Believe it or not, I wasn't half bad at it.
Anyway, I fell into nannying for this little kid, Henry, after tagging along with one of my sorority sisters who was short staffed at her church nursery gig. I'm not sure if you've spent a lot of time in church nurseries, but they are places where the teachers speak in quiet, sing songy voices and the children sit cross legged and drink juice boxes and eat crayons. Henry sat in the middle of the floor by himself, screaming and spitting and making a superb effort of turning his face the same shade of red as his still baby fine hair. When I got there for the first time and surveyed this scene, I was pretty sure that the staff was going to ask that he be removed.
To a different hemisphere.
But instead, for whatever reason, I picked him up, he shut his mouth, and his parents started paying me to come over and eat their food while Henry and I curled up in the sitting room and watched Andy Griffith reruns and that awful Teletubbies show, which still gives me the heebeejeebees.
During those days, when I was spending nearly every waking hour (and many sleeping) inside of the studio or training on a track, I clearly remember how much I looked forward to the time that I spent with Henry. I loved nuzzling him to sleep on the couch and chasing him around the house. Partly, because it was the least exhausting part of my day, but a little, I think, because I knew that nobody else had wanted to work with him. He'd been labeled difficult and slow to develop, and I've always been a sucker for a man on the edge. Even if he is a two year old.
One morning, when I got to the house, I found Henry's mother upstairs in a bedroom crying. Henry's mother was beautiful and funny and effortlessly chic with everything that she touched, but now, she was a basketcase. She was pregnant again, she told me. She'd had Henry when she was so old, THIRTY TWO for crying out loud, which was why he was having so many difficulties, she was sure of it, she bawled. What did she know about children? She was so overwhelmed. Henry had spent the first years of his life in South America, she continued, because of her husband's law practice and the nannies there didn't speak English and he had no friends his own age and now she was thirty five and pregnant again and what in the world was she thinking? Living in a city where she hardly knew anyone. She was so overwhelmed. And now she was pregnant. Again. And did she mention that she was overwhelmed?
I was genuinely shocked. At the entire scene, at her self criticisms, at the responsibility of it all. And her entire life. Her life was his entire life. Until that moment, I guess I mostly thought it was all Cheerio fueled Griffith naps.
And it was so strange, because somehow, my ignorance... it comforted her, I think.
It was as if she'd been walking around assuming that everything she'd told me was obvious, to me, to the other mothers at church, to my sorority sisters, to her husband, to everyone. Like I'd spent the entire semester judging her as a parent, when the truth was, I was much more absorbed with the likelihood of a hidden mommy-cam that was video tracking my every single faltering moment and silently thanking the universe that she never forgot to tip well.
I remember her wiping her eyes and trying to smile while she apologized profusely.
"I was just like you at nineteen." She sighed.
It blows me away a little, when I remember how old she always talked about how she was when she'd had him, too old. And how much it scared her. And how at nineteen I couldn't possibly understand, but maybe someday I would. And did I want to invite my boyfriend over, because she'd order a pizza for us if I did.
I'm thirty two now. Just thought that I'd mention that.
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