Dumped

Image credit: Photo by odedgal on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

Austen's babysitter quit.

On the one hand, I don't blame her. Austen has the ability to terrorize his babysitters in a way he does no one else except delivery people, to whom he is like a very loud and aggressive dog; he wants none of them on his territory (unless they are bringing presents for him, of course). However, with babysitters (unlike delivery people), the problem tends to originate in his desperate desire for them to love him and be his particular playthings. He can become insanely jealous of any little attention paid to his sister Janie, and he combine that with a swirling dose of anxiety over having someone not quite intimately familiar in the house (while his intimate familiars are gone) to create his old familiar, rigidity, and roiling clouds of foul temper.

We've been working with him to manage his anxiety and change his behavior, and he's making progress, but sometimes a tempest brews nonetheless. The storm builds as he adamantly insists that the sitter pay constant attention solely to him and perform every minute action his way. And his way involves a thousand intricate OCD tics that I can't begin to document fully and in fact, rarely see myself, as they aren't present without the heightened anxiety of someone different around: Set the microwave to cook things in intervals of 30 seconds. Move this chair to that place in the room before you turn on the TV. Don't sing. Don't talk to other adults. Don't write anything down. Don't say any of an ever changing and expanding list of no less than fifty common (but upsetting and forbidden) words, which may include your own name. And for the love of all that is good, don't ever refer to the cat as "she!"

If he's reached a steaming height of frustration with the sitter's inability (or perfectly healthy and acceptable refusal) to perform the impossible task of soothing his every anxiety for him through constant attention and a meticulous perfection in every action and word, he'll melt down. He'll scream. He'll stomp. He'll take jealous swipes at Janie. He'll demand attention. Add to this hunger or tiredness or some recent disruption in routine and it will create the perfect storm of insatiable, unreasonable demands and desperate, endless howling when they are not met.

Mark and I came home several weeks ago to a babysitter who informed us it had been a very bad night. Austen -- exhausted from the disruption of spring break -- had screamed at her for more than an hour until he collapsed, fully clothed, on his bed and fell sound asleep an hour before his usual bedtime.

It sounded like the sitter had handled the situation well. There's an art to working with Austen: a fine balance of knowing when to be strict and not allowing his whims to rule you, while knowing when to bend yourself.  A misstep can create unnecessary pain for all parties, but there didn't really seem to have been one in this case. Even those most skilled in navigating Austen's needs will eventually find themselves stuck in a meltdown maelstrom with nothing for it but to batten down the hatches and ride out the storm. And such seemed to be the case that night. Austen threw carefully predetermined rewards to the winds, knowingly braved all the consequences we laid out before we left and threw the mother of all fits.

While Mark paid the babysitter, I went upstairs to change Austen into his pajamas. He half woke up and said, "Mama, I have something to apologize for."

"What is it, buddy?"

"I was mean to the sitter. Well, I think she thought I was mean. I should say sorry, but she wasn't doing things right. She should do things my way. I was so mad," he mumbled drowsily, before falling asleep again.

The sitter let us know a few days later that she wouldn't be coming back. I know it's what's best for her, and ultimately what's best for Austen, but on that (long-awaited) other hand, I took her leaving with a pang. Austen liked her and wanted her to like him, but in trying to get her to reassure him of that, he had done the very things calculated to push her away. He felt sorry (I believe) for how he'd treated her, but couldn't fully express that nor stop himself from doing it in the first place.

I thought of all the people in his future -- bosses or caretakers or potential lovers -- whose attention and affection, like the sitter's, will be conditional. I thought of all the people he'll need in his life or want in his life who will be pushed away by his behavior. And I felt panicky and sad. We mamas don't want our babies to be rejected, but they will be. At some point, they will be. We want the whole world to love them the way we do, but the world won't. Not everyone. For some people they will just be too difficult. Too much trouble. Too hard to understand. I can only hope that enough people understand him, and he is able to understand them enough to get along.

For a few minutes, I let myself cry over the secret fear that it won't happen, then I said, "Austen, come here, buddy. Let's work some more on how to talk to babysitters."