The Unethicist: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter Gives Head
"The Ethicist" is Randy Cohen's long-running advice column in the New York Times. Each week, Gabriel Delahaye's "The Unethicist" will answer the same questions as "The Ethicist," with obvious differences.
My husband, an excellent and experienced preschool teacher — he is the best at what he does — applied for a job at a local public school. The interview went great. The principal was impressed by his r sum , recommendations and abilities, but feared that his beard would alienate community parents. Would he shave it? He politely declined. She said she would not hire him unless he did. Legal? Ethical? — name withheld, Georgia
I'm sorry that your husband beats you.
Seriously.
I'm sorry that you are so physically and emotionally abused by your bearded maniac husband that you can't write a normal letter to a human being without spending 3/4 of the time gushing about what an amazing person he is so that if the letter ever makes it into print he won't (politely!) beat you.
Or: I'm sorry that your husband is queer.
Seriously.
I'm sorry that your life is a complete sham because your husband is unwilling to be honest with himself about his heart's true desires. I'm sorry that you have built such an impenetrable fortress of false representation that you can't write a normal letter to a human being without spending 3/4 of the time talking about all of the great things about him so that you can gloss over the ungreat things about him, at least as far as a fulfilling heterosexual relationship is concerned, i.e. that he not be gay, which in this case, he is.
Also: I'm sorry that your husband fucks kids.
Isn't that what this is about? The only thing that alienates parents about an excellent and "experienced" (your word, creep) pre-school teacher when it comes to the beard is that he is probably fucking some of the kids. And if he's not fucking the kids, he is hiding something (gay).
Your abusive gay husband is obviously brave though, to have stood up to that principal and turned down a job as a pre-school teacher at a public school in Georgia. It takes some real hairy balls to keep one's integrity in the face of a job that probably would have paid upwards of 17,000 dollars a year! Take that, Big Education!
My daughter, an older teenager and experienced baby sitter, received a job offer that pays one rate if the child is awake and a lower rate if the child is asleep. But my daughter would be on the job whether or not the child was awake. And I wondered, if the child slept only part of the time, would my daughter have to keep track of those periods? Isn't this unfair? Doesn't it exploit teenagers who feel awkward negotiating with adults? — name withheld, Maplewood, N.J.
"Experienced" baby sitter. Yes. Your daughter can sit on the couch watching the Gilmore Girls and eating someone else's Sun Chips while upstairs a baby sleeps like it's no big deal. What is it with you people and your sad families that you feel the need to make a big deal about everyone's abilities in an anonymous letter to an advice column? I can't prove you wrong or verify that you're right, so just GET TO THE QUESTION.
There is a lesson here, Maplewood: it's called "The Lesson of Milking the Clock." How is your daughter ever going to beat the high score on Spider Solitaire, take a two hour lunch, buy shoes online, and plan her dream trip to Cabo while ostensibly working as an administrative assistant in some bullshit office if she can't even navigate the simple contract negotiations of "I'm telling you, your shitty kid was awake all night. Now pay me."
That being said, if you're so worried about it, why don't you actually be a parent and give her the twenty dollars or whatever so she doesn't have to humiliate herself at some crappy stranger's house. Am I the only one who knows that two things happen to babysitters: they get murdered on the job by an escaped psychopath, or they get hit on by the dad when he drives them home? And any dad who thinks up some elaborate Keynesian scheme to screw the babysitter out of a few extra dollars is probably going to try and teach her the ways of adult love while his Aerostar idles outside her parents' house. Let me ask you this: does he have a beard?
