Claudia Jacobsen didn’t know what to feel about her first job babysitting. She had heard all sorts of things about the experience. After running into some problems, she was able to overcome them.

         “I started on a weekend”, it was late in the evening and Claudia made her way to her neighbor’s house. They had two twins who were about toddler age. When she arrived, the parents of the kids welcomed Claudia in and let her sit down at the table. “It was stressful because when I first got there, the two parents talked to me and asked me questions about my previous babysitting but because I hadn’t done much before, I didn’t know what to say,” she explains.

         Claudia had two baby cousins whose family had moved to Canada a while ago. When her family visits them, her and her sister babysit the kids when the adults would go out. That was the only experience she’d ever had. And how easy it would be was very unpredictable each time. Sometimes they would throw temper tantrums over who got what stuffed animals and other times all they wanted to do was go to sleep.

         Claudia explained this to the parents. Although it wasn’t a lie, she had still felt stressed like it was one. Claudia describes how her nervousness made the room awkward. The parents were asking her all these questions while the kids were sitting right beside her watching TV.

         When the parents were ready to head out, they told the twins it was time for bed. Claudia stood beside the parents in their bedroom as they set the kids into their cribs. They tried a little bit to get them to sleep but they were unsuccessful.

         So, by herself, with these kids she’d only met about thirty minutes ago, Claudia needed to find a way of getting them to sleep. The second their parents had left, the twins started screaming and crying.

         Claudia thought back to babysitting her cousins in Canada. When the youngest, Finley, would cry in his crib Claudia would rock it gently. This calmed him until he stopped crying.

         As the two three-year-olds were crying their hearts out, Claudia explained to them how their parents were going to be there by the time they woke up and they were only going to be gone for a little while.

         This calmed them a bit, but they were still crying a lot. Claudia began to rock their cribs slightly like she had with Finley. Slowly but surely, the crying died down. Eventually the room was silent.

         When her job was done, she excused herself to the living room where she sat on the couch and watched TikTok until the parents got home. “I scrolled on my phone for hours,” she describes. “I did check on the kids a couple of times to make sure everything was all good, and for the most part they were sound asleep until their parents got home.”

           After a few hours, the parents arrived home. Claudia explained that everything went well and that she would be happy to babysit for them again. They wished each other goodnight and Claudia was able to walk back home happy with over a hundred dollars worth of cash.

         She started daydreaming what she wanted to do with it. But after a while, she thought more about what she had learned from tonight.

         For her first ever babysitting gig, she thought she did a pretty good job. “It changed my perspective because it made me realize at the end of the day we’re all people and make mistakes and during that time, even though I was stressed, I did a good job.” Although it was a struggle at first she was able to end the night in a good mood.