Last night, we said goodbye to our babysitter of nearly eight years. It was a day that was a long time coming, and although my three-year-old didn’t quite understand the connection between his currently going to school every day and Cecilia leaving, we all were prepared in our own way for the inevitable.
I first met Cecilia on a snowy, slushy day in February. I had given birth to our first child two months prior, and was gearing up to return to work–happily, I might add, because I was feeling totally out of my depth as a new mother. Tired, cranky, never a fan of babies to begin with, I was itching to leave the house without first having to pile layers upon layers on a jangly infant and then trying to navigate the stroller into the elevator and out in the cold to go…to the drugstore.
Cecilia came into our home a bit reserved, but lit up when she saw my son. I watched her during those first few weeks. Her previous employer had said she “never worried for a minute when her son was in Cecilia’s care.” And I quickly understood what she’d meant. Cecilia was always calm, always gentle. She didn’t seem to tire of holding a crying infant or trying every twenty minutes to feed a baby with reflux.
I went back to work and everybody thrived. I loved coming home and hearing about my son’s day, and then after Cecilia had left for the night, bathtime was mine–a relaxed interlude of bubbles and babbling. When my daughter was born, two and a half years later, I called home from the hospital to tell my mother and Cecilia that we’d had a girl. The two of them hugged and cried. It was the first granddaughter for my parents, and the first girl Cecilia had cared for in more than fifteen years.
Two years later, our third child, a boy, was born. By this time, I was no longer working in an office but was instead cobbling together some freelance work. The baby, as I’ve mentioned, cried and cried. By the time Cecilia would arrive in the mornings, I’d practically pitch him into her arms. And she held him, and rocked him, and cleaned up immeasurable amounts of vomit, as we all did, and then some.
I don’t remember what she said to me, exactly, but she continued to reassure me that someday he would sleep for more than two hours at a time, and someday he would stop vomiting. And he did. But that was almost two years later. In the meantime, life with three small children was hectic, what with pick-ups and drop-offs and trying to fit in some freelance work, to say nothing of the bedlam that now was bathtime, and I was more grateful than ever to have Cecilia helping me navigate it all. I told her daily (and probably somewhat deliriously) that I could never, in any way, have made it through with my sanity intact without her.
I know there are lots of politics involved in talking about babysitters and nannies (Cecilia prefers to be called the former). There are plenty of valid points to be made about wealth and class disparity and the privilege of parents who employ help. But that’s not what I’m interested in talking about for the moment. Too often, those of us with help don’t fully acknowledge that there is a third parent in our lives. I’m not sure if it takes a village, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to raise children with an extra pair of hands, and, more importantly, an additional set of outstretched arms for a crying child to find comfort in. With an extra villager in the hut, mothering is a lot less lonely. There is untold value in an arched eyebrow met across the room–the private yet shared laughter when a child says something slightly suspect or particularly hilarious.
Despite what Craigslist may promise, there is no Mary Poppins to be found. No babysitter is perfect. But we learn from the people we bring into our homes. And from Cecilia, among other things, I learned the wisdom in waiting it out.
They won’t eat anything but pasta? Just wait. They refuse to take a nap? Give it a week. Active parenting is involved, for sure, but for the most part, the irritating behavior goes away, and the stage passes. And apparently, my children’s babyhood has passed as well. Which brings us back to that farewell.
When Cecilia left last night, after the send-off songs and cupcakes and photo books, I closed the door behind her, looked at my husband, and had a moment of, “Well then, I guess it’s just us.” I had watched (tearfully) as Cecilia hugged my oldest son goodbye. When he met her, about seventy pounds ago, he seemed wholly unformed. But eight years later, here he is, a child, and me, a mother. And for finding our footing on both of those paths, we owe a debt of gratitude to Cecilia.
Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen is an Upper West Side mother of three.
