Admittedly, I should have seen this one coming. Having just moved to Boston, I was desperate for a job to help pay my rent and support the lifestyle to which I had become accustomed. Desperation is never a good quality when it comes to making important choices. Of course, you are unable to tell yourself this in the moment so you might as well accept that your ship is sinking.
When I showed up to interview for the family, I was informed that the mother would be working from home - easy enough, I've worked several jobs where one parent is in and out of the house or in an office. Then after a series of questions about my background she began asking me about methods of discipline... "I'm happy to follow any of the guidelines you've set but I will not be doing any spanking". "No, of course not, but I mean... Do you have any ideas? I'm just exhausted and nothing seems to work." says Mama "nervous breakdown". It is important to note that her two girls (6 & 7 y/o) are running in and out of the room and jumping on everything in sight during this conversation. RED FLAG! My sinking ship was sending up flares but good ol' desperation just kept throwing small buckets of water off the deck. Eventually, I would learn that the preferred method of discipline was to "say you're sorry" (because teaching head-strong children to lie early on is a very good lesson). She hired me on the spot, it seemed I was not the only person sailing on S.S.Distress. I started immediately, as in, she left the room and asked me to get the girls ready for bed. What?! Ummm... Okay.... They were cute enough but it soon became clear that the older sister, Jane, was insanely jealous of the attention stealing younger sister, Sarah, who wanted nothing more than to be liked by Jane. Aside from this typical show of "sisterly love" they both watched WAY too much Disney Channel!
It seemed that someone (read: Miley Cyrus) taught them they were the ones with the "real power" and it was their common goal to exploit it. On several occasions they threatened to tell their mom to fire me if I didn't take them somewhere. "Your mom will never fire me, she needs me too much..." not surprisingly they would agree with me.
The night of the attack I was innocently playing cards with Jane while Sarah watched us near by. I had accidentally beaten Jane twice. As a 22 year old with an overly exaggerated sarcastic nature, I let out a harmless "ha-ha". Big mistake - I got the beating I deserved. I have NEVER been seriously slapped by anyone, not that I haven't deserved it, but in this case it was just WRONG. I froze, one of the great instincts I have received from my female nature, which was actually lucky because my first instinct was to slap her back. Coincidentally, my best Boston buddy and I had been engaging in playful slap attacks for months and the reflex to slap and run was almost too present. Knowing that Jane would receive no actual punishment rather than falsifying an apology, I said nothing to her parents, who were just in the next room. Instead, I looked her in the eye, and in a low, strong, calm voice (reminiscent of a tone my father likes to use) I told her to "never do that again". That slap was just what I needed to get my engines running again and pull myself out of the situation. After leaving, I sent her mother an email explaining that I had another offer from a family that I could not refuse, which was actually true and also helped with the self-respect revival. This may seem like rash action to take for troublesome children but that's only because I'm saving the best for the next post. It's why I can't even recall the family's last name, because they will always be known to me as... The Lice Family.
-sam
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