Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from The Baby-Sitters Club

Diabetes is serious business. I think I may have actually wanted diabetes as a kid because of uber-cool, NYC-born gal Stacey McGill. I’m not a doctor, but I play one in real life thanks to Stacey’s diabetes. Feeling extra thirsty? Tired? Making frequent trips to the bathroom? You probably have diabetes, so no more candy for you. But the good news is you’ll be able to manage it just as well as Stacey does with insulin and careful diet choices.
A good babysitter is better prepared for any situation in life than a Boy Scout. The girls in the Baby-Sitters’ Club have had to deal with some intense situations—kids with asthma attacks and autism, divorce, blended families, the death of loved ones, major moves, and even the search for a missing child. But thanks to their on-the-job training as babysitters, they’re able to keep level heads and ask for help when they need it.

I could survive if shipwrecked on an uninhabited island—as long as I had a picnic lunch and a mirror. In Super Special #4, Baby-Sitters’ Island Adventure, Dawn and Claudia plan a sailing race to a nearby island along with some of their babysitting charges. But a crazy storm pushes them way off course, capsizes one of their boats, and lands them on an island that’s definitely not the one they set out for. So now they’re left with one boat, two sitters, three kids—one of whom gets pretty sick—and no food but the picnic lunch they packed. Spoiler alert: They end up getting rescued by reflecting a mirror at a passing plane. Since then, I’ve felt fully capable of surviving such an ordeal—provided I packed as many Snickers bars as Claudia did.
Thirteen is a totally fine age to be left alone with an infant. When I was 11, I made a BSC-like flier advertising my babysitting services. I got exactly zero calls because I was 11. At the time, I was shocked and dismayed, because Kristy and her crew were only 12 when they started the club, and the good parents of Stoneybrook totally trusted them to care for their wee ones. (And junior members Mallory and Jessi were 11, just like I was!). Maybe it was a different time, a different (completely fictional) place. With the benefit of hindsight, I’m disappointed to say that middle schoolers are probably a bit young to be watching infants.

Fashion choices are an excellent way to express your personality—but don’t try to change your style, like, ever. One of my favorite parts of every BSC book was the descriptions of what everyone was wearing, especially Claudia and her insane ensembles—like this one, from Claudia and the First Thanksgiving: “I’d put on a pair of baggy pants, not blue, not black, but yellow. With these I was wearing my red Doc Martens, laced with orange and yellow laces, and this great, funky, enormous shirt that I found in a vintage clothes shop. It has a leaf pattern on it. The leaves are in a Hawaiian print design, and the colors are fabulous. Underneath I was wearing my red and yellow tie-dyed long underwear shirt. To complete the ensemble, I had on earrings that I’d made myself, shaped like pumpkins, and a fringed yellow-and-white scarf tied around my hair.” So Claudia is allowed to wear outfits like this, because it’s her shtick. Just like Kristy can always be found in jeans and a baseball cap, and Stacey in some sophisticated outfit from The City. But when Dawn tries to trade in her California casual persona for something new in Dawn’s Big Date, and Mary Anne trades in her shoulder-length locks for a shorter cut in Mary Anne’s Makeover, the other girls in the club are not having it. So apparently that thing everyone wrote in your yearbook saying, “Don’t change!” was a literal command. NEVER CHANGE.
Mallory hates boys (and gym). Enough said.

Having good girlfriends is really the key to happiness. Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, Mary Anne, Dawn, Mallory, Jessi, and—fine—even BSC latecomer Abby stuck together through all their ups and downs, good times and bad, and an eighth-grade school year that went on forever. Crushes came and went, but this group of girlfriends were a constant in each other’s lives, making the good times that much sweeter and the bad times that much more bearable. And isn’t that what we all strive for in life—to be seen and heard by people who care about us in spite of our flaws? We’re all just looking for connection, and the BSC taught me that’s possible.
What did you learn from The Baby-Sitters Club?