I Can Barely Take Care of Myself, Jen Kirkman [the false prince txt] 📗

make the same mistakes their parents made. They read books and take classes. My friend Shannon is on a one-woman personal crusade via Facebook updates to get all toxic toys off the market. She’s not going to let her baby put plastic products in his mouth like she did. My friend Tracy doesn’t say no in a stern voice to her toddler. Instead, when he goes toward a light socket with his wet finger, she stops him and asks, “Is that the right choice?” (And it works!) Maybe we can prevent our kids from hating us for the same reasons that we hated our parents, but I have a feeling that they’ll just end up hating us for a whole new set of reasons—which is why I want no part of this cycle.

I’m the youngest out of three girls in my family. There’s this myth out there that parents are pretty lenient with their youngest kid. I always heard things like “Oh, by the time I came around my parents loosened up. When I was a kid I didn’t have a bedtime. I didn’t even have a bedroom. I had my own apartment down the street from my parents.” Not me. My parents were the most strict with me, their innocent theater-geek baby girl whose only real desire in life was to wear all black and star in Needham High School’s version of The Crucible.

The restrictions placed on my teenage life read like a really fucked-up rule board:

• No boyfriends allowed! It’s not called date rape for nothing!

• Talking to a boy on the phone is allowed only during daylight hours and in a room where you can’t shut the door! And no whispering!

• If you go to Dunkin’ Donuts instead of church on Sundays—you’re not fooling God! That’s an automatic purgatory sentence!

• Diaries will be randomly searched! You shouldn’t be writing about secrets anyway!

• You can only go to your friends’ houses at night when a parent is home. Even then I’m not happy about it because your friends’ mothers are pushovers!

• Sleepovers at girlfriends’ houses are strictly forbidden! Are you really just “sleeping”?

• Curfew is at 10:30 p.m.! No exceptions. Except to come home earlier.

• No driving a car unless one of your parents is in the front seat. And even then—where do you think you’re going?

Once I’d successfully survived my teen years by following their foolproof guidelines, my mom sent me to college, having saved every penny she’d earned. Her dad had told her that women didn’t go to college, so she and all the other moms of her generation raised their daughters to aspire to college. And I think my mom telling me not to be so boy-crazy was more than a subtle hint that the priorities of a new era of women were emerging (that and she really didn’t want me to end up enduring a teenage pregnancy).

But each generation makes new mistakes. For example, I know that I wouldn’t feed the son that I’m never going to have white bread or processed cheese, but I wouldn’t have the answer if he couldn’t sleep and called out to me in the night, “Mommy, Mommy, there’s a monster under my bed!” I believe in monsters and if he were telling me that in the next room there was a monster on the loose? I’d yell back, “Of course there’s a monster under your bed, honey, that’s where they live!”

I’ve already tried to influence kids by doing things differently than my parents and I’ll tell you right now, it didn’t work. Most Saturday nights from 1988 to 1992, you could find me at the Reinhardts’ house, babysitting their four-year-old son, Eli. I fell into babysitting for Eli through a friend. I substituted for Eileen one day and after that fateful afternoon, Eli started saying, “Don’t want Eileen. Want Jen to play.” And from then on, my Saturday nights belonged to a four-year-old. That was the only time I ever stole a man from another woman.

I still think it’s weird that adults would leave a toddler with a fourteen-year-old, whom they barely know, especially in a house filled with sharp-edged glass coffee tables. It makes me feel old, like I grew up in some kind of 1940s It’s a Wonderful Life world where everyone knew one another and Eli wasn’t in any real danger because an angel was watching our every move and the townspeople would come over with baskets of money in case of emergency.

When I interviewed with Mr. Reinhardt for the position of babysitter (or, what I think is a more accurate job description, “Person in Charge of Making Sure Someone’s Kids Don’t Die While They’re Out Seeing a Movie”), he asked me, “So, do you like kids?” I was stumped. Like kids? I never thought about kids. I was the youngest and basically an only child. I didn’t have any experience in playing with kids younger than I was. I don’t even remember playing well with others when I was a kid. My friends enjoyed things like sledding, which involved too much prep for my taste, plus putting on long underwear, a few more layers over that, and a big, puffy Michelin Man coat—only to have snow find its way into your sock. I hate being cold and spending ten minutes walking up a snowbank just to spend two seconds sliding down. I always wanted to skip to the good part—going back inside, having hot chocolate, and watching Richard Dawson host Family Feud.

“Name something that most kids like doing, except for little Jen Kirkman. Survey says? Having fun!”

I didn’t know what to tell Mr. Reinhardt. I didn’t hate kids. I just never thought about them. Kids evoked an “eh” emotion in me at best. But I wasn’t going to make eight dollars an hour sitting at home with my parents on a Saturday night, so I told my first but most definitely not my last white lie on the subject: “Yes. I love kids. I’m great with them.”

Babysitting every Saturday night felt like