We’ve all heard it numerous times, “It Takes a Village”. I bet there are more ways than you realize that you are part of the village of raising kids around you. We moved to our current neighborhood 71/2 years ago when our kids were in 6th, 8th and 9th grades. Our street has kids of all ages, some older, some younger. As our kids grew into babysitting ages they became popular among the parents of the younger kids. Gabe watched our neighbor’s son all summer between 8th and 9th grade, he was 7 years old and Gabe 14 yrs. They would take fun adventures; biking, hiking, jumping on our trampoline. Some of the best times were being dropped off at the climbing gym or the local bike track for a few hours. It was fun for everyone and such a great learning experience for Gabe. After that summer, Dominic and Allie started babysitting as well. Once, our kids were in the kitchen discussing their schedules. There were a couple upcoming babysitting jobs floating around and all 3 babysat for the same families. Due to various conflicts; homework, social events the babysitting jobs needed some schedule changes. So they were discussing who could cover what jobs. As I mentioned earlier they became popular with the parents because usually one of them could babysit.
All of us moms were in the background talking about our jobs and who would be the back up as needed. The kids would communicate, schedule, negotiate pay on their own, but us moms knew we ultimately were around if needed. I hired the boy next door to watch our dogs when we were out of town...well really his mother and he, but all were willing and he was learning a lot about responsibility, scheduling and money. At first I felt bad about hiring him when I knew a lot fell on his mom. She kept telling me it was good, don’t worry about it. As my kids grew and were hired, I was the one saying yes, I’ll be around just in case something happens and yes, I want to do this, because these steps toward independence are a great learning opportunity for my kids.
Once, I ran into a mom that hired Gabe to drive her daughter to an after school activity about 25 minutes away, two times a week. She told me Gabe was going to go far in life…”oookay?... why do you think that?” I said. She told me he negotiated his way to .55 cents a mile for gas, plus his hourly wage for babysitting. Her husband's gas reimbursement was less than that, GO GABE!
Dominic was babysitting another boy down the street and one night frantically called me, “MOM, I made him laugh so hard he peed his pants in the middle of the kitchen, what do I do?” With a stifled laugh, I answered, “Help him change into clean clothes, get him to shower before, put the pants in the laundry and start the wash, also, clean the kitchen when he goes to bed.” What a great learning moment and a funny story for our next dinner. I always told my kids to leave the kitchen and living room cleaner than you found it and you will get called back, and maybe even a tip. Again, great learning moments!
Allie has been babysitting a girl down the street for years. Story is now 9, going on 21 :) this girl is a hoot and so fun to have around. She’s been in and out of our house over the years and has become so comfortable with us, she comes and sits on our porch and chats when she has breaks from online school. The popsicle might have helped the lure to our front porch, nonetheless, we’ve gotten to know her well over the years. Recently, her mother texted a few of us neighbors and said she was going to be out of the house for an hour and it was Story’s first time alone, is anyone around, just in case. A few of us said yes, and Story had her porch to porch route all figured out while she was “on her own”.
Story came through for me recently. We were going on a road trip and I needed someone to check the mail. Mom and Story agreed to check the mail for me, but it was Story’s job and responsibility. I left a box on the front porch with a medal saying Best Mail Collector Ever! Apparently, she wore that medal to school the next day.
For the last year, during COVID, two of our college kids have decided to stay home and attend school online. As you can imagine, the house has gotten smaller over the last year and our kids have been pinning for some semblance of independence. A couple months ago they came up with the brilliant idea to rent office space in order to have a place to go to get their school work done (and some space). After some research and realizing it’s not cheap to rent space, they got more creative. Allie reached out to Story’s mom and asked if they could rent their “barn” (over the garage space) since they can’t rent it because of COVID. They went back and forth and made a deal for their own space to get away. All on their own, I had nothing to do with this one. They grew into these people that can figure out how to get “office space” from one of the people in our village.
What is your village like? Please share any stories you have about your village.
