I would like to comment on my story, "In Charge".
It's an extremely short story, probably the shortest one I've ever written. For those who haven't read it, I'll summarize the plot:
A pair of young parents come home from a night out, after having left their 13-year-old daughter "in charge" of babysitting their 8-year-old daughter. Upon returning home, they learn that the 13YO spanked the 8YO for not going to bed. They then spank the 13YO for spanking the 8YO.
Many of the comments I've received have pointed out that the 13YO daughter is never going to want to babysit her little sister again, after the parents basically undermined the authority they'd given her.
I will confess that I am not a parent. I was 36 when I wrote the story, and I'm 48 now, and I still have no experience as a parent.
But that was kind of the point.
I am the oldest child in my family, of my generation. I'm my parents' oldest child. I was the baby who made both sets of my grandparents into grandparents, and made my aunts and uncles into aunts and uncles.
I got the "benefit" of all of those people's inexperience. And I suffered from that inexperience well into my teenage years.
So picture that 13YO daughter in my story, being left to babysit her little sister for the first time. Her parents have no idea how their instructions will be interpreted when they leave her in charge, because they have no experience.
And so they fuck up.
That's all I have to say about that. |