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This is not about events in the news.
This is _also_ not about the events of Friday evening’s zoom cocktail hour, which is what I was poking around to try to understand where the psychological community was on managing social conflict of a friends-hanging-out variety.
This is about the sitter.
I have not had any control over the days the sitter worked, the hours the sitter worked, what happened during those hours, or when the kid(s) got home for … a really, really long time now. I’ve tried various things to try to reduce the number of days a week, the number of hours at a time, etc. Every effort lasts for less than a week. Not long ago, my daughter had a significant conflict with the sitter that resulted in unsafe yelling in the car while the sitter was driving. I listened to my daughter. I listened to the sitter. I agreed with the sitter that yelling in the car while someone is driving is unsafe. I stated it would never happen again. She wanted to get into it; I declined. The solution was permanent and very straightforward: daughter never goes with sitter again. There was an initial sadness because daughter likes hearing sitter’s stories about the past. I had a pattern of not really talking about my personal history, so I changed that pattern. Daughter is happy hearing about the past. Husband is hearing new stories about my past (that’s weird; we’ve been married since 2004 and knew each other for over a decade at that point.). That’s fine. (The conflict between daughter and sitter was regarding politics, and daughter feels bad about yelling. The yelling was part of a autism-related response to frustration that we are all aware of and which I share with her. She’s getting great help from the school system with this, and the sitter is well aware of this response to frustration and used to be a lot better at making sure that frustration did not build up.)
Because there is increasing conflict with finding time to take son driving, prepare for camp, etc., I have been working again to reduce the hours worked / days worked. Part of the daughter doesn’t go with sitter solution was, no sitter Wednesday, so that son could be around with daughter at home while we went out. (Sibling conflict is at this point in time minimal, and I have no current safety concerns with either of them, okay, fine, a little concerned about daughter’s emotional state when left home alone for more than about an hour, which is why son is there.) I also wanted to reduce total time with sitter on any one day to eight hours, which should NOT have been controversial, and yet it was apparent that this was going to be a heavy lift and was perceived by sitter as a hostile act. I did not discuss it directly with the sitter. I told son, you have to be home within 8 hours of leaving with her. If you don’t, next time it is 7. He managed once; second time, half hour late. Totally predictable, and I absolutely understand why it happened. Further discussion ensued. Since sitter wasn’t coming on a day when she normally might have, I tagged that the 7 hour, declared it a success and instituted an additional Be Home By rule. On school nights, Be Home By 8. Otherwise, by 9, except on Fridays, I wanted him home before Fancy Friday started.
Because there had been some pretty hostile texting in a group text he set up to tell the sitter about the 8 hour rule, I specifically told son not to tell the sitter these are the rules. I said, you are old enough, you can tell her when you need to be home by. If you have a plan that _requires_ being out past that time, you have to tell me that and we will figure it out. He didn’t have any such plans. However, son decided to directly text sitter without including me in the texting. I don’t know precisely what was said, because he deleted it. He had previously deleted texts between him and the sitter, but it had not been clear why. This time, I asked him if the sitter had told him to delete the texts. He said yes.
To recap: I am attempting to reduce total hours on one day with the sitter to 8 hours. I am attempting to get some structure in place in terms of Be Home By. Also, _son does not need a sitter_. As I have noted above, son is the sitter for daughter one night a week, and that is completely fine. Son is 16, has a learner’s permit, and has applied for a job. Sitter is not really a sitter; sitter is a driver and dinner companion. Sitter has texted with son, and then told son to delete the messages so that I won’t see them.
Sitter has been working for us (first through an agency, and then not) for over a decade; I felt safe in leaving my kids with her in part because she’d worked for a local school as a special ed aide (not for my children) and thus was background checked frequently. She retired a few years ago, and she took a break for obvious reasons in 2020. Obviously, a lot of things happen over the course of a decade, and it’s not like we thought that everything about this particular person was what one would be looking for in a long-term chosen friend for ourselves, much less our children, but we were relying pretty heavily on professionalism. Texting with a minor in your care and telling the minor to delete the texts so the parent can’t see them … isn’t even in the same universe with professional. It’s off in another universe called Hey Don’t Ignore This Red Flag Like You Did The Last Dozen Or So You Fucking Idiot. (I am calling myself a Fucking Idiot, because, I mean, duh. Obviously, I am. Look at the evidence right here in front of us.)
Now, it’s _texts_, and it’s not like I am new to this whole electronic communication thing. I figured I’d give this a little thought. I went off and did Family Zoom, and got a text from the sitter.
“Walkitout, as you are aware [son’s name] has communicated why you will not text me.
After all these years I must say that I am shocked that you would feel that you would expect conflict, and that I might say something that you would find outrageous.
This is bewildering to me and most unfortunate.”
FWIW, this is very on-brand for her, and I’m familiar with the concept of DARVO. Remember, I don’t know what my son texted her, because _he deleted the conversation_. _At her request._ Or, possibly, direction. Command. Whatever.
But remember: _it is texts_. So let’s go to the phone call and make sure that it really was her, and that her account wasn’t hacked. Yes, Dear Reader, I _gave her the opportunity to use the implausible denial_.
Hi Sitter. You sound upset. [bit of a call hiccup, make sure we can hear each other]. My son tells me that you have been texting and that you told him to delete the texts. Has your account been hacked? Did you do this?
Yes, I have not been hacked, [rising tone of voice] Walkitout, you just never want to hear anything that isn’t what you want it to be. [Walkitout interrupting.] You’re fired. Don’t contact son. Don’t contact us. You’re fired. You’re fired. [call ended by sitter, or possibly, act of merciful electronic chaos].
After a brief moment of relief, I then went to listen to son talk to me for a couple hours, relaying a lot of details he has collected over the years about the sitter’s extended family and the many, many, many conflicts that led to breaches of relationships over the years. I knew about a fair number of them (and an ungodly number of workplace conflicts, friendships that ended badly, etc.). I was surprised at how much detail son had retained, and his perspective on what he had been hearing. He also shared that he knew more about some of these things, but that he had been told not to share any of that with anyone else.
I am always troubled by situations where a secret is shared with someone and that person is instructed not to share it further. This relieves a psychological / psychic / spiritual burden that the teller of the secret was carrying alone, however, it does so by placing that burden on the hearer of the secret, who feels like they cannot relieve their burden by sharing it further. To do this to a minor who lacks experience and wisdom in terms of what kinds of secrets can be kept and which kinds of secrets _must be shared with appropriate authorities_ is _never_ a good idea, and in this particular situation, where she was trusted by parents to care for the minor, and where she knew that autism was part of the overall picture and that further handicapped any ability to know what kinds of confidences to keep and which to flag to other people, well, again in the universe of Don’t Ignore This Red Flag You Fucking Idiot.
I have no idea what happens next. Hopefully, absolutely nothing. My daughter wanted to know how to block the sitter on her phone; I was like, look, we’ll just delete the contact info on your phone, and then you ignore that number like every other call from someone who is not in your contact info. I don’t think any such contact will occur.
Son understands that if he feels like he is being abused or neglected by us — the one situation that might justify an adult telling a child to keep communications secret from a parent — he should tell someone at the school. I’ve also volunteered the option of us reaching out to the Department of Child and Family Services, and even to work to get him a guardian who is not a part of the family. Son is _very_ clear that the sitter gave no indication that any of this was motivated by a belief that we are abusive parents. I pointed out to son that as a teacher and special ed aide, she was trained in _how_ to report suspected child abuse, and so if she believes that is what is happening, the appropriate response would be to (if necessary, anonymously) contact DCFS, who would then open a file, send someone out to talk to all of us and create a plan to remediate any issues they discovered in the course of an investigation. I told son he absolutely is allowed to discuss any and all of this with the people at the school who run his Extended School Year program, which starts on Tuesday. I have emailed the teacher for ESY and the teacher for his regular year program a bare-bones (fired sitter because asked son to conceal text conversations with her from us) explanation of what happened so that if he talks about it, they will have some clue what happened and know they can ask us for more details if they want. I also asked them to work with him on inappropriate requests to keep secrets.
Whew.
That was a lot. Fortunately, my daughter has been a ton of help in figuring out how to revise this — and the email to the school — down to a somewhat coherent and manageable level.
This is _also_ not about the events of Friday evening’s zoom cocktail hour, which is what I was poking around to try to understand where the psychological community was on managing social conflict of a friends-hanging-out variety.
This is about the sitter.
I have not had any control over the days the sitter worked, the hours the sitter worked, what happened during those hours, or when the kid(s) got home for … a really, really long time now. I’ve tried various things to try to reduce the number of days a week, the number of hours at a time, etc. Every effort lasts for less than a week. Not long ago, my daughter had a significant conflict with the sitter that resulted in unsafe yelling in the car while the sitter was driving. I listened to my daughter. I listened to the sitter. I agreed with the sitter that yelling in the car while someone is driving is unsafe. I stated it would never happen again. She wanted to get into it; I declined. The solution was permanent and very straightforward: daughter never goes with sitter again. There was an initial sadness because daughter likes hearing sitter’s stories about the past. I had a pattern of not really talking about my personal history, so I changed that pattern. Daughter is happy hearing about the past. Husband is hearing new stories about my past (that’s weird; we’ve been married since 2004 and knew each other for over a decade at that point.). That’s fine. (The conflict between daughter and sitter was regarding politics, and daughter feels bad about yelling. The yelling was part of a autism-related response to frustration that we are all aware of and which I share with her. She’s getting great help from the school system with this, and the sitter is well aware of this response to frustration and used to be a lot better at making sure that frustration did not build up.)
Because there is increasing conflict with finding time to take son driving, prepare for camp, etc., I have been working again to reduce the hours worked / days worked. Part of the daughter doesn’t go with sitter solution was, no sitter Wednesday, so that son could be around with daughter at home while we went out. (Sibling conflict is at this point in time minimal, and I have no current safety concerns with either of them, okay, fine, a little concerned about daughter’s emotional state when left home alone for more than about an hour, which is why son is there.) I also wanted to reduce total time with sitter on any one day to eight hours, which should NOT have been controversial, and yet it was apparent that this was going to be a heavy lift and was perceived by sitter as a hostile act. I did not discuss it directly with the sitter. I told son, you have to be home within 8 hours of leaving with her. If you don’t, next time it is 7. He managed once; second time, half hour late. Totally predictable, and I absolutely understand why it happened. Further discussion ensued. Since sitter wasn’t coming on a day when she normally might have, I tagged that the 7 hour, declared it a success and instituted an additional Be Home By rule. On school nights, Be Home By 8. Otherwise, by 9, except on Fridays, I wanted him home before Fancy Friday started.
Because there had been some pretty hostile texting in a group text he set up to tell the sitter about the 8 hour rule, I specifically told son not to tell the sitter these are the rules. I said, you are old enough, you can tell her when you need to be home by. If you have a plan that _requires_ being out past that time, you have to tell me that and we will figure it out. He didn’t have any such plans. However, son decided to directly text sitter without including me in the texting. I don’t know precisely what was said, because he deleted it. He had previously deleted texts between him and the sitter, but it had not been clear why. This time, I asked him if the sitter had told him to delete the texts. He said yes.
To recap: I am attempting to reduce total hours on one day with the sitter to 8 hours. I am attempting to get some structure in place in terms of Be Home By. Also, _son does not need a sitter_. As I have noted above, son is the sitter for daughter one night a week, and that is completely fine. Son is 16, has a learner’s permit, and has applied for a job. Sitter is not really a sitter; sitter is a driver and dinner companion. Sitter has texted with son, and then told son to delete the messages so that I won’t see them.
Sitter has been working for us (first through an agency, and then not) for over a decade; I felt safe in leaving my kids with her in part because she’d worked for a local school as a special ed aide (not for my children) and thus was background checked frequently. She retired a few years ago, and she took a break for obvious reasons in 2020. Obviously, a lot of things happen over the course of a decade, and it’s not like we thought that everything about this particular person was what one would be looking for in a long-term chosen friend for ourselves, much less our children, but we were relying pretty heavily on professionalism. Texting with a minor in your care and telling the minor to delete the texts so the parent can’t see them … isn’t even in the same universe with professional. It’s off in another universe called Hey Don’t Ignore This Red Flag Like You Did The Last Dozen Or So You Fucking Idiot. (I am calling myself a Fucking Idiot, because, I mean, duh. Obviously, I am. Look at the evidence right here in front of us.)
Now, it’s _texts_, and it’s not like I am new to this whole electronic communication thing. I figured I’d give this a little thought. I went off and did Family Zoom, and got a text from the sitter.
“Walkitout, as you are aware [son’s name] has communicated why you will not text me.
After all these years I must say that I am shocked that you would feel that you would expect conflict, and that I might say something that you would find outrageous.
This is bewildering to me and most unfortunate.”
FWIW, this is very on-brand for her, and I’m familiar with the concept of DARVO. Remember, I don’t know what my son texted her, because _he deleted the conversation_. _At her request._ Or, possibly, direction. Command. Whatever.
But remember: _it is texts_. So let’s go to the phone call and make sure that it really was her, and that her account wasn’t hacked. Yes, Dear Reader, I _gave her the opportunity to use the implausible denial_.
Hi Sitter. You sound upset. [bit of a call hiccup, make sure we can hear each other]. My son tells me that you have been texting and that you told him to delete the texts. Has your account been hacked? Did you do this?
Yes, I have not been hacked, [rising tone of voice] Walkitout, you just never want to hear anything that isn’t what you want it to be. [Walkitout interrupting.] You’re fired. Don’t contact son. Don’t contact us. You’re fired. You’re fired. [call ended by sitter, or possibly, act of merciful electronic chaos].
After a brief moment of relief, I then went to listen to son talk to me for a couple hours, relaying a lot of details he has collected over the years about the sitter’s extended family and the many, many, many conflicts that led to breaches of relationships over the years. I knew about a fair number of them (and an ungodly number of workplace conflicts, friendships that ended badly, etc.). I was surprised at how much detail son had retained, and his perspective on what he had been hearing. He also shared that he knew more about some of these things, but that he had been told not to share any of that with anyone else.
I am always troubled by situations where a secret is shared with someone and that person is instructed not to share it further. This relieves a psychological / psychic / spiritual burden that the teller of the secret was carrying alone, however, it does so by placing that burden on the hearer of the secret, who feels like they cannot relieve their burden by sharing it further. To do this to a minor who lacks experience and wisdom in terms of what kinds of secrets can be kept and which kinds of secrets _must be shared with appropriate authorities_ is _never_ a good idea, and in this particular situation, where she was trusted by parents to care for the minor, and where she knew that autism was part of the overall picture and that further handicapped any ability to know what kinds of confidences to keep and which to flag to other people, well, again in the universe of Don’t Ignore This Red Flag You Fucking Idiot.
I have no idea what happens next. Hopefully, absolutely nothing. My daughter wanted to know how to block the sitter on her phone; I was like, look, we’ll just delete the contact info on your phone, and then you ignore that number like every other call from someone who is not in your contact info. I don’t think any such contact will occur.
Son understands that if he feels like he is being abused or neglected by us — the one situation that might justify an adult telling a child to keep communications secret from a parent — he should tell someone at the school. I’ve also volunteered the option of us reaching out to the Department of Child and Family Services, and even to work to get him a guardian who is not a part of the family. Son is _very_ clear that the sitter gave no indication that any of this was motivated by a belief that we are abusive parents. I pointed out to son that as a teacher and special ed aide, she was trained in _how_ to report suspected child abuse, and so if she believes that is what is happening, the appropriate response would be to (if necessary, anonymously) contact DCFS, who would then open a file, send someone out to talk to all of us and create a plan to remediate any issues they discovered in the course of an investigation. I told son he absolutely is allowed to discuss any and all of this with the people at the school who run his Extended School Year program, which starts on Tuesday. I have emailed the teacher for ESY and the teacher for his regular year program a bare-bones (fired sitter because asked son to conceal text conversations with her from us) explanation of what happened so that if he talks about it, they will have some clue what happened and know they can ask us for more details if they want. I also asked them to work with him on inappropriate requests to keep secrets.
Whew.
That was a lot. Fortunately, my daughter has been a ton of help in figuring out how to revise this — and the email to the school — down to a somewhat coherent and manageable level.