Yup… I was a good boy.

I can’t really prove this but it’s something I’m deciding to believe is true and I do have some evidence that many of the adults in my early life agreed. That they considered even teenaged me, to be a young man they could trust.

One example of this was when I was hired to babysit the kids of a younger couple my parents knew. I have absolutely no memory of these people or how my parents knew them, but I do remember that they had a really nice house. Nice compared to ours anyway. In those days (I think I was fifteen so it was about 1974) babysitting was an unusual job for a boy.

They had three kids. Two boys and a girl. The oldest boy (I think he was about seven years old) was very nice and quite responsible. We had fun conversations about stuff we saw on TV. I think this may very well have been the first time I found out how much I liked analyzing cultural things like television and inviting others to look at them critically. I remember seeing how he would look at me with fascination when I would engage him in conversations about the shows he watched. I would ask him why he liked them and really listen to his answers. Challenging him to think about them more.

The little girl wasn’t home as much as the boys and when she was home, she mostly just wanted to be in her room playing. Her mother had told me to let her do this, so I did. It was the youngest boy who was a little challenging, mainly about food. His mother had told me that he only ate hotdogs and macaroni and cheese. When I asked her what else I should feed him she repeated that he “only ate hotdogs and macaroni and cheese”. Period.

I realized then that she meant it. This boy (I think he was about four years old) really ate only hotdogs and macaroni and cheese. And when I went through the cupboards and refrigerator I realized that this family had a completely different idea about food than what I was raised with. Their cupboards were stuffed with bags of chips and snacks of all kinds. And boxes of the most sugary cereals (and plenty of mac n cheese of course) and cans of “Spaghetti O’s” and other such crap! The refrigerator was worse however. Sugary soda, leftover pizza, hot dogs, beer and random other leftover crap with the freezer full of frozen pizzas, pizza type stuff, hot dogs, ice-cream and… I was amazed! I remember how when the mom of that house had told me about feeding the kids she had this look of joy in telling the teenaged boy before her that it was ok to eat anything I wanted in there. As if it was a cornucopia of teenage feasting. She had no idea.

An athlete and a nutritionist (both educators) were raising me. Our fridge was full of fresh fruit and vegetables (the veggies were from Mom’s HUGE garden) and the meat we ate was from animals we raised ourselves or bought from family or friends. My Dad grew up on a farm in Iowa. We even had a milk cow and made our own cream, butter and ice-cream and there was a deep freezer in the garage full of frozen meat for the winter and mom had a pantry full of veggies she canned herself from the garden. I grew up in a self-sustaining, organic family long before those words were common.

So there I was, responsible for three kids in a house with nothing but junk food. I just couldn’t keep feeding them the way they were used to being fed. Well… for the first few days I did but I had no choice. And yes, it was a fun treat for me at first but eventually I got sick of it. So I dug through the fridge and freezer and cupboards and found everything I could that had at least some nutritional value. I was going to have to get creative but I’m happy to say that I did pretty well with what I had.

Deep in the back of the freezer, I found frozen peas and cubed mixed veggies. They were covered in frost like they were bought when the family had moved in, but never touched thereafter. There was also frozen meat and I used it, but I tried to always serve meals with more veggies than meat. I even brought a few things from home so I could make what was in the house more palatable and wouldn’t have to resort to the canned vegetables I found in the back of the cupboards. The cupboards contained little of use but I did find some cans of something that would come in handy for dealing with little mister hotdogs and mac n cheese dude.

Canned spinach.

I have no idea why these people would have such a thing but there it was… like a dark shadow of guilt for a life of consuming all the fun garbage they could. For some reason these people had actually purchased the nastiest looking, smelling and tasting of what their guilty subconscious minds must have told them was proof that they cared about their kid’s health in some fashion. I guess! I couldn’t care less. For me the spinach was just what I needed to get the stubborn little hotdog and mac n cheese eater to stomach at least a portion of the fine dishes I was proud to be able to eventually whip up.

Well… perhaps I’m exaggerating how fine the dishes were but compared to what these kids had been used to, they were exquisite. Of course Mr. hot dog mac n cheese kid would have nothing to do with it. At first. He watched his siblings happily digging into the beef and veggie sir-fry I’d concocted and just sat there. He folded his arms, pursed his little mouth and shook his head. “Nope,” his expression said, “there is no way I’m eating this.”

So I went to the cupboard and pulled out a can of spinach. I opened it and sloped the big glop of nasty greenish stuff it contained, onto the plate in front of him. He looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Was I going to make him eat this? “Yes” I said as  “You have a choice, eat what we are having, eat nothing or eat the spinach.” He ate the stir-fry. Not all of it, but enough. And after that I didn’t even need to open any of the few cans left. If he showed any resistance at all I’d simply reach in the general direction of that evil part of the cupboard and he’d start eating whatever I put before him.

Was I good, or what?

I can’t say that I made a difference in the lives of these children. I have no memory of any acknowledgement one way or the other and I doubt that I was even thinking in those terms. This was my only babysitting job and it wasn’t for very long, but I do remember feeling good about it. It felt good to feel like I was helping, even if just a little. And this goodness that I feel about helping others has stuck with me.

Yea, I guess I was…

I am.

A good boy.