Nearly every girl and woman that I know has babysat or will babysit at least once in their lifetime. I’ve personally been babysitting now for ten years and you’d think after all this time I’d crack the code to understanding children, however, we are all always learning.
This brings me to the major idea of this post. I recently had two epiphanies about kids; kids are wiser than you know and more in touch with their emotions than adults. Are they connected, perhaps? But, being around kids can teach you more about life and being human than you’d expect.
On Friday, I babysat for a family that I have been babysitting for, for about 4 years now. Their house is always beautifully chaotic; who is going where, which
friend is coming over, who wants to make slime while the other bakes? I love it. I love being thrown into their life for a little bit and helping them achieve their goals.
The little one wants to be a famous instagram slime maker, her twin brother wants to have the biggest vocabulary, and the eldest wants to be an ornithologist. They are such wonderfully vibrant and unique individuals.
While they are still young and learning practical skills and social graces, it is interesting to me that they fundamentally understand human nature and use that to guide their interactions and comprehension of the world around them.
Alex, 13 and the eldest, is like my ‘little mama’. She stays by my side, helps me cook and clean, and will talk with me about anything and everything. I’ve come to learn that she is wise beyond her years. This past visit, she opened up to me about some personal struggles with friendships. The conversation centered on the ever-changing circle of friends a person can have at any given moment. She provided me with wonderful insight.
When discussing a broken friendship involving her friend, Kelly (a child that I also babysit), she prefaced the conversation by telling me that she couldn’t give much background regarding Kelly because it wasn’t her place to share Kelly’s personal information. There were two major lessons that I learned from this tiniest of actions.
The first being: respect people’s privacy and right to private information. A 13-year-old girl, despite having hard-feelings in her friendship, maintained discretion to protect and preserve this person’s personal information and dignity, partially removed bias from the conversation by saving-face, and allowed me to continue my relationship with Kelly without partiality. All of this in one simple statement!
As Alex continued on with her story, she expressed sadness about the lost friendship but also recognized that Kelly was going through a difficult time and was probably emotionally unavailable to fulfill her expected role in Alex’s life.
This brings me to my second lesson; that empathic understanding is critical during relational turbulence. When you look at situations through the eyes of others, it ultimately limits negative feelings and the harboring of resentment during conflict. Such a complex theory of human interaction boiled down and performed to perfection by a 13-year-old!
Babysitting may seem like a job for teens who want easy money, but let me assure you that it is so much more than that. You are becoming a part of these kids lives. You are in charge of their wellbeing whether that be physically, mentally, or emotionally. You are helping them develop into the people that they will become.
Babysitting may seem like just looking after a child, but the relationship is much more meaningful and symbiotic than that. You are brought into a world where everything is pure. You are taught to be patient and understanding to someone who is very different from you in age, gender, culture, sexuality, and religion. But most importantly, you are taught messages of innocence and compassion that seem to get lost in the translation from childhood to adulthood. Kids, I have found, are the key to unlocking a grounded and loving temperament, perhaps, one could even say... a peaceful soul.
Thank you children, for helping ME become the person I want to be.
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