Correct, HITMAN is now coming to you once a month. As I continue to implement the idea of “quality not quantity” to all aspects of my life this year, I must now let it bleed into this blog.
WHAT HITS
My buddy Harrison released a web series called How Does That Work? Watch it here. Episodes are less than five minutes. It’s tight, funny, and has an unpredictable story arc that completely threw me. I could not believe I was so efficiently moved! I am jealous I did not make this.
I have sort of become a freak for this musician known as The Dare. Can I say something crazy that I did not plan? His name is also Harrison. And? Leah later refers to her friend Harrison. Anyway, Perfume was on a playlist sent to me and I both laughed and cranked it. His lyrics are excessive and lewd. They’re silly but they’re taking themself seriously and also they are not at all. It’s a fun line. During the pandemic he created self-described "goofy" songs to send to his friends which is how he created his first single, Girls. I just learned he produced Charli XCX’s Guess which makes complete and total sense based off his style. If you like Guess, I’d check him out.
A DRIP on childcare and adultcare
I assumed I would have kids and then I started nannying. Now, I look at the choice with far more logic. I believed the answer came from the Moon but found it came from Milwaukee. It is not impossible to understand, it is a plane ride away. Babysit your friend’s kid for a day if you have reached the age culture has deemed “time” and are still confused. This isn’t a scare tactic. I’m not saying, “And then you’ll know!” followed by a wink. You’ll still walk away in a gray area but you’ll better understand the question. I have stepped into 50+ households for various childcare jobs. Not everyone wanted kids. These people are not awful parents. I write a blog for purpose. We’re all fighting the same thing.
By my definition, which is being with a family for 6+ months, I have helped raise nine kids. I’ve babysat 100. I have been a parent longer than the parents who Venmo me “childcare.” I am reaching grandmother-level wisdom in this facet of my life that I never intended to comprehend so quickly. I’ve tried many things to pay the bills but I keep circling back to nannying because it is flexible, lucrative, and even on the worst day of nannying I am not doing something fake. People responded with much more energy when I said I worked in fitness or in tech. I felt prouder claiming these titles that pointed toward someone with greater skill. But caregiving, isn’t that built in? Was every woman not born with the ability to sacrifice self for others? Isn’t that an organ she had from the start? No. Here is how to care for a kid by someone who has never had one.
Parent’s frequently say that they like that I treat their kid like an adult which makes it sound like I make them put together furniture while discussing their Roth IRA. What I really do is talk to a kid without taking on a different persona. Be your normal self when you talk to them. Babies are different. The baby voice is unstoppable. But all a two year old needs you to do when they point and ask, “What is firetruck?” is explain it how you would to an alien who arrived on Earth with full comprehension. They won’t understand but they will ask every day for the next three months and listen to your response without blinking. On the day they understand, they will ask another question like, “How does a firetruck know where to go?” It is awesome. Kids are stupid but they are intuitive. If you explain it in a way that makes them believe, “oh, they think I have the ability to understand this,” then they listen in that way. They can tell if you take them seriously even when they’re three. They’re a person who is younger than the other people you know. That’s it.
Each day you care for a kid is chaos. Like anything, if you resist the chaos, it’s a “bad day.” If you accept it and flow, it’s a “hell of a day.” A kid asks, “Will you be patient with me again?” every waking moment but differently each time. For example, it can sound like, “HI! WILL YOU BE PATIENT WITH ME AGAIN? LALALA DOGS GO MEOW! ARE YOU A CAT OR A BOY? HAHA. NOW, SUDDENLY, I AM EXTREMELY SAD. BUT NOT FOR LONG! IS THERE A GOD?” and it looks more like you playing monopoly at 7:15am in a toy closet with a four year old who is cheating and every time you call him out for cheating his face twists evil and his eyes well up and he seethes through his eight crooked teeth, “Alexa? Play the Gummy Bear Song,” knowing full well his nanny is always chill but her Kryptonite is the Gummy Bear Song.
Take nothing a kid does personally. If you do, you fail. I have failed. Gentle parenting is a term tossed around a lot. It’s a dumb term for attempting kindness. If you don’t yell at the adults in your life when you’re angry, don’t yell at the kids. If you yell at anyone then it’s time to start getting in touch with how you process your emotions. In teaching a kid how to do this you can also teach or reteach yourself.
This is a map of consciousness and soul and understanding and heart. What a kid does to you, however cruel, should never pass the yellow zone. They know not what they do. They truly have no idea what they’re doing almost all of the time until the day they can make a peanut butter sandwich on their own without help and without asking for permission and before doing so they say something like, “Do you want one, too?” On that day, a kid understands 2 and 3. Level 4 happens somewhere in 4th or 5th grade, when you feel fully conscious of the world. But before all this, kids operate in Level 1 and Level 5. But Cat, there is not a Level 5 on the map. You’re right. There is a period between ages 18 months and four years where kids possess a wisdom that you no longer have that they are teetering on losing. They will look at you after a nap and state, “The birds. The birds are with us,” with the voice of Liam Neeson and then proceed to beg for fruit snacks. They will sprint up to you at the park and whisper, “They want to know why you stopped listening.” and then run straight into a tree. These terse poems appear for a finite time and have every right to be taken to heart. Much of your twenties are spent crying about how nobody ever said it would be this hard. I have considered responding to these Level 5 declarations with a hard thing from adulthood as I’ve caught them in a moment of openness. My hope being that when they’re 26 they can remember and say, “Wait! Somebody did say it would be this hard.” For instance, they whisper, “But why did you stop listening?” and I respond with, “Someone who breaks your heart so purely will get married to someone with long dark hair who wears multiple rings on the day that was your anniversary.” The kid will say, “What do the hair and rings have to do with it?” I will say, “Every ex you have will go on to date a woman with long dark hair who wears multiple rings. Your aesthetic opposite. Rings totally sick you out to wear. But rings are beautiful. All of this will haunt you,” The kid will say, “Full respect, but this sounds like a you problem,” I’ll say, “You’re probably right. But someday you might have a similar one,” The kid will say, “I understand.” We would then both run straight into the tree and never speak of either truth again.
When you feel you’re about to take something a kid has done personally, it is time for alone time. You can have alone time and care for a kid. Here’s how. You say, “I’m feeling frustrated so I’m going to stand over here and have some alone time to calm down.” Then, you stand over there and watch the kid dive off of the couch and into the beanbag nine times in a row screaming “The wall! Is not a wall! Oh yeah, baby!” and realize you have been on the planet 29 years longer than the freak spirit leaping before you. It’s a win-win. The kid understands that alone time is something you can ask for. So do you.
Narrate being alive so they understand. Gently put them in the stroller and say, “I’m feeling flustered because we’re late for music class so I’m going to whistle. It is ok if you’re late to things sometimes. Maybe next week we leave at 7:50 instead of 8.” It feels like a clunky episode of Bluey but it works. Some day they’ll run up to you in the backyard and yell, “I feel excited,” and then hand you a leaf which will feel like a huge win and you’ll need to say something like, “What an exciting leaf!” to affirm. They will squeal and walk away backwards chanting “leaf, leaf, cat, cat, leaf, cat, poop.”
In order to be alive, with some success, you must have a sense of humor. It changes the day from something strange and terrifying into something that is ours. Teach a kid there is power in navigating through life with lightness. If you don’t know this power yet, they will teach it to you. I’ll be at some kid’s house and the kid will say something like, “Do the fruit fruit!” and the parent will look at me and say, “This is embarrassing but I’m about to break into a character that loves bananas and is also a banana. It’s the only way he eats fruit.” I give them a thumb’s up and silently observe a 43 year old hedge fund manager morph into a banana named “fruit fruit” that loves to eat itself. We all carry a dictionary of inside jokes with ourselves and the people in our world to stay afloat. Kids need to learn that, too. When the milk spills, teach them to accept it. It is as easy as dramatically saying, “Not the milk! Not the milk! What will we do?” and collapsing to the ground as the kid laughs and grabs a rag. It is so much easier than getting pissed off that you have a mess to clean up.
I’m making a quote I’ve reread or sent to friends when we find ourselves in despair more complicated than needed as I weave through false maps of consciousness and gifted leaves and cannibal bananas. Teach what Aldous Huxley describes in Island.
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…
…So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.”
It would be wrong to interpret the quote or my advice as directing a kid towards apathy. “Lightly, child, lightly” is a way to move through shadow that feels impossible to overcome. It’s as easy as Doing the Penguin. It’s as challenging as feeling like you’d like to harm yourself and understanding you can pick up the phone and tell someone with lightness. You are not required to sink to deserve it. You can think, “I should call someone but-” and stop. You can reach for the phone and you can do it quickly. I use, “lightly, child, lightly,” in despair, grief, heartbreak. I use it at friend’s weddings when I’m so joy-filled I can’t focus. Lightness is one side of this quote’s kindness. The other is remembering to care for yourself as you would a child. Here are a series of childcare tricks I have acquired over the years that might demonstrate what I’m getting at.
Doing the Penguin: This is when you get on a bus or train with your nanny and there are no available seats. At this point she says, “Do the penguin!” and you grab onto her legs and hold on until she taps your head twice which signifies that you have reached your stop and can become human again. Sometimes penguins make sound, sometimes they do not. It really depends on the energy of the penguin and tolerance of the general public.
Strong Soup: This is for when you are extremely cold or tired or grumpy. Strong Soup offers a temporary cure. If you cup both of your hands together in a bowl, your nanny will open up her backpack and dig through the pockets until she discovers a pot of Strong Soup. She will then pour the soup into your hands and you will drink it from your paws. If it’s a particularly hard day, the nanny may yell, “isn’t that delicious?” and drink so much Strong Soup that she spills it all over her coat. What frenzy.
Small Stick: This is for when you are scared shitless of dogs, trees, sky, people, wind, snow and sun but have to go outside. Your nanny will find a small stick and explain that when you hold it in the hand that is not death gripped around your nanny’s that you are strong enough to be in the world. The stick will be guarded in your tiny palm for weeks. On the day you let it go, your nanny will carry it in her pocket for years to remember your courage.
Playing the song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones: This is the most buckwild rule that I discovered with my first nanny family. It was a blustery Chicago afternoon where we had exhausted all inside playing resources and were frustrated with one another for no reason. One sibling ended up getting something that the other sibling couldn’t have. The details are blurry. What remains clear is when he said, “but that’s not fair!” At my wit’s end, I sighed, “Well, you know how the song goes, ‘you can’t always get what you want.’” He replied, “What?” and I then played “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones on my phone and it was enough. For the remainder of our time together when something unfair would happen we would belt the chorus of the song which would lead to a rich intellectual discussion on want vs. need between me and two twin three year olds. I’ve carried this trick into multiple households. You have to be careful to play only the chorus otherwise you’ll be weighed down with questions like, “Where is the Chelsea drugstore?” or “What does it mean to ‘get my fair share of abuse’?’’
Sing All The Time: Sing all the time. It eases everything. You know in the film Everything Everywhere All At Once where the way to crack yourself out of the multiverse you are in is to do something strange? That is what singing is to a day with kids. Is the baby screaming? Sing to them about it. Are the kids fighting? Sing to them about it. Is the weather cold? Is the cereal gone? Are they afraid to flush their poop because it feels like they’re flushing a part of them away? Are they sprinting around the house because they have the post-bath zooms and you really need them to contain themself in their room so they can get some clothes on because both sets of grandparents are coming over in three minutes which you just learned via text? Make up a song and sing it. Their eyes glaze over and they think you’re singing a real grown-up song and start to sing along. And why wouldn’t you be? You’ve already played half of the Stones discography as a means to decipher life. Why wouldn’t, “Every Day We Have to Say Goodbye to our Poop but We Can Remember It Forever,” be a Billboard Top 100.
These tricks are all well and good but who knows if they're right. I don’t know how to be a kid anymore. It would be dumb of me to try to be a kid around a kid who knows how to be a kid. They know how to play the game they want to play. It has no rules, it has no point, and often you will be called upon to play “Papa Cheesehead” for seconds before immediately being ejected from the narrative. A kid doesn’t need you to get on your hands and knees and play with them with the energy of a Wiggles cast member. Like any other relationship, they just need your presence.
My favorite kids I’ve ever nannied were my first. (As a nanny, you can openly have favorites. As a parent, you have to lie that you do not. A perk.) At the end of our time together, I was heartbroken for weeks. The last day with any nanny kid is horrible. They’re not my children, they’re not my family, they’re not my students. At the point that I leave them, they’re my dear friends. I walk away knowing they will not remember our time together as it happened so early in their life. They remember that they love me but they can’t remember why. This is not unique to nannying. I live with my parents and I remember so little of my childhood with them. We are new to each other in this year of closer proximity. I was with friends whom I met in college recently and we spoke of how little we remember from the years we met as we passed around a new child in awe. As I get further from past heartbreak, all I know is that we loved each other and that it didn’t work. The reason starts to fade. But it had to be because I didn’t wear enough rings.
I used to believe that loving someone meant fixing each other. It isn’t. At most, it is herding the person out of their own darkness for awhile. I can make sure they have a meal, that we go outside, that we narrate to each other when we’re scared shitless. I force myself to not follow them up the hill but let them toddle all alone. When they turn back in hesitation, they will be met with my gaze and a nod of encouragement. I’ll run after once they’ve reached the top and lift them ten stories into the sky in electric laughter. We’ll split a teething cracker that tastes like purple air at the summit and talk about nothing, completely unencumbered. Soon we will forget this.
WHAT’S UP, LEAH?
I’m so excited to introduce you to Leah. This dude is a pace setter for me. I can’t remember who introduced me to the idea of a pace setter, but it’s someone who has been at it a little longer than you whom you admire and want to be like. That’s LU. Also, as Harrisons and ideas begin to overlap, Leah taught me that care is action. It’s not wondering what to do but doing. On the worst day ever a few years ago, Leah left a bag with epsom salt, white cloths, and a card that explained what I should do with it inside my apartment gate. She didn’t ask for permission to leave it and she didn’t ring the bell and insist on talking to me. She texted me and told me where to find it. That night, I laid in the bath with the cloth on my chest as instructed and thought a lot of things. One of them being, “oh, this is how you care.”
1. What is something strange, cool, or funny that happened to you recently?
2. What advice would you give yourself one year ago?
Bitch, chill. See you in September.
Cat, I so deeply love your writing. Thank you for sharing it with us! My favorite part of this one was was "In order to be alive, with some success, you must have a sense of humor. It changes the day from something strange and terrifying into something that is ours. Teach a kid there is power in navigating through life with lightness. If you don’t know this power yet, they will teach it to you."
Love love love