Bonding With My Daughter Over The Babysitters Club

One of the best things about being an adult is when other adults who grew up alongside me decide to bring back old things and put a modern spin on them.  When I found out that they had begun to release The Babysitters Club (BSC) as graphic novels for a new generation (and their parents obviously) I knew I had to see if Molly was interested.

Image via Vox

Growing up as a kid of the 1980's and 1990's I had access to my older sister's old Sweet Valley High books and my moms Nancy Drews, but nothing quite spoke to me like The Babysitters Club.  I have been told that in its heyday one new book was released each month in a weird sort of Scholastic Sweat Shop so girls like me could pore over our favourite Stoneybrook Middle Schoolers.  Once we were old enough to babysit ourselves, one of my more entrepreneurial friends, K I'm talking about you, started her own version of The Babysitters Club, a 2 for 1 babysitting model where parents would have two babysitters for the price of one, and when the kids went to bed we'd be able to eat popcorn with in front of Saturday Night Live with one of our closest friends.  In turn I'd use my early years babysitting earnings to purchase even more books about the BSC.

Molly has struggled with her reading, but has made a lot of progress this year.  Part of that has come from our regular sessions reading graphic novels together, where she picks a specific character or two to read for.  As we dove head on into the world of BSC, we talk about a lot of things: Which babysitters I liked best when I was a kid (Claudia & Dawn), Who I like the most as an adult (Maryanne) and who I think I'm most like (probably a Kristy/Maryanne combo). Molly is team Maryanne/Dawn.

via Oprah Magazine

Molly and I have now read every BSC graphic novel available to date.  We watched the 1990's movie (which stars a very young Rachel Leigh Cook as Maryanne and 'The Guy With The Bike' from the movie Singles as Kristy's hella sketchy dad).  We talk a lot about the conflicts the BSC have, I never realized how much they fought with each other until re-reading as an adult, we talk about responsibility, parents being unfair, and how Stacey is THE WORST.

For Christmas I found the first eight books in the original Babysitters Club series I grew up with to gift Molly at a local thrift shop.  Molly was over the moon and we've been reading those together to compare and contrast the storytelling with the Graphic Novels.

It turns out we're not the only one feeling nostalgic for BSC.  Netflix has recently announced a season of BSC coming out in 2020, starring Alicia Silverstone as Kristy's mom. We will watch all of it, whether it's good, bad or lands somewhere in between.

via Girls Life

If you're a fan of podcasts and BSC I also highly recommend checking out the Babysitters Club Club Podcast where two male Buzzfeed employees read the series book by book and then drink beer and hash out ongoing themes, conspiracy theories (like that Logan is a secret vampire and that's why Mr. Spiers won't let him in the house), rank the 'hotness' of Stoneybrook dads and so much more.  While the podcast isn't really for kids, it certainly entertained me for hours on end, with a particular binge on the series the last time I had a scratched cornea.

We're working our way through the original series this spring and summer as we eagerly await the release of Logan Likes Maryanne on September 1st.

What book series helped you better connect with your kids?