The Babysitter's Club

I somehow feel as though I've been knocked over the head with a club, dragged around by my hair, and thrown into a cave to watch the children while Fred Flintstone goes out to do the hunting. No, not by the Deviant Dad, but by the woman who watches the Captain in the afternoon, who clearly comes from the school of the man is responsible for earning the money, the mother is responsible for taking all blame related to the rearing of the child.

Truth be told, she comes from a different era, a very traditional Italian background and, well, a different political persuasion from myself. One day she complained to me that her aunt has a couple of "Spanish girls" caring for her and they don't speak any English and don't know CPR. When I suggested that her aunt pay to send the girls for a CPR course she exclaimed, "How can they learn CPR? They don't speak English!"

Anyway.

Perhaps it's this discord that creates friction. But you would think that I would be immune from friction or confrontation, given that I haven't been to her house since my back went out nearly 2 months ago. Yet, somehow she manages it.

Yesterday, after our flogging in the principal's office, the Deviant Dad dropped the Captain off for his afternoon care and made an inquiry to get an overview of his behavior at her house, a synopsis of how he spends his afternoons with her, and just a general yet more specific sense of how his day at her home looks. The point being, if we are to change his "behavior issues" we need to have everyone on board. She politely answered his questions and then proceeded to call me on my cell phone five minutes after he left. What I listened to was a 10 minute rant of defensiveness and indignation, not to mention a lecture on the nature of children and how they all hit and throw things from time to time. I politely tried to get off the phone twice as I was driving on the Beltway and finally told her that the Dad would call her back. He did and she gave him two minutes of lovely and all was well.

From where I'm sitting, my guess is that she has a crush on my husband and just won't confront him. That or it's that Neanderthal perspective on the mother-father/woman-man dynamic and who should be held accountable for transgressions and malfeasance. Boys will be boys. Oh, men. ;-)

I was fuming. And not just because I was once again getting the back of her hand while the Dad got the batting eyelashes.

And once I got beyond the anger, the bigger questions started popping up. What if she doesn't want to work with us on this? What are we going to do about the fact that she refuses to help with potty training? Actually, when we brought up potty training she exclaimed that it could be done in a day and suggested we go to Dr.Phil.com. (Anyway.) And then the even harder question...do I need to, once again, torture myself into finding him a new nanny? As I'm sure you remember from the Nannycide episode, going through a transition to another daycare situation is less than desirable. But if it's a matter of helping to curtail his behavior and working with his teachers, who I know have his best interest at heart, well...how can I not make a change?

One of the most difficult decisions parents have to make is who will care for their child. When you find someone you trust, someone you know who isn't a deviant or molester and who has a generally good nature, it becomes too easy to stay with what is comfortable.

Moreover, the Captain loves her. So in that sense, contemplating firing her feels a bit like if Florence Henderson thought about firing Alice. Only an overbearing bigoted Alice who can't imagine that CPR classes are also administered in Spanish.