Babies Are for Baby-Sitting
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“Hello, Baby-Sitters Club?” Claudia Kishi picked up the telephone on the first ring, twirling the neon cord around her nail art-adorned finger. “Oh my gosh, that’s so exciting!” she squealed, then covered the mouthpiece with her hand to whisper to the rest of the girls. “The Jenkins are having their baby!” Mallory Pike and Jessi Ramsey hugged as Kristy Thomas silently pumped her fist in the air; Mary Anne Spier flipped open the appointment calendar. Stacey McGill and Dawn Schafer high-fived, then went back to doodling in their Lisa Frank trapper keepers.
“Of course, Mr. Jenkins!” Claudia said in her most professional voice, “One of us will be there in an hour. Okay, thanks, bye!” As she placed the handset back in the cradle, the girls erupted into excitement.
“Ralphie’s going to be a big brother!” said Mary Anne, “I bet Mrs. Jenkins is so excited.”
“I’m going to be so scared to have a baby,” said Mallory, “The epi-epi—”
“Epidural,” said Stacey, jumping in to finish her sentence.
Mallory shuddered. “It sounds terrible, but I guess I’ll get through it.”
“Oh, are you gonna have kids?” asked Dawn.
“Is not having them an option?” asked Mallory, dumbfounded. She was the oldest of eight, so do with that information what you will.
“I mean, obviously!” said Claudia. The rest of the girls nodded in agreement.
“Well, are you guys going to?” Mallory asked. She and her fellow Junior Officer, Jessi, scooted closer to each other on the floor. They looked expectantly at the rest of the BSC.
“God no.” said Mary Anne, and the two younger girls gasped.
“But Mary Anne, you love babies!” said Jessi.
“Yeah, but babies are for baby-sitting,” Mary Anne explained. “That doesn’t mean I want my own.”
“I don’t want them either,” shrugged Dawn.
Claudia joined in. “Or me. I’m just really into my art right now.”
Jessi laughed. “Claudia, you can be an artist and a Mom, you know.”
“No, no, of course,” said Claudia. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s more like…there are huge parts of my life that I’m so passionate about, and so clear on, but motherhood never really lived in the realm of things I even considered wanting. It was just something other people did.”
Long-limbed and in dancewear, Jessi looked a little confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.” she said.
“Okay, how about this,” said Claudia, “I think kids are the coolest people on the planet, but I don’t think I’ve ever once looked at one and felt like I was missing out by not having my own. And so I ended up just building my life around myself, to the point that in my late 30s I actually got scared of waking up to a my-biological-clock-is-ticking-like-this-style explosion, because at that point it really would have messed up my decades-honed adult nap schedule. But it never happened, and honestly, that feels like a gift in the same way I imagine having a baby does for someone who really wants one.”
“Wait,” said Mallory, squinting through her glasses, “How old are we supposed to be?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Claudia. “What you do need to worry about is accidentally getting pregnant in your 40s, after you’ve finally sorted all this stuff out. I just read that it happened to Claire Danes at 44, and we feel a deep kinship with her because My So Called Life came right after us in the timeline of formative young adult media, you know?”
The girls nodded solemnly, and Claudia continued. “And at this point, if I had an abortion, I just sort of feel like I’d prefer a more…boutique experience than was available in my 20s, and I wouldn’t even know where to start with that.” The girls were silent for a moment. Stacey stifled a laugh.
“I get it,” said Dawn, putting the cap on her sparkly pen. “It’s so weird being at the edge or the end or whatever of fertility. I never wanted kids, but I’m now having all these thoughts of like, it’s about to be too late, as if I wasn’t totally sovereign in my decision-making. Sometimes I cry a little bit when my sister’s family leaves after visiting for the weekend, because the house just felt so good with my nieces and nephew running around it, and that’s confusing. But I know I wouldn’t feel the same way if they were my three kids.”
“But you’re such a good aunt, Dawn,” said Mallory. "You’d be great at being a Mom.”
“Thanks Mal, but they’re two entirely different things, and I know myself really well.” She did, too. Dawn—a California-born child of divorce—trusted deeply in both intuition and therapy. “I’ve got a good handle on what’s going to be, like, a cool and expansive challenge, and one that’s going to put me in the ground. Plus I’d be so scared of somehow screwing them up, like what if it turned out I was mean or resentful? What if I yelled all the time? I can’t even think about it. The risk is just not worth the reward.”
There wasn’t really anything to say to that. The girls sat in silence for a few moments.
“Hey, everybody knows I’m a tomboy, right?” asked Kristy.
“Us?” asked her friends in disbelief.
“No!” Kristy replied, “The reader, I mean. This whole thing is kind of dependent on us as archetypes. Like, Stacey’s a boy-crazy diabetic, Mary Anne’s super sheltered, and I’m a softball-loving, baseball cap-wearing tomboy—”
“And when you eventually come out we’re going to be so supportive,” interrupted Claudia. The girls all nodded emphatically.
“What?” asked Kristy. “I’m not…no, fine, yeah. Thanks. But look—I don’t want kids either, and sometimes I think about this one time I was playing soccer in my backyard. I had to have been nine, maybe ten, and I’d tucked the ball up under my shirt to try to make my sister laugh. My Mom saw me through the window. She came outside and grabbed my arm and told me she'd send me to ‘live in a home’ if I ever got pregnant.”
“That's so sad,” said Mallory.
“It mostly makes me sad for her,” said Kristy. “What trauma had she been through to make her freak out like that? Also, sorry, but we weren’t religious, and it was like 1990. Where would she have even found a home for unwed mothers? She was gonna have to wait a few years to Ask Jeeves.”
“Kristy, be serious,” said Dawn.
“No, I know,” Kristy replied. “It’s faded into an absurdity, but I was so, so embarrassed when it happened. I remember just letting the ball drop down to the ground and my face getting really red. I've processed it as an adult; it didn't change the trajectory of my life…but it does feel worth mentioning here.”
Stacey jumped in. “Honestly, I was always just kind of worried about what it would do to my body.”
“OMG, Stacey, you can’t say that,” said Mary Anne, turning quickly to make sure Claudia’s sister Janine wasn’t listening in through the door.
“No, I can, because I have diabetes, remember? I’m the proxy to discuss anything that might require health insurance.” Stacey continued, “I read somewhere—at too young an age—that your teeth can get loose when you’re pregnant, and your hair falls out afterwards, too. And then there’s tearing,” she grimaced. “And having toddlers just doesn’t seem, like, I dunno, super compelling from a mental health angle, let alone the stress and exhaustion of having to figure out childcare and school drop-offs and sick days. It all just seems hard on a level that I know beyond reasonable doubt I can’t even fully understand. Respect to anyone who does it, but also, like…I hope they really thought it through?”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to say that, either,” said Mary Anne. She cleared her throat. “And we’re definitely not supposed to talk about infertility, at least as people who've never wanted to be pregnant. But what if your biological clock does go off and your body just doesn’t agree? The Donaldsons did IVF and little Bruno is soooooo cute and sweet, and they love him so much. But remember their neighbors? The ones who moved away? I overheard Mrs. Donaldson saying it didn’t work for them.”
“I do think we’re allowed to say that it’s breathtakingly expensive,” offered Dawn.
“And our treasury is only at $184.47,” said Stacey. “We couldn’t afford for it to not work out.”
“It should always work out,” said Jessi.
The rest of the girls murmured their steadfast agreement, and without much discussion came to the conclusion that motherhood appeared to be an exercise in which one's personal definition of love could be meteorically redefined—and within its pursuit, attainment, and even avoidance lived varying degrees of potential heartrending. To weigh it back and forth between your two palms was less pastime than protection, and as daughters of mothers themselves, forming a thesis on the topic was inevitable (though ideally one's explicit opinions would be formed sans explicitly sweeping prescription).
Claudia glanced at the clock, “OMG, you guys, someone needs to be at the Jenkins’ in five! Who wants it?”
“I think we might need a minute before we meet a new baby,” said Mallory, her eyes locked with Jessi’s. They both had a lot to think about.
“We totally get it,” said Stacey, “But don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of time to figure it all out.” The rest of the girls agreed. “And until then…”
“...babies are for baby-sitting!” the Baby-Sitters Club said in unison, then exploded with laughter.
“Babies Are for Baby-Sitting” emailed out 2.17.2026 with newsletter-only exclusives. Subscribe for free here.