Glorified Babysitters: Why the Name? (Full Story)

 
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A LONG TIME AGO

Hi — I’m Marta.

I used to run a large class of five-year-olds. These kids were friends with each other but went to different schools. This class was every Friday afternoon, and needless to say, it was a very challenging class to run because everyone was tired, the kids were super excited to get to see each other and not really in the mood to study anymore. We were practicing Italian (the kids were all pretty much bilingual but barely got to exercise any Italian), learning vocabulary, basic orthography, reading, singing, etc. Pretty soon, it became apparent that I had to work in turns with smaller groups of kids (say two or three at a time — they were approximately 7) because when they were all in the same group, no one could focus. Even the calmer kids got swooped into a vortex of physical energy (remember when I said five-year-olds?). 

So I started planning differently, alternating activities that felt like a game to more didactic moments, while trying to match the personality of each kid to the type of exercise at hand. It was very demanding but it worked.

ONE DAY I GOT A CALL

Then, one day I got a call from one of the parents: "You should really email us what you do every week because it's impossible to find out from them. When we ask our kids what they did, they just reply 'We played.'" Naturally, I used to debrief parents at pick up, but it was a little hectic and so the request seemed reasonable.

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People often ask me if our name is ironic.

Yes. Yes, of course, it is. It's typically an insult, but the best (and only) thing you can do with an insult is to turn it into a badge of honor.

But then it happened, the unnecessarily offensive follow-up: "Yes you should let us know what you do in class — they added — because otherwise, it's just glorified babysitting." 

I was blown away. It was so offensive it made me want to laugh, but no reaction would have been good in the long run, so I said: "Sure, absolutely." 

As I was biking home that evening, those words resonated in my mind loudly. It was hard to process because the part of me that got offended wanted to stay offended, but the more aligned and calmer part of me made me realize that yes, perhaps we really are glorified babysitters. We are babysitters even when we teach, even when we have degrees, PhDs, Red Cross certificates, and we can perform Heimlich maneuvers on tiny bodies (I personally did it twice), we’re still babysitters when we monitor health and happiness, when we sleep train, when we potty train, when we train them how to grab a pen without palming, when we make sure the clothes they're wearing are appropriate for the weather, when we make sure they don't play in the sun without sunscreen on, when we expose them to as many different foods as possible to get them familiarized with real flavors before junk food happens, when we teach them what a seed is and how to grow a plant from it, and why bugs and bees are great. We are babysitters when we show them how to be kind to the younger ones, when we sing and dance and breathe and read stories, when we talk them out of tantrums, when we monitor their arguments with each other, when we mend their wounds and help them realign. 

THE IDEA

That day I decided I was going to start a babysitting agency one day where the "sitting" part will be the minor part, and all the added value is the focus. I thought “I will group together people who are incredibly skilled in various areas (arts, music, sports, cooking, gardening, etc.) and who are naturals with kids, and design our time with kids so that they can benefit from all the things we spent a lifetime learning. We'll be Glorified Babysitters

I immediately got excited and now, well, here we are.

 
Logo by Anouck Ferri

Logo by Anouck Ferri

 
Marta Castella, Ph.D.

Marta is an author, linguistic coach, teacher, and founder of Glorified Babysitters. Her goal is to raise the bar in early education, promote multilingualism and give children the mindful environment and care they need to discover and appreciate the world. She earned her Ph.D. in formal Linguistics and worked as a researcher, widening her expertise in early childhood neuroscience, language, and education. When she’s not busy diving deeper into mindfulness practices or reading research papers, you’ll find her teaching children stuff like gardening, cooking or reading stories.

http://www.glorifiedbabysitters.com
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