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BABYSITTING IS ANARCHY
by Mike Thain
Babysitting, although it happens to be a job usually held by
young teens, usually girls, or neighborhood mothers, is actually
a blackmarket, anarchist occupation.
The typical weekend babysitter collects a handful of cash at
the end of the night, usually loosely based on an hourly rate. The
babysitter files no tax forms and pays no income tax, yet is never
imprisoned for tax evasion. This is a primary example of the
"other" blackmarket - the blackmarket of services, much overlooked
in favor of the blackmarket of goods (garage sales quickly come to
mind).
But young girls aren't the only babysitters. Often a mother
(or sometimes an occasional father), chained to the responsibility
of constant child care, seeks help from peers in the neighborhood.
"I'll watch your brat today if you'll watch my brat Friday night."
This works great, until the other has no need for a babysitter
today or in the near future. This is where anarchist-style
cooperation comes in handy.
When I was young, several mothers in my town had an agreement
set up. For every hour you sat for another kid, you got credit for
an hour of someone else sitting for you. I can't remember all the
details, but I know they had little coupons they made with smiley
face stamps on them, each representing an hour. These were pretty
powerful little tokens, cause everyone needed them now and then,
so you could go right down the list and find someone who needed
some tokens to make an exchange.
Since there was no money involved, just an agreement, this
could not be taxed or regulated. And if I remember correctly it
worked great. Nobody had to pay any money at all. And since each
token was one hour watching one kid, it was easy to earn extra by
watching a few kids at a time.
Hypothetically, what if some mother who happened to like
watching kids had a glut of these tokens, and didn't need so many,
but she had an overflowing toilet. She could probably call the
plumber down the street and say, "Hey, I'll give you 10 babysitting
tokens if you'll fix my toilet." And he could accept or reject the
offer, but at least it is possible. Maybe the plumber is having
a fight with his wife, and presenting her with 10 hours without her
brats might help sooth things over.
So this can be looked at on a larger scale. Why, then,
couldn't the same people in that neighborhood use those tokens at
a garage sale down the road? Or to hire the neighbor who happens
to be a house painter? And if you are a painter but you hate
watching kids, that would offer a different source of babysitting
income.
Of course, this could be compared to money, but on a smaller
scale, only the money wouldn't be loosely based on some fictional
rare metal that doesn't exist in those quantities, and it couldn't
be minted up by someone in charge (except in the case of fraud) to
cause inflation for a quick buck.
And what if there was a problem with crime in the
neighborhood, like prowlers and break-ins, and the people decided
to set up a neighborhood watch. Instead of requiring everyone to
put in a turn, why not pay the watchers with tokens? And in that
case, what need would the people have for cops?
There are definite possibilities here, depending solely on the
trust and organization involved in a small community. Government
would have much less to hold over people's heads if you did your
financial deals with the lady who runs the craft boutique down the
road instead of your stock broker in Tokyo. Take a lesson from the
ladies in the babysitter club.
(As a side note, I do not mean to sound in any way sexist in
discussing mothers looking for child care, even though I can almost
see those fingers wagging at me already. Its just the way my town
happened to be, so live with it. -mt)