Do We Have to Feed the Babysitter?
As a first time parent, I often don’t know what I’m doing. If I have a question about my daughter’s health, I email her pediatrician or consult Dr. Sears’ Baby Book. If I have a question about my daughter’s sleep, I ask the woman who runs her daycare. With most other questions, I guess. A frequent question I have, and an ongoing topic of conversation in my house, is whether we have to feed the babysitter. If so, what are we supposed to feed her?
I try to think back to all the times in high school and college that I babysat. Did the families feed me? The only thing I remember was a time in college when I put my two babysitting charges to bed and laid into a half gallon of ice cream as though I had never eaten before. It was a specialty chocolate flavor from Dreyer’s, one of my favorite ice cream brands, and I remember thinking that I should probably stop after the next bite, and the bite after that, and the bite after that, until I had demolished half the carton. I felt embarrassed because it was a brand new carton of ice cream, so there was NO question that the parents would immediately know who had eaten it. But what could I do? I was depressed, and babysitting is super boring!
I have a vague recollection, either from personal experience or the 73 Baby-Sitters Club books I read, that I’m supposed to tell the babysitter to help herself to anything she finds in the kitchen (minus the booze). However, by the time the weekend rolls around, the groceries purchased earlier in the week have either been eaten or gone bad, leaving our babysitters almost nothing to eat. I suppose as our daughter gets older, the babysitter will be able to eat whatever she eats for dinner, like macaroni and cheese or pizza. However, the Bean is going through a bit of a picky stage where she basically eats white beans, plain Greek yogurt, and freeze-dried strawberries for dinner (mmm, a classic combo!), which I cannot in good conscience offer to an adult.
A few weeks ago, I asked my husband what he thought about offering the babysitter my leftover Chinese food from the night before. He looked at me as though I had suggested that we take the babysitter out back and let her sift through the dumpster for something to eat. He admitted he “doesn’t understand the rules of this situation at all” and asked if I wanted him to run to Whole Foods for a sandwich or salad for the babysitter to eat.
This is going to sound cheap, but no, I did not want him to go buy the babysitter a $10 sandwich from Whole Foods. We are already paying her $20/hour to sit on the couch while our daughter sleeps; I don’t want to further add to the expense of trying to leave the house for a few hours. She can eat the leftover Chinese food!