dive into mark

‣ June 16, 2004 ‣

Don’t fuck the babysitter

This advice comes to you from The Joy of Fatherhood, which I have been reading recently. Month 5 is the time to think about going out again, as adults, sans baby. This leads to a multi-page sidebar (an unreasonable typographical construct to begin with) on How To Pick a Babysitter, also known as How to Find A Pimply-Faced Teenager Who Is Also A Registered Nurse Who Will Love Your Newborn Baby As Much As You Do For A Few Bucks An Hour. I skimmed through it, since we have family in the area who have been more than willing to babysit, and who are quite good at it. I realize not everyone has this advantage.

Near the end of the section is a sidebar-within-a-sidebar (an equally ridiculous construct) entitled “Inappropriate Behavior With Babysitters”. It rambles on for a bit and talks about a bunch of different scenarios, but basically the gist of it is Don’t fuck the babysitter; it will ruin your life.

Thanks for that.

This is wrong on so many levels. Well, the advice itself is not wrong; I have no doubt it is fatally accurate. But it makes me wary of the intended audience for the book, something I have often wondered of many books. Who buys these books for themselves? Mine was a gift, and a most thoughtful gift at that, and I can score easy points with my wife by leaving it lying around and moving the bookmark every now and then. I have even read most of it.

But I am not the target market for this book, because, apparently, the target market for this book is newborn dads who need to be told that fucking the babysitter is inappropriate. “Oh,” I’m supposed to exclaim, “you mean I pick them up, pay them, and don’t fuck them? Oooooh, now I get it.”

Also, this quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy:

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in “It’s a nice day,” or “You’re very tall,” or “Oh dear, you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right?” At first, Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behavior. If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months’ consideration and observation, he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don’t keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while, he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn’t know about.

I think this explains a lot about parenting books. Actually, it explains a lot about blogging, too.

Seventeen comments here (latest comments)

When you think that there are millions of parenting titles out there and probably hundreds (if not thousands) aimed at fathers, it’s not surprising that the babysitter advice got said.

I’ll never understand how anyone can write a book on a subject that has been covered from every possible angle. That applies a lot to blogging, too.

— Bill Brown
This is arguably the finest post title ever.

I’m assuming that the target audience for such a tome is roughly the same as the one targeted by warning text on household items, such as “WARNING: Blade is sharp and will slice off appendages with little to no effort” and “CAUTION: Drinking DRAINO will almost certainly make you die.” Perhaps the book should have a similar warning label. “NOTE: People with active, firing neurons should avoid this work like the plague.”

— ColdForged
My wife and I are members of a babysitting co-op. This is extremely convenient and cheap, since you’re essentially bartering babysitting time in a small group. And if your group is like ours with a small variance in ages (The criterion for membership in ours is ‘First children, born in 2003′), then all of you have the same sorts of age-appropriate paraphenalia.

Sure, there are times where you can’t get a co-op sitter. Friday and Saturday nights are a premium, after all. But staying at home one night on a weekend, curling up with a DVD while 3 other kids snooze in their pack-and-plays in your bedroom is not a terrible evening. And some nights it will be Someone Else’s Turn. :)

— BrentN
I think you ‘re missing the point. The author of the book is very well aware of two facts of life:
- men fuck around
- men know that’s bad (from a relationship point of view), but can’t help themselves

He is just offering help by highlighting and explaining the consequences of a particular bad case of fucking-around, namely with the babysitter. A bit like dipping your pen in the company’s ink, equally bad.

The best strategy for fucking-around is to do it as far away home as possible, perhaps even pay for it. That will reduce the risk of being caught to a minimum. This of course does not work for people with a high public profile.

After reading your post, I think the author clearly grasped the essentials of fucking-around.

— Jaap
Paging Kelsey Grammer …

— Geof
Especially don’t do it on father’s day. Geez, considering most babysitters are probably in highschool and under 18, that’s even more wrong.

— monkeyinabox
I’m assuming that the target market for the book, are people who think digital watches are cool …

— Adrian
This ad campaign in VA seems to be pertinent, but also falls into the category of spending tax-payer funds to state the obvious.

— Todd W.
I’m surprised that there wasn’t a footnote in that side bar, “If you do screw the baby sitter, you may benefit from our other book ‘Making Marriages Work’.”

— Michael Bond
“Don’t use illegal drugs either. All kinds of problems result.
Let’s see, also avoid gambling with your life savings.

And, hey, do you see that? It’s raining! Well, how-de-do.”

— TP
I think the comment about being frightened about what people don’t know is particularly apt. I think the reason they had to instruct you not to screw the babysitter is because a lot of people really DON’T know that, or at least they don’t fully understand the consequences, even if they know it isn’t a good idea.

It is very dangerous to assume that people know something already, because they will shock you with their ignorance. As an author, it probably makes sense to just assume the worst, and live with a few fathers saying “Well, duh.”

I perform science demonstrations at a museum, and one demonstration we do involves drawing a picture on a piece of paper with some water, and then using a hair dryer to dry up the water, making the picture disappear. This baffles children, but it also baffles their parents. Apparently most of the adult population of St. Louis doesn’t have the faintest idea how evaporation works, most of the adults think the water gets sucked into the hair dryer. Experiences like that (and books like yours) serve to remind me how uncommon ‘common sense’ really is.

— Sam
I’m tempted to get the book just to see how they can possibly word that suggestion so it’s not completely insulting.

— Anonymous
apparently Niel Goldschmidt didn’t get this advice in time. Mayors and 14 yr old girls dont mix.

— martin
I think the fact that the book included this section is for several ironic reasons:

1) Men a horny pigs who must be constantly reminded to keep themselves in check.
2) Common Sense is not so common.
3) They probably needed a little filler for the book.

But most importantly and the reason why I think this was included:

4) The author is not in touch with any audience!

More often than not, these days, books are written for the purpose of writing books. Next year, someone else will write another book that sounds the same in tone, ideas, and intent, but basically be a different book, different author, in general worded differenly, and with a different title and cover.

Its trash writing, throwaway authoring. The author isn’t doing anything except rehashing other well known ideas. I mean, c’mon… how insightful can a book be if it has to include a section on “how not to fuck the babysitter and ruin your marriage.”

The point is I don’t think the author has a target audience, just a target sales quota.

— Adrian
I suspect that the author’s intended audience, for the babysitter admonition at least, is himself.

My main audience for most of what I write is me, three weeks from now. I write because I’ve just learned something from painful experience, and I want to make sure I remember it three weeks from now when I’m on the verge of making the same stupid mistake.

— Dale Emery
I think a few of us complained about this book at the TMN Roundtable. That is one dumbass book.

— kfan
Two words: Michael Kennedy. He fucked his babysitter and then was killed when he ran into a tree while playing football on skis without poles at twilight. Perhaps those who fuck the babysitter are future Darwin Award candidates, in which case the advice to not fuck the babysitter will probably not sink in.

Oh, but it appears to help if the babysitter’s family is also very wealthy because then they’re worried about scandal and won’t raise a big stink. The mother may try to throw herself off a building, but still . . .

— jonny

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