I had a very frustrating day today. An older man from our church offered to watch our children for us on a regular basis so we could go out. He visits our family monthly, so our children are comfortable with him and Papa works with him at church, so we know him pretty well. Anyway, this morning we decided to take him up on his offer. So, we had him come to our house to watch our children. We were gone for about 5 hours, and when we got home Dos was sitting on the counter with Tres, drawing on him with markers. Our "baby-sitter" was sitting on the stairs doing nothing about it, and there were toys and dishes everywhere. I could not believe what I was seeing.
So, our "baby-sitter" proceeded to tell us that our children had been climbing on the counters and running all over the countertops back and forth, climbing onto the top of the fridge, then getting on top of the cabinets and pulling down knick-knacks and such; they'd been eating from the snack box all morning long (I'd told the "baby-sitter" they could have a snack around 9:30-10:00, and just one or two things from the box ... he even verified that it was just one or two things, and not snacking all day), Dos had made hot chocolate for everyone and made a huge mess that hadn't been cleaned up ... well, the list goes on and on.
Anyway, the "baby-sitter" tells me this and then proceeds to say that when he was a parent nothing like that was allowed in his house that it was just not done and it was despicable for parents to allow something like that to happen. I just had to turn around and start cleaning up. I was so furious! He also said that he didn't know what was allowed in our house, so he didn't do anything about it. Almost like he was saying that everything that happened was our fault because we weren't as explicit about what was okay and what wasn't.
Before he left I told him that we've never had a problem like that with any of the other baby-sitters we've had in the past. I just couldn't believe that our clean house was a mess, he let the children do whatever they wanted (despite the fact that we have a poster of our house rules on the wall), we got the blame for everything that happened and no apology (I'm sure he could tell we were furious), then he just walked out the door after pretty much lecturing us on how to be better parents! Arg! I still can't get over the fact that a 12yo baby-sitter we've had did a better job than he did.
Okay, so I started to simmer down a little bit because I then asked Una (who had been at a friend's house during the whole day) if her younger siblings usually act like that when there's a baby-sitter and she said yes! The only difference is that Una told me the other baby-sitters usually tell the children not to do that stuff. I just couldn't believe that we've had baby-sitters coming to our house for five years and this is the first time we've ever heard about our children acting like this with a baby-sitter. Seriously, what gets into their heads while we're gone?
So, our "baby-sitter" proceeded to tell us that our children had been climbing on the counters and running all over the countertops back and forth, climbing onto the top of the fridge, then getting on top of the cabinets and pulling down knick-knacks and such; they'd been eating from the snack box all morning long (I'd told the "baby-sitter" they could have a snack around 9:30-10:00, and just one or two things from the box ... he even verified that it was just one or two things, and not snacking all day), Dos had made hot chocolate for everyone and made a huge mess that hadn't been cleaned up ... well, the list goes on and on.
Anyway, the "baby-sitter" tells me this and then proceeds to say that when he was a parent nothing like that was allowed in his house that it was just not done and it was despicable for parents to allow something like that to happen. I just had to turn around and start cleaning up. I was so furious! He also said that he didn't know what was allowed in our house, so he didn't do anything about it. Almost like he was saying that everything that happened was our fault because we weren't as explicit about what was okay and what wasn't.
Before he left I told him that we've never had a problem like that with any of the other baby-sitters we've had in the past. I just couldn't believe that our clean house was a mess, he let the children do whatever they wanted (despite the fact that we have a poster of our house rules on the wall), we got the blame for everything that happened and no apology (I'm sure he could tell we were furious), then he just walked out the door after pretty much lecturing us on how to be better parents! Arg! I still can't get over the fact that a 12yo baby-sitter we've had did a better job than he did.
Okay, so I started to simmer down a little bit because I then asked Una (who had been at a friend's house during the whole day) if her younger siblings usually act like that when there's a baby-sitter and she said yes! The only difference is that Una told me the other baby-sitters usually tell the children not to do that stuff. I just couldn't believe that we've had baby-sitters coming to our house for five years and this is the first time we've ever heard about our children acting like this with a baby-sitter. Seriously, what gets into their heads while we're gone?
Comments
Plus I have seen your rules... I do remember something about climbing on furniture... furniture/counters what's the difference? The "babysitter" should have known.