I did. And again. The third time I skipped a few paragraphs because I was sick of this story. Rather, I should say, I tried to skip a few paragraphs because Dillon was on to me. “Uh-uh Auntie Eleanore, that’s not how it goes”. Why was he still awake anyway?

I thought that if I turned out the light, they would lay quietly and soon fall asleep. They didn’t. So I decided to get creative. I decided to tire them out...outside. When I asked them if they wanted to go for a walk, they were surprised but excited because it meant they could get out of bed. By then, it was 10 p.m. There’s a lot going on at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night in Chelsea. We wandered around the all-night drugstore, watched oddly dressed people coming in and out of a couple of nightclubs, and saw two men kissing. We walked around for quite awhile just taking in the sights and they fell fast asleep as soon as we got home. When their parents finally showed up to get their kids, they asked how I’d gotten them to sleep. I told them. One found it amusing; the other one didn’t.

I never learn. I always have a notion in my head about how these babysitting gigs are going to go and I’m always wrong. I agreed to watch Baldwin and Ford while their parents went off to do God-knows-what. I was looking forward to it because I had never babysat them and I knew I'd enjoy hanging out with them. And it was fun; I was enjoying them...until it was time to feed them.  One wanted pizza and the other wanted a burger.  I lectured them on how when I was growing up everybody ate the same dinner.  They didn't care.  I was too tired to argue.  They each got the pizza and burger they wanted.  I threatened them that next time they'd have to eat the same thing, or starve.

Another time, my darling 8-year-old nephew, Dexter, came to spend a week with me. I was looking forward to this very much. I had never spent a week with a child, and I thought it would be pretty cool for both of us. By day three, though, I was baffled beyond belief. How is it possible for a child to eat all day long?

 I eat a pretty healthy diet and know that if I had children, they would absolutely love their healthy diet, consisting primarily of vegetables and fruit, but not a lot of salt, artificial ingredients, or fried food. The same would be true for any child I’m taking care of. Fast food would only be an occasional treat. Ha! I quickly learned it’s not possible to cook enough food to feed a growing boy. He was like a bottomless pit. I happily decided that I was wrong about fast food and that it is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing. Otherwise, the poor kid would have starved.

Here’s what I know for sure: watching other people’s kids is way too much work. I love them a lot, but I don’t have it in me. I’m definitely not the cool aunt I thought I’d be. Not too long ago, I pretended to be catching the flu so I wouldn’t have to babysit a friend’s cute little kid who talks way too much. I really don’t know how Vita does it. Or why I thought I could.  I, now, really know who I am.

So, dear reader, what about you?  When did you know that you wanted --or didn't want-- kids?  How did you know?

NOTE: The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree-- has been published and is available here and  here, and on Amazon.

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