The Babysitter’s Here by Dar Williams

The first song I ever heard from Dar Williams was “The Babysitter’s Here.” It was all over folk radio back in 1993. I immediately loved the song because it reminded me of someone I knew well – myself.

Not myself as a babysitter, though. Like most teenage girls, I did babysit, but I never made a career of it. To me, the ideal babysitting job was arriving after the kids had gone to sleep, and being able to watch TV and scavenge snacks from the family’s cupboards until the parents came home – the later the better. I was actually good with kids – willing to play board games and read books – but the nighttime jobs I tended to get didn’t permit me much time to spend with the kids. By the time I hit high school, people rarely asked me to sit anymore. Between homework and my social life, I didn’t have much time for it anyway.

No, the self I saw in the lyrics of “The Babysitter’s Here” was the child, the one being cared for. My parents went out one or two nights a week -- to work, or classes, or school conferences, or on dates. So having a babysitter was pretty common in our house, especially after my mom went back to work part-time.

We lived in a big neighborhood with lots of families, so there were quite a few teenage girls nearby who were available to watch my sister and me. Marnie and I certainly had our favorites, the ones who were willing to play the games we liked (Monopoly, of course, and Clue); the ones who would talk to us, take an interest in our lives, and treat us, in small ways, like equals.

In “The Babysitter’s Here,” we learn about the babysitter from a young child’s perspective. She wins the kids’ admiration right away. She teaches her charges the peace sign and makes popcorn, then lets them watch what I assume is “Fantastic Voyage” with the lights turned off.

I don’t understand and she tries to explain
How a spaceship is riding through somebody’s brain

My babysitters were cool like that too. They might let me stay up past my bedtime to watch The Love Boat or even Fantasy Island!

We had quite an array of babysitters over the years. I think my mother hired pretty much every girl in the neighborhood at least once. Some were rejected for various reasons, and others became “regulars.” There was Cecilia, or “Chi” as we called her, for whom my father played the eponymous Simon & Garfunkel track every time she walked in the door. Hearing the song now as an adult, I see this was a most inappropriate choice, but I don’t think my father meant any harm. He’s not the type to prey on babysitters. But Chi went off to college before Marnie and I were old enough to really get to know her.

The next great one was Cori, who was in the drama club at Marshfield High School. This verse from the Dar Williams’ song always reminds me of her.

And we all went to see her go dance at the high school
We made her a big card
And she told us that she'd be the unicorn wearing the
Pink leotard and
There she was leaping up just like she said
With a sparkling horn coming out of her head
And she's oh, oh
I can't wait to give her the card! I can't wait to give her the card!
She's the best one

{Spoken} Ok, so, the play was called "The Unicorn"
And she was the Unicorn
So, that means that the star was
My babysitter!

I distinctly remember telling people that the star of the Marshfield High School production of Pure As The Driven Snow was my very own babysitter!

The last two favorites were Brenda and Beth. Brenda lived next door and was only three years older than me. She walked the fine line between friend and caregiver, and by the time I was ten, my mother would have to assure me that Brenda was coming over just for Marnie, so my feelings wouldn’t be hurt.

Beth, the same age, lived next door to Brenda. When either of them would watch us, inevitably the other neighborhood girls would come too, and the group of us – maybe five total – would get hairbrushes and tennis racquets and pretend to be the GoGos or Joan Jett and her band. We’d put our 45s on the stereo and sing and play air guitar and dance.

She's the best one that we've ever had
She sits on her hair and she's tall as my dad
And she tie-dyed my shirt, and she pierced her own ear
And it's peace man, cool yah, the babysitter's here

Because Beth and Brenda were older, but not so old that we had nothing in common, I wanted to do a lot of the things they did. Beth was a majorette, so I signed up for baton twirling lessons. Brenda wore Izod shirts and had a Bermuda bag, so I got one too. And I was always fascinated to hear about the boys they were interested in, or maybe even dating.

Williams’ song focuses just as much on a child’s view of her babysitter as it does the tension between a 17-year old girl and her boyfriend, during the summer after high school ends. In “The Babysitter’s Here,” set in the late sixties/early seventies, we hear second-hand about the choice the babysitter must make: college or young love.

Her boyfriend is Tom
But we call him "the king of romance"
He wears an American flag on the butt of his
Ripped up pants and
Will they get married with kids of their own
He says not if she's going to college we won't and he
Kisses her, oh,
someday I'll have a boyfriend just like that

I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, so I’ll stop here. “The Babysitter’s Here” is a wonderful glimpse both of the adoration a little girl feels for her teenage babysitter, and the choices that babysitter makes as she becomes an adult. Fine writing here on Williams’ part. It’s on the album, “The Honesty Room.”

Check it out here.