Pets Over Children

In all areas, sans shoes, I have self-control when it comes to shopping. When I hopped off my parents payroll for the big wide world of independence I learned the true price of materials. Hooray for "making it on my own" and being responsible! Yeah--not so much, or at least not all the time. I quickly began translating everything to hours of human-sitting.* At this point, my career was well underway--I was making eight whole dollars an hour, 13.3 cents every minute. Parents don't be late.

*I prefer this term to babysitting because in this age of the helicopter parent, with half my life of experience, I am rarely trusted with actual babies. By the time I am left in charge, they are hardly children--they're tipping on the verge of teenagers. More excellent than making money for being a (topnotch) big sister is landing the mother's friend, ahem mother's helper, gig. There is nothing is more fulfilling than having Boss Mommy ignore my loaded resume--equipped with positions from full-time nanny to camp counselor to normal human-sitter to after-school-care-worker to church nursery experience to academic tutor. As a matter of fact--I am incompetent; there is only way to prepare Cascadian Farms Organic Cinnamon Crunch Cereal for Johnny's mid-morning snack. I have certainly ruined the chance of any future human-sitting employment. No? I am still for hire, if you want to pay me--I'm yours. To the original point, each age class--whether mother, teenager, child, or baby--can be safely categorized into the 'human' group. Let's agree on that too.

As I sat down to write this post I had a clear direction: arts and crafts. And now I am 280 words deep, having wrapped up my rambling, urg ranting, on the proper terminology for watching mother, teenager, child, or baby while parent(s) stay in or go out. Instead of admitting I have lost my voice--I will change direction to equally fascinating, semi-related, realization. 

The going rate for pet-sitter is higher, much higher, than that of human-sitter. This says a lot about our society. That is all.