I don't like that the title of this book implies that the Barrett kids are nightmares. They're not my favorites, by any means, but they're not terrors. Their mother is the impossible one, and I just can't stand her.
It's a fact. I really freakin' hate Mrs. Barrett. I've been straddling the fence for a while, but frankly, she just takes it over the edge. I get that divorce is hard. I get that single motherhood is not an easy thing to adapt to. But Mrs. Barrett? GROW UP. DEAL WITH YOUR LIFE. (For the record, these are the same things I tell myself when I start to have a flip-out. In fact, I should just tattoo the words "Deal with your life." on my forehead, I repeat them to myself so often.)
Okay, so Dawn is sitting alone at the Pikes for just Mal and the youngest three. Mal is a nosy parker (nose Pike-r? Ha! I pun!) and wants to know all about Dawn's "new-old" house (Mal's wordplay is not nearly as clever as mine. Ha! Take that Mal.) and her mother's relationship with Mr. Spier, which is a just a little creepy to me. But then Buddy and Suzi Barrett come over, and Suzi is crying 'cuz she skinned her knee, so Dawn has to take care of her and then Buddy and Suzi stay at the Pikes' house the rest of the afternoon. That's six kids. Why is that okay? Mrs. Pike always has two baby-sitters for more than four kids. And anyway, why should Dawn have to take care of extra kids? Send them home Dawn! You're not going to get paid any extra for watching the neighbor's kids (especially when that neighbor is the abominable Mrs. Barrett.)
That evening at the BSC meeting (Mrs. Pike returns just after 5, so Dawn has plenty of time to get to the meeting. Something that's been bothering me recently... Doesn't anyone need a baby-sitter from 5:30-6:00 pm on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, EVER? I mean, if Kristy is so strict on everyone attending these meetings, how do they ever take any jobs on these days? I can't imagine that all the parents are willing to plan their lives around returning home so the baby-sitter can get to some meeting. Do they just not use the BSC then? I don't think Kristy would be okay with the loss of clients. Doesn't anyone think these things through???) ANYWAY, that evening at the BSC meeting, Mrs. Barrett actually calls to schedule a sitter, explaining that she heard of the BSC from Mrs. Pike, has 3 kids, and is recently divorced. Dawn ends up taking the job.
The job does not start well. Dawn arrives and Suzi lets her in, while Buddy tries to shoot her, and Dawn gives him a speech about how guns are not toys and we should not even pretend that they are. Though I actually do agree with Dawn and gave this same speech to many kids I baby-sat for, I wish Buddy would have come back with a little speech of his own about his 2nd amendment rights. That would have been hysterical. Sadly, Buddy's not that smart. Then Mrs. Barrett comes flying down the stairs, looking, as Dawn puts it "absolutely gorgeous", waves to her children, and runs out the door, with Dawn following trying desperately to ask the important baby-sitter questions. "What am I [Dawn] supposed to do this afternoon?... For a moment, [Mrs. Barrett's] beautiful face looked confused. "Just...sit." she said. "What if there's an emergency? How do I reach you?" "I'll be at Mason and Company. It's on Spring Street. Or call the Pikes, okay?"" and she zooms off! Ugh. Have you ever hired a baby-sitter before, Mrs. Barrett? So if there's an emergency with your children, you just want me to call the neighbors? Do the neighbors even know this? Are the Pikes even home?
So the house and the children are a complete mess. It's a Tuesday afternoon, none of the children have their hair brushed, their clothes are a disaster, the kitchen is overflowing with dirty, crusty dishes. Frankly, the whole place sounds a lot like a freshman boys' dorm room, and it makes me (and Dawn) want to barf. So she plays a game with the kids to have races to see how fast they can clean up the house as a surprise for their mom. And I'm sorry, but if Dawn and the kids can have the place at least presentable in a little over a half-hour, then what the hell does Mrs. Barrett do all day??? I know she's recently divorced and trying to find a job, and as they haven't moved, that says to me that she wasn't working beforehand, so shouldn't she be used to caring for the kids and the house? Seriously, WHAT does she do all day? I'm starting to think she's a closet alcoholic or she's depressed and stays in bed all day. This is not okay! After the cleaning, the kids and Dawn do a little bonding over how divorce sucks, then Mrs. Barrett comes home and calls Dawn "a wonder." Yeah, Mrs. Barrett, because she can do your work while you prance around pretending to be a model and ignoring your children? I hate you.
A few weeks later, on a Saturday, Dawn is sitting for the Barrett's again while Mrs. Barrett goes to a job search seminar. Same situation as always: house is a disaster, children are not fed, Marnie badly needs a diaper change, but Mrs. Barrett is looking stunning as usual. This so angers me. I know I need to calm down and remember that this is childrens' fiction, but seriously. UGH. This woman is out of control. Dawn manages to feed them breakfast, get them and the house cleaned up, bake brownies, and get all three kids over to the Pikes for a lunchtime picnic. Dawn is way better than I ever would be. At the Pikes, everyone is enjoying lunch (Claud and Stacey are baby-sitting the Pikes that day) when Dawn cuts the brownies and hands one to baby Marnie. Mallory dives across the blanket and snatches it out of her hand, prompting Dawn's response "What do you think you're doing? You'll get a brownie in a minute, Mallory." Heh. I laughed. Mal snatching candy from babies- she's such a sourpuss, it wouldn't surprise me all that much. Turns out though, Mal is saving the day: Marnie is severely allergic to chocolate. Guess which terrible mother forgot to point that out to her baby-sitter. I swear, this woman is bordering on child abuse!
Dawn finally confronts Mrs. Barrett about the allergy thing, and Mrs. Barrett just sighs. Then she tells Dawn that the one other important thing she should know is that if Mr. Barrett, her ex-husband, ever calls, he is not to be allowed to talk to or see the children, and in fact, should not know that Dawn is baby-sitting. "Say you're a mother's helper and I'm busy." Ummmm, okay, don't you think maybe that's something you should have told her from the beginning??? Why wait until she's been watching your kids for a month to let her know? I mean, that's harsh- she makes it sound like he's a criminal or something. Frankly, at this point, Dawn should just stop baby-sitting for them. I knew a woman once who had problems with her custody arrangements and her ex-husband, and I wasn't allowed to baby-sit for her because my dad said he didn't want me in the middle of all that. And really, he was right. I was about Dawn's age at the time, and it would have just been too much.
More stuff that Dawn puts up with: Suzi gets violently ill with the flu one day while Dawn is baby-sitting, and Mrs. Barrett left the wrong phone number, so Dawn can't reach her. Dawn ends up getting sick and infecting Sharon and Jeff after caring for her, while Buddy infects the Pike clan after Dawn sends him down to play while she tries to help Suzi. Another: Buddy needs help creating a family tree for school, but Mrs. Barrett just can't be bothered. Dawn helps him do it, and when he gets a good grade, he brings it to her for praise, because he knows his mother is a self-centered bitch (well, he doesn't use those words...) And finally, while Mary Anne is baby-sitting, Mrs. Barrett returns home and has this little tantrum
"And Buddy, what is the matter with you? I get notes from your teacher; you give Mary Anne trouble. I don't have time for this, young man. I cannot be your mother and your father, run this household, look for a job, and straighten out the messes you get yourself into. It's too much to ask of anybody."No, Mrs. Barrett, it is not. It is a lot, yes, and it is difficult, yes, but plenty of people do all this and more, every single day. Dawn's mother, Mary Anne's father, Kristy's mother, and many, many more people manage to make it on their own. They might not always look like models, but their children are loved and cared for. You are truly a heinous woman.
The last straw comes one Saturday when Dawn is baby-sitting and Buddy disappears. Dawn runs frantically around the neighborhood looking for him, starting with the Pikes. When she still hasn't found him after about a half hour, she calls Mrs. Pike again in a panic. (Sidebar: I actually like Mrs. Pike in this book! Maybe it's just that Mrs. Barrett is such a craptastic parent that almost anyone looks good in comparison?) Mrs. Pike helps Dawn rally the neighbors to continue searching. Mrs. Barrett is unreachable because "She went to Greenvale to shop." SHE WENT TO GREENVALE TO SHOP leaving her children and her house in utter disarray, after whining to Dawn a few days ago that money is tight since her ex-husband left. I can't freaking stand this bitch.
Jordan Pike then comes home from his piano lesson and tells them that he saw Buddy getting into a car about the same time that he was being picked up for his lesson. At this point, Mrs. Pike decides they should call the police. Umm, you think? I probably would have done that a bit earlier. The police come and ask lots of questions and do their thing. Finally, Buddy calls from a pay phone to say he's with his father and on his way home. Then Mrs. Barrett shows up, and realizes, oops, her mistake, it actually was her ex-husband's day to see the kids! My bad! What a dipshit.
Of course, Mr. Barrett is kind of a dipshit too, as he decided to just take Buddy and wait for Mrs. Barrett to figure out her mistake, never realizing that there was a baby-sitter in charge. Both of these parents get off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, and I think that this is telling of the different kind of world we lived in back in 1987, when this book was written. Can you imagine this scene today? There would have been Amber Alerts immediately, Mr. Barrett would definitely be going to prison for kidnapping, and Mrs. Barrett would stand a good chance of losing her kids.
Finally, Dawn sits down for a long overdue talk with Mrs. Barrett and tells her she can't sit for them anymore because she's not doing anyone any favors by allowing Mrs. Barrett to continue on without taking responsibility for herself and her children. Mrs. Barrett asks her to please reconsider, with some changes: She will ask Dawn to arrive 15 minutes before she needs to leave, so they have time to talk (umm, why wouldn't she do that anyway? Is she really this big of an idiot?) and will not expect Dawn to do housework unless she leaves specific chores and pays Dawn extra for them (wait, I thought money was tight?) and blah blah blah. Dawn agrees to sit for them 3 more times on a trial basis to see if things improve. And I guess they do, because we see a lot more of the Barretts in the future, unfortunately.
In other news, Kristy sort of hates Dawn for half the book because she's jealous of Mary Anne's friendship with Dawn. That really must be hard for Kristy, especially on the heels of her mother's engagement to Watson and the family's impending move across town. One day, though, Dawn asks Kristy to come over to her house after school while Mary Anne is busy baby-sitting. The two girls bond, and it's really sweet. I always think Kristy and Dawn have a lot in common, being sort of adventurous and un-self-conscious, as well as being children of divorced parents whose fathers live in California. I like that they're friends because I think they could really help each other. Anyway, they play in Dawn's barn for a while, swinging from the hayloft (which, BTW, we used to do when I was a kid and it is really, truly, so damn fun. I'm not even kidding. One of my dad's best friends has a barn on his property and we used to have barbecues out there all the time, and before and after dinner all of us kids would run out to the barn to literally swing from the rafters. That is one of my all-time favorite childhood memories. So much fun!!! [I know. You wouldn't really expect that from me... I'm just full of surprises!]) It's nice that Kristy and Dawn can hang out together and do something together that Mary Anne would never do. After they wear themselves out they talk about divorce and moving and all the things they have in common. I love it!
Also, Mary Anne and Dawn are just a bit too involved in their parents' romantic lives for my comfort. They keep encouraging their parents to date. On Memorial Day weekend, Dawn's family has a barbecue that is basically just an excuse for Sharon to get her parents and Richard in the same place so Granny and Pop-pop can see that Richard is a stand-up guy, and they are assholes for judging him back when Sharon was in high school. It's awkward, but it goes well. At least well enough that Sharon is able to relax and get "involved in a conversation about the Phil Donahue show with Granny and Mrs. Barrett." Ha! I love the random pop culture references! What do you think they were saying about it? Maybe they were trying to convince Mrs. Barrett to be on an episode called "I care more about my looks than my children!"
Final note: Dawn is again sporting the Canadian Tuxedo on the cover of this book. Dawn, you have been warned. Keep this up, and I'm going to have to start referring to it as the "Californian Tuxedo."
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