An Alarming Amount Of Child Responsibility

When I was a kid, my mom was a nanny for two small children who were ten years apart from my sister and me. Most of my childhood summer breaks involved my sister and I helping our mom watch the kids. At the time of this story, I was probably around eleven.

My mom is taking us to a new bank for the first time to set up an account. She has the youngest, who is in her car seat, while I am tasked with the older one, who is probably around eighteen months old.

I take a seat in the lobby with the kid on my lap facing me. All of a sudden, he stands up and reaches behind me for something on the wall directly behind my chair. I stand up to see what he is reaching for only to see, in horror, that he has pulled the fire alarm.

The fire alarm starts blaring, and it’s chaos. Babies are crying. My mom is whisper-yelling at me. The bank employees are trying to call the fire department to assure them it’s a false alarm while other customers are screaming to be heard over the alarm to complete their transactions.

The fire department still has to show up saying it’s policy, and the entire time my mom is embarrassed as h***. She quickly ushers us all out, knowing she can never step foot in the bank again. The entire car ride, she yells at me even though I argue that the bank should not have a fire alarm directly behind a chair without a safety cover and that this would’ve happened eventually.

Years later, I bring it up to my mother again.

Mom: “Yeah, the bank was really stupid for putting that there. It was totally their fault.”

Me: “And yet you screamed at me and refused to get us lunch as promised even though we didn’t bring any food that day.”

Mom: “Well, I was embarrassed and mad at the time, but looking back, they were definitely in the wrong.”

I’m still salty to this day.