Mar 23 2009
Pass It On Babysitter’s Club
When I was a kid I used to read a series of books called the Babysitter’s Club, by Ann Martin. They first starting appearing in 1986. These books were about young teenage girls who babysat and formed a club. Hence, the title of Babysitter’s Club. The books proceed to take young teenage readers on various adventures of babysitting.
As a parent with three kids, babysitting doesn’t come cheap these days. Dinner and a movie can cost easily around $40.00. Oh, and that’s just the cost of the babysitter. So as you can imagine, we don’t go out much.
This month my husband and I decided to attend a class at our church, not a membership class, but simply a class to get to know and understand the beliefs of the church we attend a little better. Through the church, a babysitter was arranged for our children.
The class lasted five hours. It was informative, interesting, and at times a little stiff on my back. We got a break every hour or so, and being the mother I am I always snuck down the hall to hear my kids laughing and playing with the babysitter.
At the end of the class we collected our kids, packed up to go home, and when I turned to pay the babysitter - she refused my payment. Of course I said, “are you sure?” She didn’t want paid. She had no way of knowing that we had scrambled that morning to come up with payment, unsure if we were expected to pay her. We assumed, because every babysitter we’d ever had always expected payment.
She blessed our day. It was late in the evening and our kids were beyond their normal supper. By the time we would get home and make supper it would be close to their bed time. So on the way home we stopped at a local diner, got our kids supper, and spent time as a family. We wouldn’t have been able to afford this if we’d paid the babysitter. The babysitter had given us a blessing beyond watching our kids, but allowing us to treat them to something special.
Today create a babysitter’s club of your own. Ask a few friends, look into several groups you may already be a part of, like MOPS or your church, and swap nights of babysitting with others you know. They too, just might be as grateful and feel blessed as we did this past Sunday.
