Debbie Does Daycare

“DEBBIE DOES CHILDCARE” I’m scared to watch the babies. That’s what I’m going to school for, to help the little babies and children grow up to be healthy and happy, but what the hell do I really know about healthy and happy? I just turned 29 and not even three months ago I ate raw ramen noodles in my pajamas, in my bed, on a day when I didn’t leave the house. My boyfriend says, “Babies can’t tell on you if you fuck up,” but for some reason this is not reassuring to me. It makes me think I am the type of person people think might fuck up the babies. These are people who know me and love me, not the unsuspecting man who gave me a tour of the non-profit daycare where I am trying to get a job as the infant/toddler teacher. Don’t get me wrong, I would never, never hurt a child intentionally, but to be honest I am not one of those people who are just naturally comfortable around kids. It has taken years of watching my friends’ kids to get over that nervousness I always experience when meeting a child for the first time. What the hell am I so nervous about? I am petrified that a human being without any social filters will immediately see all my flaws and announce them to me in front of other people. It’s stupid, I know. I think maybe people who were popular in school don’t have these fears. They assume that children loved and admired them then, so why wouldn’t they now? In this same way, I assume that children thought I was a freak then, and my only hope now is that I‘m bigger, and physical intimidation might win me some acceptance.
Not only was I shunned by most of my peers, I was also the kid who was hated by the parents of other children. I realize now that I’m older and have friends with kids of their own, that all parents tend to blame the other kids. And might I also add that while I was no saint, the kids I used to play with in my neighborhood were total assholes. Of course they were only total assholes because their parents were total assholes. Looking back, I might even be just as guilty of blaming everything on a kid like me, whose mother routinely could be seen chasing her out of the house screaming at the top of her lungs like a madwoman while wearing a nightgown. Although to be fair to my mother, Debbie across the street wasn’t doing such a bang up job with her halter tops, her menthol cigarettes, and her never ending supply of Coors Light. Debbie and Denny were the Pennsylvanian version of Dan and Rosanne Conner, but with scary drug habits and a bigger porn collection. They had a daughter who was a year older than me and was into gymnastics. These two things for some reason made her infinitely cooler than me even though her step-dad was hairy, fat, and drank beer in their garage with the door wide open in his underwear. Then there were her sisters, one who was two years younger than me, and who defying all grade school hierarchy was also cooler than me. Their youngest was around toddler age when they moved in, but never subsequently grew to an age where her parents thought she should start wearing clothes in public. They were terrible kids to be friends with. They were convenient friends by proximity alone and consistently turned on me given the slightest opportunity. Here is the kicker, though: I worshipped their mom, Debbie. She was younger than my mom, which automatically made her cooler. She smoked cigarettes that she kept in one of those leather cigarette/lighter cases. She told us scary stories about burn victims who lived in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, and every night at dusk she would yell “Youse kids get in da howse!” Which for a kid living in small town Oklahoma, who was constantly surrounded by “Hey ya’ll” and “Ain’t that the derndest thang?!?” sounded sophisticated and somehow glamorous. All these things in themselves were enough to sell me on her, but then you add in the fact she not only dressed up for Halloween, she decorated the entire house, including a life sized coffin on the front porch, well, you can see how a young impressionable girl could be swayed. I’m sure my mother was horrified at my obvious infatuation. She was not raised white trash, but she sure as hell married into it with a bullet. Where Debbie modeled her parenting style after whatever 70’s rock star managed to have a child and not kill it within the first few years, my mother’s ideal was along the lines of Donna Reed. This ideal, well intentioned as it was, combined with the fact that she was in her 40’s, divorced, and experiencing the mid-section of a 20 year nervous breakdown, ended up looking more like a kinder, gentler Baby Jane Hudson imitation than anything remotely resembling a sitcom on “Nick at Nite.” We had all the uptight, pain in the ass, moralistic values of the fifties, without the payoff of home cooked meals and the occasional help with school projects. Even Debbie’s drunk ass managed to throw together a casserole on a regular basis. This is where I began my affair with uncooked pasta. Raw spaghetti noodles dipped in mustard was a childhood snack I indulged in often. Its true I shouldn’t have been let anywhere near the kitchen alone. Every time I was left to my own devices I destroyed the entire place, convinced that I could make cookies from scratch. Where I got this idea or why I was so passionate to carry it through remains a mystery to this day. This being the same girl who for some years now has been allowed full use of any pots, pans, food items and stove privileges, and often sees cooking ramen as too much effort.
Around my third grade year Debbie, Denny, and the brood moved back east and I moved a few miles away to live with my dad in a trailer park. The kids there were all younger than I was and already had built in bad problems and speech impediments, so of course I was readily accepted without question. Their parents were also all super scary and white trash, but without the rock n’ roll edge that made Debbie such a charmer. And in the end it was Debbie that hurt me the most. Her two oldest girls were mean to me at times, but ultimately forgettable. It was Debbie that chose to believe her own despicable daughters instead of me when they stole my Barbie, and it was Debbie who told my mother, when she dutifully stomped across the street to retrieve it for me, to keep me away from her kids. Of course I refused to believe it was me who had inspired this banishment from Debbie. I instead blamed my mother for embarrassing me in front of the “great one,” to which she responded that I was “better off not being friends with trash like that!” I wish I could say that I had said “You’re right, Mom!” and thanked her for standing up for me. Instead, I pouted for weeks, furious at her “forever” for “ruining” my life. Turns out my life wasn’t ruined. Here I am, still weird but mostly functional, getting ready to embark on a career in childcare that I’m not sure I’m qualified for. Then again, I guess the fact that I have doubts about being worthy makes me ten times more qualified than Debbie’s booze soaked arrogance that she could squirt out not only one, but three human lives with no significant consequences. I will not traumatize the children by having Margot Kidder-like breakdowns every time they spill some juice, and I will not treat them like little naked labradors that retrieve cigarette lighters on demand. I will treat them like I very much needed to be treated when I was a little kid, with respect and understanding. If I can just manage to do that much then I say what the hell--bring on the kids who can talk!