Crash Courses in Diversity from a Maverick Babysitter

Fun and games

I have a French babysitter. He's a 20 year old French dude who the kids absolutely adore. He plays games, has endless patience, and creates exactly the kind of rough and tumble adventurous playground that obliterates any feelings of guilt you might have for going out.

There are some downsides, however.

He plays football inside with the same gay abandon as he does outside. He helps himself to beers which he then leaves casually lying around. He borrowed my car once, which he promptly crashed. Clearing up must have been something left out of his early education.

So yes - room for improvement, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Stereotypically male?

In many ways his babysitting skills epitomise the best and worst attributes of a typical man. I came back last week to find the 3 kids asleep in random locations around the house, covered in various bits of dinner.

I suspect that if I had left my 8 year old son in charge, the end result would have been very similar. And then I wondered, what would have happened if I had left his twin sister in charge instead? Bed earlier, teeth brushed, and maybe even a tidy kitchen? Who knows.

A winning team

The truth is, the twins make a great team. They're inseparably grumpy friends, brilliant foils for each other, and act as a very effective team against the best intentions of their parents. It's living proof of the case for gender diversity, and why the French call boy-girl twins "le choix des rois".

I was enjoying my musings as I cleared up the mess left by the babysitter.

You only have to see what happens when one of the twins has a bunch of friends round to understand why diversity is essential. When the girls are together, we (my son and I) are aggressively excluded from the inane chattering that filters through various locked doors. And when it's the boys, it seems to be just a lot of shouting and football until something or someone gets broken.

Is there a lesson here? Not really.

You could, I suppose, get a couple to babysit. My parents organised that once but it went wrong as well... Although, I suspect that was probably a matter of biology rather than diversity!

Ben Black