I mean the hard thing about the machine is it provided middle class jobs for a lot of people for a lot of generations. The neoliberal Rahm Emanuel era tossed out the “patron” part of patronage and just like, totally fucked over Black and Brown communities across the city without even pretending to care? Like in the…

Eh, it was a different time. Plus if I remember correctly, the “junior” members either had to do double-duty with another babysitter, or were only allowed to watch one kid at a time. 

Haha I remember that my friend and I loved the books so much that we started our own babysitter’s club! Except we were only in second grade and not old enough to babysit anyone so we just kind of hung out by a phone for awhile. We also made kid kits!

I loved Mary Anne and Claudia. But this series definitely prepared me for my parents divorce since Ann Martin was really good at having pretty diverse family makeups.

I really wanted to be Stacy because she was fashionable and glamorous, and also good at math! The only trait I actually shared with her was just the math part. Realistically I’m probably a Mary-Anne.

If I’m honest with myself, probably Mallory.  I too wanted to be Dawn, though I suspect she would fair as well if I reread these books as an adult.

I’m Claudia because there’s only one Asian person.

Obligatory “which babysitter were you” thread!

Christopher Pike was my JAM as a kid and I look back and realize how fucked up so many of those books were.

They’re teen classics for a reason.

Ha, I did the same thing! Except mine were melted together hunks of lemon drops. 

I loved her crazy fashion sense and that like me, she hated school and was boy crazy.

I also read every single one of the books and I will watch the shit out of the netflix reboot!

I loved her so much... my main Barbie was Asian and I named her Claudia.

I was always a fan of Stacy. So sophisticated!

Claudia was always my favorite, because she was an artist. And because she was vice-president owing to being the one who had a phone in her room.

Exit Music (For a Film) for when you’re feeling especially melodramatic. Just head to toe excellent album. Just looked at my iTunes and I only have The Bends–Amnesiac and that’s plenty for me.

I grew up in a pretty rural area where music would take awhile to find footing (e.g. senior year I still thought fucking Sublime was a great band, by which point Bradley Nowell had been dead over a decade). I’ll always owe my RA freshman year of college for playing Paranoid Android and the video for No Surprises for…

Live Through This is so fucking great.

Accurate. I think I convinced myself in high school that In Utero was better than Nevermind because it felt too basic to think Nevermind was Nirvana’s best album. But...it is. From start to finish. And it’s not just because Nevermind is more accessible, it’s because...it’s not as good as it thinks it is??? In Utero…