A Week of Babysitting

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Abstract

<i>their</i> way with rare enthusiasm.</p><p id="4f87">Other kids, like this one, have already mastered distrust. I must earn her solidarity, a goal to which I consummately devote myself. It’s cathartic, to fulfill for a child my own youthful lack. In my tender years, still small and dewy-eyed, I’d have bleached over the sitter’s face with white — wiped her out in my aching blizzard. Erased her existence first, before she wrote me off: a bad kid, headstrong, undeserving of her amateur attempts at affinity. Though secretly I yearned for tender rapport.</p><p id="7d62">Caretaking is an art, I do not dabble. I’m practiced, single-minded in my focus on sensing a child’s emotional needs, and filling those holes before they become cavernous. She’s young enough, our interactions can mold the geologic force of her mind’s landscape. It’s a profound responsibility, well beyond tending to safety and meals. Will a week with a sympathetic adult — not ob

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ligated to care by familial bonds — prevent her from growing into, like me, a head with no core, limbs reaching?</p><p id="ef9e">It’s worthwhile to try. So I will be purple today and, by Friday, by extending to her my unfaltering goodwill, she will color me her favorite: a peacock teal cool as a calm clear lake where she does not fear to dip her toes.</p><div id="a858" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/write-for-the-lark-525aba334680"> <div> <div> <h2>Write for The Lark</h2> <div><h3>Submission guidelines for a short story and poetry publication</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*ozt7BP__wDxNylJnDZLoDg.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

A poem by a professional caretaker

source: depositphotos

“You’re purple today,” the girl says. Her unicorn leggings are splashed with stray acrylics, brush cup water stained green. She glides lilac paint over a face, thick paper spanning across her kitchen floor. I’m rendered, circle-headed, two dot eyes and an upturned strand smile, bodiless legs extended.

“I do feel purple,” I agree. Yesterday, she’d deemed me orange. An improvement over Monday’s gray. Some kids take to me instantly, like funnel cake. A special treat during life’s frenetic carnival. A bonus adult, no grown-ups competing, disrupting precious playtime with dull talk of traffic, trump, and taxes. A very tall new friend who will play their way with rare enthusiasm.

Other kids, like this one, have already mastered distrust. I must earn her solidarity, a goal to which I consummately devote myself. It’s cathartic, to fulfill for a child my own youthful lack. In my tender years, still small and dewy-eyed, I’d have bleached over the sitter’s face with white — wiped her out in my aching blizzard. Erased her existence first, before she wrote me off: a bad kid, headstrong, undeserving of her amateur attempts at affinity. Though secretly I yearned for tender rapport.

Caretaking is an art, I do not dabble. I’m practiced, single-minded in my focus on sensing a child’s emotional needs, and filling those holes before they become cavernous. She’s young enough, our interactions can mold the geologic force of her mind’s landscape. It’s a profound responsibility, well beyond tending to safety and meals. Will a week with a sympathetic adult — not obligated to care by familial bonds — prevent her from growing into, like me, a head with no core, limbs reaching?

It’s worthwhile to try. So I will be purple today and, by Friday, by extending to her my unfaltering goodwill, she will color me her favorite: a peacock teal cool as a calm clear lake where she does not fear to dip her toes.