Mommy Muskrat

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to take a break from L and J. They're starting to drive me crazy, and they're turning their sweet little baby into a raging brat. I've had a similar experience in the past; when I was a nanny for my neighbors back in Tulsa, I would get everything in order, get the kids to behave, get the house clean, and then their parents would come back and fuck it all up. Rome was built and destroyed in the same day. The father's method of discipline was to get pissed off and then walk out of the room, ignoring the whole thing, and the mother's method was to give the kids whatever they wanted. For the longest time, I was the only one that could get them to do anything, and I was the only person they actually respected.

Tonight the baby woke up and started crying, as he still does sometimes even though he should be sleeping through the night by now. J's method was to turn all of the lights on, pick the baby up, talk to him, and feed him. That is about the worst thing you can do, because it will only train him to want those things in the middle of every night. This is why he can't get a decent night's rest and why he is often cranky all day, because he rarely sleeps in long cycles. I took him from J and tried to rock him in the living room, but the two parents kept coming in every 10 seconds, making noise, talking to me, turning on lights, drinking water, until the baby was wide awake again. I put him in his crib, which is where he needed to be, and J kept feeding him Cheerios and saying that he needed a bottle. L got pissed off and snapped at J, then left the room to let us deal with it. After she finally gave him a bottle, I tried to lay back down on the couch, turning off all the lights. J came back in and snapped at me for turning the kitchen light off; at that point, I started getting my shit together and left without saying goodbye to either of them. Aaaagh!

Here are Muskrat's rules for parenting. I realize I am not a parent and that people without kids always know more than people with kids, but I promise you, everyone will agree with what I'm about to say, with the exception of L and J.

1. When your baby is going down for a nap, BE QUIET. Don't talk to him or one another, don't turn the TV up loud, don't open and shut doors....just sit the hell down and shut up for a few minutes. While the baby's taking a nap, resume your regular activities with the thought in mind that if you make noise, the baby will wake up. Of the four adults who live in that household, zero seem to understand this concept.

2. Parenting is made possible by routine. Feeding, sleeping, bathing, etc., need to be on some kind of schedule. Flexibility is certainly important, and there are always special circumstances, but if the child has no routine, you'll find it impossible to live your life in any other way except minute-to-minute. When I would babysit for my neighbors' children, they would go to bed at a certain time, and if they cried about it, they still went to bed. After a couple of days, they went to bed without complaint. When their parents took over again, the kids were allowed to get up 100 times for juice, cookies, water, blankets, you name it, and so they started whining again when it was time for bed. My parents had their faults, but they always kept us on a schedule so that the family wasn't constantly in a state of panic and disorder. I never realized how smart they were to do that.

3. Do not wake your child up so that you can play with him. Wow, I can't believe I even have to write that.

4. Do not use the TV to babysit your child. Some educational TV is great for children and babies, but limit it to an hour at most. L and J's baby is already starting to zone out and stare at the TV when adult shows are on like The Daily Show and anything on the SciFi Channel. If you try to distract him with a book, he gets annoyed at you. This is NOT GOOD.

5. Don't smoke. At all. Anywhere. I used to think that as long as you smoked outside, you were fine, but the doctor told us that the smoke gets on your clothes and will still end up hurting the baby. After I heard that, I quit. I've had relapses, especially in the last week, but I never smoke over there because I don't want to hurt the baby. J, on the other hand, thinks it's okay to smoke in any room in which the baby is not currently residing. This means there is smoke in his sheets, on his clothes, in the carpet where he plays, etc. This is also NOT GOOD.

6. When your child has some sort of recurring problem, decide as parents what you're going to do about it, and do it. If you both do different things, the kid will learn that the rule is to find the parent that will give him what he wants and cry until he gets it. The time to argue about what to do when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night is NOT while the baby is crying at 3a.m.

7. Do not feed your baby sweets such as chocolate, donuts, and other things with refined sugar and saturated fat. This gives the baby a taste for all that shit at an early age, plus he won't be satisfied with something as bland as whole grain cereal.

8. Do not leave lights on when your child is sleeping. Do people not know this? Read this. Leaving lights on while the baby sleeps will cause eye strain and difficulty staying asleep. Just so you know, leaving a light on isn't good for you, either. It's better to sleep in total darkness (unless you're diabetic, but that's a whole other story).

9. Trying to make your child like you should not be one of your highest priorities. If you love your baby, play with him, feed him well, and take good care of him otherwise, he will love you back. You do not need to give in to every passing whim and tantrum so that the baby will think you're the greatest parent ever. In fact, the kid will probably end up treating you like shit when he gets older, because he can get away with it.

Of course, telling any of this to L and J has proved pointless. I'm not the baby's parent, I don't have any children of my own, so my opinion can't really count for anything. Yet I'm involved in his life so much that I have to deal with the bad effects these things are having on him. The best parents I have known just seem to find the items listed above to be common sense. Forgive me for being single and childless and knowing everything, but I pray that if I have children, I will at least find more subtle and complex ways to fuck the kids up. L and J are just too damned obvious about it.