10 Reasons I Would Fire The Babysitters Club

Everyone knows that 90’s nostalgia is in. 1980’s nostalgia never really left. We’re reminded of these things every time we open Facebook: Ten Toys From Your MisBegotten Childhood! Thirty Theme Songs Best Forgotten and Now Doomed to Earworm Status! Twenty-Five Things Your Horrible Parents Never Bought You For Christmas! Admit it: you always click on them. I do, too. But there’s one 80’s/90’s nostalgia I can’t get behind: The Babysitters’ Club.

I would totally fire the Babysitters Club.

That’s right. Kristi, Mary Ann, Claudia, Stacey, Dawn, and their rotating cast of Scrappy-Doo-esque others ain’t getting anywhere near my kids, let alone watching them. For hours. While I presumably confine my activities to the ever-so-convenient after-school times. Put down that Kid-Kit, bitches. You’re not coming in my house. Why?

1. They’re too young. Let’s say I left my five-year-old, three-year-old, and one-year-old with thirteen-year-old Dawn Schaffer (my kids are, for the record, the approximate ages of the Barrett family she oh so loves to sit for). I’d have Social Services at my door faster than you can say middle-school babysitter. They’d take my kids and her, because what parent lets their preteen watch infants for hours on end? And don’t get me started on eleven-year-old Mallory and Jessi. They can’t even legally open a Facebook account, let alone supervise children.

2. They don’t know CPR. What’s your thirteen-year-old going to do when your toddler chokes on a bead from her precious Kid-Kit? Like any thirteen-year-old in the history of ever, she’ll scream a lot, fish around in her mouth, then finally call 911, by which time your precious Addysyyn is a federal statistic.

3. They’re too cheap. Yes, it’s paradoxical. But ten bucks for three hours of babysitting multiple kids? No one charges rates like that unless they need the money for meth.

4. Their fashion sense is terrible. Other than Kristi, who apparently wears a turtleneck at all times (clearly its own issue), you can’t show up to babysit in pants, a dress, and a side ponytail. Even if you are the artsy one. You’d get all bitchy when my boys throw mud at you. And they will throw mud at you.

5. They’re stalkery. Writing down your babysitting experience with my kids so your friends can read all about it? That borders on the creepy. And now that we’ve gone digital, you know they’d use the internet for that shit, and the internet never dies.

6. They’d forget the kid-kit. Kid-kits, these baskets of toys and art crap the Babysitters bring to every job, are a cute idea. But my kids would expect them and throw fits when they weren’t there, because, you know, teenagers forget things.

7. Forget positive discipline. No kid is going to be able to think of creative natural consequences. They’ll just banish my three-year-old to his room when he crayons all over the TV. And why did he have the crayon near the TV in the first place? He’s a quick little sucker. No way can an inexperienced thirteen-year-old change a diaper, corral a moody preschooler, and keep a kindergartener from bashing the dog with a light saber at the same time.

8. I’m philosophically opposed to child labor. The Babysitters should be out playing lacrosse or studying for whatever standardized test they’re taking these days, not watching other people’s kids for money. Screw up your grades in middle school, and you’ll never make honors track in high school, and boom! You’re dropping out of Stoneybrook Community College to keep up with your coke habit.

9. Where are the parents in all this? Who lets their preteen/barely-teen daughter coach a baseball team, run a daycamp, or babysit, alone, all over town, every afternoon? Clearly there’s some serious neglect going on in their own houses – especially Mallory Pike’s household, where the eleven-year-old is regularly expected to watch her seven brothers and sisters. Someone needs to step up and parent these Babysitters.

10. They’re always in trouble. These kids have a serious propensity for drama. Someone’s always getting marooned on an island, or snowed in at a ski resort, or starting serious mean girl shit with the well-off kids in the other neighborhood. They’re looking for ghosts and getting phantom phone calls and being all angsty over their parents’ divorces. I might as well hire the cast of Degrassi.

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