Call me Super Nanny. No, seriously.
I’ve been taking care of kids forever. I know them like the back of my hand and never have had a problem with any of them. They always respected me and made taking care of them a fulfilling job—until Christian. I had been out of college for over two years and working as a nanny for an agency to make ends meet until I figured out a master plan for my career. I was at the point where I only took care of certain kids because I already knew them and their routines. All of my families loved me — except Christian.
So who’s Christian? The kid who made me want to quit on the spot.
I get a placement call from a supervisor for a 3 day case. I took the job because it was local and considering the fact that it was a nine-year old, I thought it would be easy money. The first morning I got to the house, the mom told me to help myself to the kitchen, turned on the TV for me, and explained Christian’s schedule to me. It all sounded pretty normal—just hang out with the kid until someone gets home.
When Christian woke up, I heard his bedroom door open and was waiting to see him walk over to where I was sitting. I waited.. until I looked on the floor opposite me and saw him crawling with a fake gun in hand and one eye shut. He was a freaking sniper!
“Good morning, Christian,” I said as I introduced myself. He got up and handed me some fake ID that would give me access to his room in case I needed to get in or an alarm would set off. What kind of foolishness?! It was at that point that I realized I had my work cut out for me with this kid. Despite his antics, we got along pretty well.
It wasn’t until the next day that all hell broke loose. Christian and I were cleaning up before I went home and I asked him to put something back in place. “That’s not where it goes,” he insisted. I explained that he needed to put it back where it was when I got there and that I would make sure with his mom that he was right. I don’t negotiate with children, so when I say something, you listen. This kid went back and forth with me, told me I was in his house and stomped off.
I gave him a minute to cool off, and then went to go check on him. When I went to his room I didn’t find him. I literally went through the whole house and couldn’t find him anywhere. I started panicking because I thought this psycho sniper kid had jumped out a window and ran away. When I realized he was really nowhere to be found, I called his mom and explained what happened and how her little delinquent child went missing. This lady actually laughed and said that whenever Christian gets mad he goes to a “hiding spot” in his room.
- I did not think this was funny.
- Why haven’t you whopped his ass?!
After I got off the phone with her, I heard a faint voice yelling, “I’m right. This is my house!”
Let me tell you how it took all of my good nerves to stop me from grabbing a broomstick and finding him so I can beat. his. ass. Instead, I told him I already spoke to his mother and he needed to come out.
Twenty minutes later, someone who wasn’t his mom came to relieve me and I was done. I spoke to my supervisor and told her not to send me back to that house because when I saw him the next day I was going to flip. I debated this until I told her to leave it alone, and I would deal. There was no way a child was going to make me lose my sanity.
I showed up to the house the next morning and Christian’s mother explained to me that she and her husband had spoken to him. Apparently they needed to explain to him that when there is an elder in the house, he is to respect them. Well, no kidding! He should’ve already known this instead of almost giving me a heart attack because I thought he had ran away and I was going to jail for child neglect.
Needless to say that for the next two days that I was there, I was not as nice as I once was to him. He had lost all nice privileges because one wrong word out of him and I was tempted to shank him. I mean, not literally, but you know.
When my time with Christian came to an end, his mother handed me a thank you card that had a nice tip in it. I appreciate the parents for the tip and felt a little piece of me die when the mom asked if she could call me to babysit again in the future.. and I said yes.
She never called.. and I never looked back.
I also stopped babysitting.
Sasha
Pitched Entry