XP: How would you handle this?
Some background: My husband is a pastor-in-training doing his internship at a church here in Michigan. We moved here last Aug and will be leaving this year at the end of July to go back to St Louis. We don't know anyone here except the people at our church.
There's this lady at our church who has a physical disability that leaves her with no use in one of her arms and partial use of one of her legs, so that she walks with a very pronounced limp. She's a really great lady who gets very enthusiastic about helping people.
The problem is, she wants to babysit LO. I mean, every time I see her she begs me to let LO come to her house and let her babysit while we go on a date. I have no question about her mental ability to care for a baby, but I don't see how she could physically take care of LO. My daughter weights almost 12 lbs - you can't pick up or carry a 12 lb baby with only one arm. And I would worry that even if she managed to carry her, how would she walk with her without falling? Also, she can't drive b/c of her one leg being unusable, so if there were an emergency, that could be a problem.
How would you handle her begging and pleading to babysit? I don't want to hurt her feelings, because she's a really nice lady. I can't tell her that we don't let anyone babysit LO, because that's not the truth - other people in our congregation have babysat, because the only people we know are people in the church, and sometimes we need a babysitter. Being the pastor-in-training's wife makes it even more difficult, b/c I don't want to offend anyone.
Thoughts? Advice?
Re: XP: How would you handle this?
Oh man, that's a tough one! I can relate- there's a young lady at our church with both physical and mental disabilities who absolutely LOVES babies, and she's constantly asking to hold Evie. However, one of her physical limitations is her right arm has random muscle spasms where it jerks around. I've let her hold Evie once at my house with me sitting next to her on the couch.
Anyway, I see two things you could do. I'm with you- I wouldn't want LO alone with her at her house, it seems like she really couldn't properly care for a newborn. So, you could maybe ask her to come over to your home and watch LO while you're there? You could say it would be really helpful for you to get things done around the house, and she could sit and hold/play with LO. It would make her feel like she's helping you out (which I bet it really would!). The other thing I'm thinking is, does she have any close friends in your church? Maybe you could arrange to have her babysit with someone else there too? It might be a little harder to arrange, but if she has a close girlfriend or something they could watch LO together.
Random thought: do you know if she's ever babysat for anyone else in your church? I'm inclined to think the way you do, but maybe she really is capable of babysitting a child? Some people with physical disabilities learn to function completely normally by adjusting how they do things... I can't imagine how you'd lift a newborn with one arm, but I'm just curious to know if babysitting is something she's ever done.
I dont think you have to come up with much to be honest if you arent comfortable with your LO staying with her.
Maybe arrange a day where you and your LO can go over for a "play date" and you are able to stay with her and visit too. I dont know that I would even trust having a 2nd person there - who is to say that, despite how nice this woman may be, that she would accept help from someone else and something could still happen.
I also like the PP suggestions. I would feel the same way as you.
A side note...I live in Michigan