Back in the days of penny candy, the “Five-and- Dime” stores, and the chant, “shave and a haircut, two bits,” (25 cents), occasionally my younger brothers and I suffered anguish about our parents taking off and leaving us. We cried and pleaded.

“Your dad and I are just going to the movie here in town,” Mom explained. “We’ll be back as soon as the movie is over.” “The babysitter is a monster,” we countered. “After you leave, she morphs into hair like seaweed and teeth like a shark.”

Mom hustled us into our pajamas. “The babysitter’s family lives in the neighborhood—she’s a high school honor student and athlete.” The babysitter knocked. While she settled in the living room, Mom tucked us in bed and our parents left.

All’s quiet. The hall lights off—subdued light in the living room. I surmised the sitter was on the phone with her boyfriend. Our plan: keep the baby sitter out of our “fort” (bedroom) by shouting and throwing “war munitions” down the hall: stuffed animals, pillows, and rolls of stored toilet paper. Flashlight batteries dimmed.

The next morning, Mom gathered the three of us. “I can tell how the evening went by the pile of toys and paper in the hallway.,” she said. “It’s getting harder to find a babysitter.”

The next time our parents went to see a movie my brothers and I behaved perfectly. In our flannel jammies, we snuggled beneath blankets. Dad pulled into a parking spot and turned off the lights. In the backseat of the car, none of us kids whimpered or threw stuffed animals during the Drive-In movie.

A decade or so later, I found myself at the other end of babysitting—from being babysat to babysitter. A neighbor called. “My husband and I want to go out for an evening. We need a babysitter for a few hours for our son. He’s never had a babysitter— he’s really anxious about being left”.

I knew the family. The dad was a school principal in town. The going rate for sitters: a whopping 35 cents per hour. I didn’t have access to the helpful 4H program on babysitting. I did have experience being a babysitter’s “challenge.” I went prepared.

The mother and son met me at the door. “What’s in the bags?” he asked. I hefted two shopping bags into the house. A puzzle box and a board game poked out the top with colored paper, crayons, general art supplies, small cars, etc.—helped fill out the bulging bags.

“We have to wait until your parents have left before we look at what’s inside the bags,” I said to the boy.

He ushered his folks out. We sat at the kitchen table and unpacked the sacks. First project—make a scrapbook using colored paper and scenes he chose from magazines to cut out and paste. With care, he wrote his name with crayon on his finished scrapbook and placed it on his night stand “so I can show Mom and Dad in the morning.”

A couple days later a phone call. “Our son,” said the boy’s mother, “asked if I and his dad would go out again so you could come over.” Word got out about the babysitter with two shopping bags. (This was pre-electronic times.) Lots of requests for babysitting services. Rumor had it that babysitting rates going up to 50 cents/ hour. Keeping the shopping bags filled kept my profits in check.

The day a mother with a fussy toddler tracked me down at the public library studying for a test, I decided I needed more personal time to prep for college, play on the tennis team, date, camp with family, etc. Decades later the babysitter title reappeared—now grandchildren are the babysat.

Jean Ann Moultrie’s title of babysitter changed—now it’s Grandma’s Cooking Club. The babysat bring their own electronic games.