singing, running, slapping...

But of course the people who live in The Suburbs -- pay money to live there -- probably want it to be

Real

Quiet.

Mission accomplished.

Even having a "Summer Girl" at all, is kind of an odd tradition -- maybe a lot of people still do that, or maybe they don't, I don't know. ...

I think the mom who hired me probably wanted to have a Summer Girl because all of the other young mothers she associated with, had Summer Girls.

But having a Summer Girl is a "job" or a "task set" for which you need a "skill set" in order to make it work.  It isn't all just "luxury" or convenience of having someone to help you.

I could see that, as I adjusted into my role in my summer-of-'76 job (and did I type in here yesterday that Elton John somehow saved my life?? maybe carried away...) -- but it's like, as the mother, you have to teach the summer girl what you want her to do, and how you want it done, and you now have a new dynamic in your house.  A summer girl is a person, too, and you have to deal successfully with them...and not everyone has those skills. 

She told me, either the first week, or maybe even in the interview, that the summer girl she'd had the year before got depressed and went to bed and wouldn't get up, and wound up going home. ...She gave me to understand that that summer girl had something wrong with her.  (Ah-hem.)

(??)  I was only 17 years old, what-do-you-want??...
Well, after about the first three days of working in that house, I was -- beginning to see why that other girl --
Got
DEE - Pressed...!

The thing was -- the mother only communicated with me, 99.99 percent of any speech in my direction, was
Giving Orders.

And the thing is -- I could realize, even at that young and inexperienced age, that with child-care and housework, you have to give a billion orders and instructions, because that's what it is.  It's a billion small, do-able jobs.  They aren't hard.  It's just that there are a billion of them.

I told myself that, I said, Hey, she has to keep telling me things, and telling me what's next, how else am I going to know...?

And the immediate difficulties and disappointments were small things that could certainly be lived through...

-- I couldn't take a shower after all, in "my" designated bathroom, because the first time I took a shower, the expensive wallpaper started peeling off the walls.  So I was back to washing my hair by kneeling on the floor and leaning over the edge of the tub, just like at home.  The taking of showers had been one of the exciting luxuries I'd been anticipating. ...

--I was supposed to have my own bedroom -- No, that was past history after the first night, when they put the baby in the same room with the 3-year-old and one woke the other up early and there was Morning High-Volume Soundage.  That was unacceptable to the Parent Units, so -- the baby was moved back into "my" room and for the remainder of the summer (all of it except the first night) I slept in the baby's room.

--The three-year-old, very understandably, resented her mother sort of palming her off on me, a stranger -- it was like rejection by her mom.  At first this beautiful child was happy to have a new Tall Human in the house--she would gleefully sing out my name and run around the house, carrying something she'd grabbed out of my suitcase while I was unpacking.  But by Day 2 or 3 she'd figured out what the game was, and she didn't like it -- being pushed off on me (who the hell was I, right?) by her mom...I didn't blame her.  It had been only 14 years since I'd been three years old.  I could imagine how that felt.

She would slap at my knees and yell, "Go home!"

I don't think the mom anticipated all of that.
Or -- any of that.

And what I did not anticipate was that, while the mom had been real nice and smiley in the interview, when I worked for her, it was different.  I had thought we would be -- sort of -- friends, or maybe not "friends" in a heavy sort of way, but that we would have a friendly, easy, pleasant -- fun -- relationship.  I wanted to learn from her -- I would easily have been President of her Fan Club -- I wanted a mentor, I guess, but she was unresponsive, on any type of happy, pleasant conversation.

Some employers do a "Good Interview" but they aren't nearly as good to work for, as they were to interview with. ...

(thesuburbsareboring)

I considered it, and decided, Well, she's not being super-horrible, or mean -- she's not Doing Anything to me -- and one thing I could say positive about her was, once she'd told me to carry out a task, and I did it, she never went to look at it and find something to complain about it.  She didn't bitch. 

She didn't bitch.  She just gave orders, directions, and instructions.

So I decided -- Yes, I can work here. 
It doesn't matter.
She doesn't care about having a friendly relationship with me, then FINE, I definitely don't want to be friends with her either.
(Total lie.)
How would we function in life if we didn't sometimes lie to ourselves, right?

So I concentrated on doing a good job, being kind and patient and vigilant with the children, and got acquainted on a very light basis (didn't see them very much) with the summer girl across the street (Lisa) and the one next door at Mr. & Mrs. R's -- Michelle.

I created space for myself to read and write in the evenings after the children were in bed -- the breakfast table at one end of the kitchen. 

Read a book about Jimmy Carter.  (His birthday is the same as mine...!)

There was a swimming pool out back, so there was child-care time spent in that -- that was nice.

And when the parents went out -- every Saturday night, to his restaurant in the city, and a few other nights throughout the summer...my relationship with the little kids improved fast.  Because then it wasn't like their mom was there but "turning them over" to me...with that dynamic removed, it went better....  After a while the 3-year-old stopped battering me. ...

-30-