The Fat Babysitter...and I don't mean "PHAT"

When you first think babysitter, what is the picture that comes to your head? I pretty much think of a sophomore or junior in high school, braces, and maybe some acne thrown into the mix. Well, I am here to testify that I am a young professional in the corporate world and I still baby-sit.

The most recent babysitting job that I accepted and barely completed was for my bosses’ children. I am going to use made up names to keep their reputations fully in tacked. The oldest is name is...Pam and she is in 6th grade. Then there is Bobby and he is 4th grade. Last, but certainly not least there is Sally, who is in Kindergarten. While there were many different issues that occurred on this wonderful Monday night, I am just going to focus on one.

I convinced the kids that we should head to the park to enjoy the beautiful afternoon. We all awkwardly grabbed some sort of sporting good and threw ourselves into the car. The two girls jumped into the back seat and little Bobby occupied the front seat. Don't you think for one minute we didn't spend a good 5 minutes working on getting the seating arrangements as fair as possible. As we finally started cruising down the neighborhood street, Bobby decided to have a "come to Jesus" moment. He felt the sudden desire to come clean for his little sister Sally. He shouts out, "Sheena...Sally said something mean about you!!!" Immediately, the older sister Pam whispered back, "Bobby, NO!". At first response to Bobby's comment I thought, what this time?? But then with hasty attempt to cover Bobby's tracks, by his older sister, my interest was peaked, "Oh she did huh?? What did she say?" I asked with a little hesitation, suddenly wondering if I really wanted to know what the comment was. Bobby then proclaimed with no hesitation at all, "SHE SAID YOU WERE FAT!!" The words seemed to echo through the car as if we were taking a horseback ride through The Grand Canyon. Sally then started to giggle. Are you kidding me right now?? From this point on, the only thing I can remember was my throat hurting, from tensing up in order to hold back the tears.

Why is it that any adult could have said that to me and I would have just thought they were just rude? Why did I hear from someone from one of the most unintelligent ages of the human face and struggle to not lose my cool?? Well, it is simple. When an adult makes a comment like that, it is almost always in an attempt to be rude or cut down the other in some way. But in this case when Sally was saying to another person, she wasn't saying it to be mean, she thought she was stating the facts…the obvious. Before anyone runs to the phone to call their favorite self-esteem counselor, I am fine. Later, I came to learn that she was just joking, and she really doesn’t think that...right!!

While Jesus does say that we need to be like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, I am thinking that he was only referring to some of their traits.