Small Child: Mummy, why are you giving her money? *points at me*

Mummy: Because she babysat you last night.

Small Child: But...she LIKES doing it!! You don't need to pay her!

Mummy: Yes I do. Think of all the things she could be doing now instead of being here. She could revise for her exams. *blow to my heart* She did us a favour.

Small Child: *Looks devastated*


This exchange of words and a twenty pound note reminded me of being in primary school, the day I found out my teacher didn't teach because she loved us, but for the money. Thinking logically, how else would she have been able to afford the numerous plant pots cluttering up the window sill? Or the milky way bars she fed me when I cried because no-one else understood me, talking the strange mix of German and English that I did?

It's a cruel world. People are paid to be nice. Would I be as willing to babysit if I didn't recieve money for it? Maybe. Just to have Bob the Baby sit on me and point at pigs in story books, making mooing noises and pushing her soft baby hair into my chin. Just to have her gurgle with laughter at my tongue sticking out (which she touches with one amazed baby finger, and jumps back in surprise, eyes wide open). Her big blue eyes, widely out of proportion with the rest of her face.

Yes I know. It's not all hair and happy eyes and cuddles. It's screams and banged heads and not going to sleep when told. It's crying and sniffing and coughing, and changing nappies. I know all that; as a realist, I couldn't not.