Friday, July 25th, 2008...3:35 am
#s 75-80: How Not To Act Old Around Your Babysitter
You and your babysitter, you’re a team, compadres, right? Riiiiiiiight. It may have occurred to you, somewhere in the years you’ve been employing childcare, that your sitter is a lot closer in age to your nine-year-old than she is to you. You may think that you’re both the adults, in league against the kids, but you’re wrong.
Jen Singer, the creator of MommaSaid.net and author of You’re a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren’t So Bad Either), offers these tips for not acting (too) old around your babysitter:
1. Text your babysitters. They don’t do phone calls, and they really don’t want to talk to you, especially when you call them while they’re out with friends.
2. Know what the hell Twitter is. A plus: Actually use it to keep in contact with your sitter and children.
3. Do not attempt to impress your sitters with modern lingo, such as referring to your husband as your “baby daddy.”
4. Resist the urge to point out that the ring tone on their cell phone was originally recorded by Prince, whom you saw in concert while wearing leg warmers and a Flashdance style dress.
5. Don’t lecture them on how the M in MTV used to refer to “Music.” You know, back when Prince was hot and so were you.
6. Try not to appear as though you’ve just been punched in the stomach when your babysitter tells you that when you got married in 1991, she had not yet been born.
Excellent advice…
I remember the first time it hit me that I am seriously old was when a younger friend of mine told me her birth date (including year) and I realized she was born the day AFTER Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969.
This is ridiculous… A babysitter doesn’t expect you to try to act like an equal. You’ll come off as a desperate-for-your-youth back poser if you EVER IM/text your sitter. Don’t be an idiot!
I have to say I saw this book on the today show and when they said “text with your thumbs” I was hooked. It’s so tru that those of us in the late 30’s to early 50’s are in a bit of “situation” when I text my sitter she texts me right back. When I text my driver to pick up a pair of “readers” they end up on my desk. Regarding the “idiot” comment above….. Bitter table for one. It’s a new world we can sit in museum archive or enjoy the fruit of the younger generations labor. I look forward to this book and feel it will have some fun tidbits for cocktail conversation.
bahaha, I loved this post, especially number 3. (let me just say that if a mom EVER said that to me ans she wasn’t a mother 21 or younger. I’d leeve no questions asked)
Also that Apollo post cracked me up the moon landing seems so far gone to me. I’m 14 and recentally I’ve felt old realizing that all people born in this century are no longer babies, and that people born in my decade are listed as being able to buy cigs at the shop