Checklists

I remember a time clearly, when I was a kid, that my teacher told us that our assignment was to write instructions on how to make a banana split sundae. Much to our surprise, she brought the ingredients for these sundaes to school, and she sat in front of the class and started to make banana split sundaes, according to our instructions. What resulted, was a disaster – a comical disaster, but a disaster nonetheless. It turns out that none of our instructions were written explicitly enough, and our teacher made a very clear example of this, with her demonstration (For example, some students forgot to write “get a bowl”, the amounts of ice cream and whipped cream were not specified – you get the picture.) It was a memorable experience, to say the least. I was in grade school when the lesson was taught, and I am now 50. Teachers are amazing.

This old lesson popped back into my head, because we have a couple of summer trips coming up, and we have hired new pet sitters to come into our home. Also adding to the mix, we have a pandemic puppy, Trip, who has never experienced a pet sitter in his short life. Trip is the least friendly dog, out of all three of our dogs, to anyone who is not in our immediate family. He keeps a small circle of trust. So, I have a level of climbing anxiety, as I am writing out the instructions, as to how best to keep our fur friends happy, safe and alive, while we are away.

When I was a teenaged kid, I babysat quite frequently. As a babysitter, I experienced every type of household – neat and prim, all of the of the way to the other end of the spectrum – wild and chaotic. I recall some mothers would write out very explicit directions on a tight, minute by minute time schedule (one particular mother noted in capital letters, which rooms I was not enter at all, as to not to disturb and distort the freshly made vacuum marks on the thick carpeting), while other mothers would just seem so relieved to see me, and they would yell out, “See you some time later!” with the assumption that my goal was to just keep the kids alive, and un-sunburned, until the time when the mother got up her nerve, to show back up. As a teenaged kid, I didn’t experience too much anxiety about any of this. My main goal was to see who had the best snacks in their pantries ,and to save up the money from my $3-an-hour gigs, for a new bright yellow Sony Sportsman cassette player.

Still, I do remember, in a way, appreciating the very explicit directions which some mothers wrote out for me. It left less room for ambiguity and questions. It was easy to just follow a checklist. I didn’t have to think too much, on the job. I often secretly made fun of these mothers with their “uptight” concerns, but they had set me up for success. I knew exactly what they expected, and so if I completed the clear-cut checklist, we all could be assured that I had done my job well, and to her satisfaction. We both breathed a little easier, seeing that there was little room for confusion and error.

As I became a mother myself, and hired babysitters for our children, I fell in-between these two extremes. I would jot down a few notes on a fancy, specific babysitter’s notepad, but with four kids and many pets, my house always naturally just veered towards chaotic. And of course, by the time my kids had babysitters, we had cell phones, so we were always accessible for questions and concerns that the babysitter might have about anyone, or anything.

I remember also, as an exhausted young mother, getting winsome for those days when someone would just hand me a to-do checklist. “Get this done and your golden.” I think that was my biggest lament of my mothering days. I didn’t mind doing any of the chores, I just didn’t want to have to plan it all out. I didn’t want to have to think about anything. I was too tired to think. I remember my sweet husband wanting to give me a break at times, and hauling all of the kids down to McDonalds. But then (not wanting to make any ‘mistakes’) he would call me up, and ask me what he should order for the kids to eat, and that’s when I would want to scream. That’s the Catch-22 of mothering, right? We want someone to give us a break, but then these break-givers have to walk on eggshells, hoping that they are doing things the “right” way (according to us).

Some of my friends are now becoming grandparents. One of my friends was asked to take a grandparenting class, by her daughter, to make sure that she was “up-to-date” on all of the new baby stuff and requirements. Of course, we all got a big giggle out of that, since my friend successfully raised three children of her own. (It’s a wonder any of us are alive and well, isn’t it? Helmets, seatbelts, and the like, were foreign concepts when I was kid.) Still, my friend admits that the class was helpful and eye-opening to see how much had changed, and it preempted a lot of hurt feelings, and helped everyone in the family to be more relaxed, by understanding everyone’s expectations.

So, in conclusion, as soon as I finish this blog post, I will be adding the finishing touches to my pet sitter’s to-do list. I want to make it clear and simple for her, so that we both have peace of mind. In the end, though, I hope that she’ll be mostly be focused on the priority of just keeping our dogs alive and well, without sun-burned paws and noses, for the short while that we are away from them. Possibly, considering all of her years of experience in dog sitting, “Keep them alive and well,” is all that really needs to be put on to the checklist.

“Sometimes our stop-doing list needs to be bigger than our to-do list.” – Patty Digh

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.