Please Stay for Ballet

I’m not going to supervise stranger’s children. I’m not a teacher, ECE worker or nanny. You don’t know me. Why would you trust me to take your child to the bathroom? Better yet, why do you deprive me of my ‘time off’?

Let me explain my beef with ballet class. My 4-year-old daughter Tali is enrolled at a local rec. centre ballet class. It’s a half hour class, every Wednesday evening. I leave Charlotte (my 7-month-old) at home with my husband and I take Tali to class. I take the newspaper or a magazine and a Fresca on ice with me and as soon as that classroom door closes, I breathe a big ‘ahhhh’ and sit down on the bench for half an hour to enjoy my drink and quiet reading time or chatting with my friend whose kids are also in the class.

Ten or 15 mins. into the class, the instructor comes out of the studio looking for a child’s mom because, guess what, she has to ‘go pee’. And her mom has decided that since she’s busy with ballet, she can leave and go who-knows-where? (Maybe I’m a helicopter mom here but these kids are 4-6 years of age so they may not be old enough to make it through a class without a disruption of a requested drink or bathroom break – or maybe they just miss you or are tired – who knows). So the teacher asks if I can take the child to the bathroom. I did it once and my friend did it another week for another child. But that’s when I put my foot down and told the teacher she should talk to the parents and advise them to not leave the premises while their child is in class – or to be sure they take their child to the bathroom right before class.

My friend thinks it’s inappropriate because she doesn’t want to get in trouble by taking a stranger’s child to the bathroom in case any sort of incident occurs. But I’m more annoyed with a parent who thinks they can just leave their child to enjoy their free time or run errands, etc. For me, that half hour waiting outside the dance studio is MY free time.

So I’m sorry, I will not take your child to the bathroom again. Besides, what if that child has an accident and soils herself or asks me to wipe her or is sick and vomits? Call me a Bee with an itch, but I just don’t want to be responsible. I don’t mind helping children of course, but feel too many parents just take these things for granted. I’ll bet that kid didn’t even tell her parents of the bathroom incident and they don’t even know I took their child to the bathroom. Thankfully, I’m not a pervert or a crazy person who would harm a child – but how can those parents or dance instructor be sure of that?