Lessons learned from a first summer job.

by

The BEFORE.

My first job was as a babysitter. 

This was typical among my peers the only stark difference being most of my friends who babysat adored kids.

I did not love children.

I liked them just fine (I ended up teaching Sunday school, swim lessons and babysat through college), but was definitely the sitter you hired when there were only a scant few hours left before bed.

I was fantastic with kids…for short periods of time.

I was equally as fantastic at lolling on couches and ransacking kitchens for sugary snacks after my young charges were asleep.

None of this describes my child.

Since she’s been old enough to speak she’s informed everyone who would listen how she’ll have at least four children someday.

Since she’s been strong enough to walk and carry she’s assumed the role of ‘little mama’ ambling the playground with a younger child on each hip.

As a result, when she announced she’d applied to be a junior counselor at gymnastics camp I wasn’t surprised.

I was, however, tremendously surprised by how much she enjoyed spending 8 hour days toiling for free in the Texas heat.

She loved AND she learned.

The right job makes for good tired.

I wont sugarcoat it. After the first day as “crew member” she was shocked. She regaled me with stories about her tiny tornado campers. She marveled how loud, active and needy they were. She shared how, after her first hour working, she wasn’t certain she could endure the remaining 7. She begged for an early bedtime.

The next morning, however, she bounded out of bed eager to exhaust herself again and excited to discover what the day would hold. I was more than a little surprised. I’d anticipated complaining and dragging now that she knew what to expect. Instead she informed me how great it had felt to be so very tired and sleep so well.

Work empowers.

I’ve always believe self-confidence is created through positive experiences.  Early on in parenting I realized “everyone gets a trophy” culture didn’t increase self-esteem because nothing had been done to achieve said trophy.  Still, I was amazed by how she appeared to walk taller and with more confidence even after one day of work. There were no daily ribbons or fabricated awards bestowed for a job well done, yet she didn’t need that. Spending all day tackling the new experiences and succeeding was more than enough to empower her.

Success requires personal responsibility.

The night before camp started she and I made a list of everything she needed for the next day and taped it to the fridge. The following afternoon, when I picked her up from camp, she informed me she’d forgotten a pivotal piece of her “uniform” — her bathing suit. She continued, sharing how she’d panicked, paused to take a breath, and proceeded to solve the problem she’d created.

“It was all my fault. I didn’t listen to you and check everything off as I put it into my bag.”

I was stunned. Gone was the fifth grader who would have tried to cajole me into delivering what she’d forgotten and in her place was a responsible tween. She didn’t call and ask me to bring the suit. She accepted responsibility and found her own solution.

Kim's Gym

Mistakes happen–how you handle them is what matters.

I may never know the full story here, but after day #2 she returned home bursting with tales yet focused mainly on one.

The snippet centered around the notion of how “You’re only allowed to pick up 3 and 4 year olds. That’s a rule. Even if you are able to pick up older kids, Mama, you’re definitely not allowed to.”

Knowing her as well as I do I immediately sensed something had happened and she’d been clearly instructed it was not to occur again.

Also knowing her as I do I could see/hear she did not feel defensive about the situation nor had she reacted defensively when it occurred. She’d made a mistake because she didn’t know. She’d learned. She’d moved on.

Work builds connection.

As with most jobs being a camp crew member required teamwork in order to succeed.  Each of the daily activities called for counselors to, in essence, act as one. Not only did they need to quickly develop a shorthand of sorts, any work with young kids in the unflagging Texas heat demands a We are all in this together! attitude. Evidence of connections she’d built with other counselors became apparent through her stories and via interactions I witnessed before and after her work-day.

As a girl who prioritizes relationships connections she created were invaluable to her.

Work is hard. Hard work pays off.

At 11 1/2 she was stunned how challenging a workday was. Unlike sporadic hours I worked as a babysitter when I was her age – – she truly got a realistic sense of what a full-day job felt like.  She readily surrendered it was hard—“harder even than school.”

She also rapidly realized her hard work with the campers paid off. She received kind words from more established counselors (her language of encouargement). She learned to treasure ‘special break times‘ and lunches counselors enjoyed together sans campers.

She (& I) noticed how much she learned over the two weeks. Her patience increased. Her understanding of the importance of paying attention to every detail grew exponentially. Acquiring/strengthening these traits as a result of hard work sparked leaps in self-confidence for her.

And, to her delight, for the last 30 minutes of the very last day hard work paid off in the form of surprise ice cream sundaes.

The AFTER.

And you?

  • Do you remember your first job and any lessons you learned from it? 

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Comments

  3. My first job was in Grandpa’s office, where i learned i had to work harder because i was related to the boss to make sure no one claimed favortism.

  4. I am totally impressed, 11 ½ and working all day is amazing!
    I too was a babysitter at that age but not for that many hours. One of the people I sat for on evenings asked me to become their Mother’s Helper for a week vacation on the Cape. It did not work out well. The little boy was a tantrum, head knocking child. I was told by my Mother to ignore tantrums so I did. I did notice he was knocking his head on grass not sidewalk and walked on. The Mother did not subscribe to this form of chid rearing !

  5. Oh CARLA! What a great kid she is. I just adore her 🙂

    Also this made me cackle, “but was definitely the sitter you hired when there were only a scant few hours left before bed”. Mwahahha!

  6. I love it when kids have a work ethic – both my kids delivered newspapers and then got part-time jobs when they were in their early teens. I did babysitting and I had a Saturday morning job in a shop – it’s all part of learning how to deal with the real world. It was lovely seeing the photos and hearing about the camping job – good on her!

  7. I started working at 15 on a sweet corn farm. The guys/men picked and the younger guys and girls (women) sorted it, threw the “nubbins” in a bag to take home, boxed it and put it on ice to delver to grocery stores. I loved coming home dirty and sweaty. What I realized however that I was working alongside older women (mostly of color) who needed this job to feed themselves and their families. I didn’t go back the next year as I got another job (Sea World!) and I didn’t want to take away a spot that someone actually needed more than I did.
    Just retired from 41 years of helping other people’s (special needs) children. It was hard to leave.

  9. She truly was amazing. I feel like in terms of working with kids – you either get it or you don’t. She gets it. I loved seeing her in this role.

  10. Great post. I think it’s good for kids to work. Mine did all through high school, but she never babysat. I did and I’ve never been a person who went crazy for kids either. I remember being 13 and watching 9-month-old twins! I can’t imagine leaving my grand babies with someone so young! Different times for sure.

  11. I had a few babysitting jobs, but I had a summer job that I only lasted a few days on, farm laborer. Up before dawn, picking strawberries in the morning, then snap peas, then cutting asparagus. I *might* have been able to stick it out a little longer, had I actually gone to bed at a reasonable time, but didn’t. It was exhausting and made my whole body ache.

    It sounds like your daughter learned any number of invaluable lessons, and I’m so glad. What a wonderful experience!

  12. Babysitting was my first job and like you, I didn’t love it, but “I was equally as fantastic at lolling on couches and ransacking kitchens for sugary snacks after my young charges were asleep.”

    Something that occurs to me as I’ve been reading your posts is that when you decided to become a mother you most definitely decided that you’d mother on your own terms, and I really admire that.

  13. LOVE LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I did a little babysitting but my first real job was McDonalds & we actually had to know how to count back money at the register! 🙂

  15. How very cool that she already is so responsible. I babysat starting around her age. I loved kids (still do) but I didn’t love kids who were brats. It’s really interesting because, in my job, I see all these super indulgent parents who are afraid to discipline their kids. That hasn’t changed–those were the kids I wouldn’t go back to babysit. I don’t have much of a choice in this job but I’ve gotten better at sucking it up and pushing through.

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