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Though I was no doubt bribed with a penny at some point in my early childhood, the earliest paid work I recall is babysitting for our back-door neighbor. I was only ten, but in stature and size I must have appeared no older than eight. It's not that our neighbor cared little for her children or that she was careless about their care. She knew my mother would look in every 30 minutes or so and that I wouldn't hesitate to call my mother should there be any emergency. It was my mother with whom she left her emergency numbers, not me.

I'll call her Mrs. Callahan. Not to protect her identity, but because I can't remember her name. I was always sure I'd never forget it. But there you are. I don't know if it's a senior moment, or postmenopausal brain syndrome, or just that my brain finally filled up, and I had to push some things out my ears to make room for more. When I was little, I knew that would happen to me one day, just as I knew that my food went first to my toes and then built up, gradually filling the space between my toes and head, where it pushed upwards and made me taller. I was fourteen before I managed to eat enough to get as tall as my older sister. And then one day she went to punch me and she had to look up into my face. My life was better after that, even though she was not short of alternate, less physical, but equally as punishing forms of asserting her rightful perquisites as eldest sibling of four.

The reason I thought I would never forget Mrs. Callahan (and, so far, haven't, except for her name) was twofold, not the least of which was her status as my first employer, the benefactor who introduced me to paid work. The second reason I remember her is something I overheard her telling my mother. What she said was, though she and Mr. Callahan had been married for ten years, Mr. Callahan had never seen his wife without her makeup. She went to bed with all her makeup on, and when she was sure Mr. Callahan was dead asleep, she would get up and remove her makeup. In the morning, she got up an hour before he awoke and made herself acceptable for the new day. Through this process, it was not only Mr. Callahan who never saw Mrs. Callahan without makeup. No one saw Mrs. Callahan without makeup.

It was nearly forty years later before I again met a woman who reserved her undecorated face for her own eyes only behind the locked door of her bathroom. In a sort of variation of Mrs. Callahan, Eleanor was hiding from her lover, who was twenty years her junior, the fact that her face had not survived the ravages of time as gracefully as her body. Plastic surgery had reconfigured her face nicely, eliminating sags, bags, and wrinkles. But the crepey texture of her skin required a daily application of thick makeup that she called her "wallpaper paste." (Come to think of it, she had succeeded in resurrecting the feel of a firm body through rigorous workouts, but had found no way to erase the ugly varicose veins or other age-related body blemishes.) She, too, slipped between the covers in the dark, but only removed her makeup (including false eyelashes) when her lover was at work.

Through the graces of Mrs. Callahan, then, child care (babysitting, we called it then) became my first profession. For one well-behaved child, I read endless stories and built Tinker-Toy towers. When I reached age twelve, my client base expanded beyond immediate neighbors. I worked in the toddler's nursery at Texas City's First Presbyterian Church, earning wages of $1.50 each Sunday morning. Beginning with young Presbyterian families, I began to earn referrals, and soon I was booked every Friday and Saturday night. At twelve years of age, I enjoyed playing games with young children and reading stories to them. This yielded an unexpected result. Though parents preferred elderly women, the children preferred me. In families where the children had a vote, I became the preferred sitter.

Life as a babysitter was grand until I turned fourteen. Despite the fact that all good things (in the form of dating boys and wearing lipstick) weren't scheduled to kick in until age sixteen, there were some opportunities for hanging out with friends on Friday and Saturday nights. Even in a crowd, and without lipstick, my social engagements were closely monitored and judiciously restricted by my parents. Every weekend was more than I could hope for, and two nights in a row were never allowed, but I nonetheless began to feel restricted by my heavy schedule of child care.

There had been a few occupational hazards, too. There was the good-looking young couple with three children. Town gossip had it that she gave birth to a Down's Syndrome child and refused to mother it, preferring to lodge it permanently in an institution where it would not handicap her other bright and beautiful children. I never knew if the story was true, but I often thought she might have preferred her Down's child if she had understood the naturally sunny disposition of most Down's people. The youngest of the children I was hired to mind was tied in bed before they left for the evening. The other two began their assault on me (and everything else in their environment) before their parents' car had fully exited the drive. Though the children were all as attractive as their strikingly beautiful mother and handsome father, I never again accepted their offer for work. When I attracted these sorts of clients into my life, my mother would come to my rescue, taking the telephone call and declaring the situation unsuitable for me.

At fifteen, I had graduated from fifty cents an hour to seventy-five. It was that year that my church class sponsored a fundraiser. Teens would babysit for church members for fifty cents an hour and all proceeds would go to our project fund. (I've long since forgotten what worthy project induced us to flood the local market with cheap Presbyterian labor for Presbyterians only. Maybe it was secretly a device to increase membership.) My first call was to babysit for an elderly woman who said she was caring for a grandchild and needed to leave the house for some shopping. I was left to care for a happy, chubby infant and instructed to wash the dishes and "pick up." I was accustomed to washing any dishes used while I was on duty, but had never been asked to clear the sinks of dishes stacked there when I arrived. She returned three hours later and examined the house critically, criticizing me for not doing a more thorough job of cleaning. I later found that she paid short when paying the church for my services. I was again assigned the same woman a week later, and this time received considerable instructions on my cleaning duties. When I protested, she responded that the church had told her housekeeping was included. I spent several hours scrubbing, cleaning, and sweeping. The baby slept through much of it, and was content to play in her play pen when she awakened.

My mother saved me from that one, too. She telephoned the chairperson for the project and reported what she viewed as abuse of the spirit of the project, as well as abuse of the young girls who were assigned to "babysit." It turned out that the project committee was aware of the situation and even knew that the woman was borrowing an infant from a neighbor in order to qualify for services. The committee had decided that she was elderly and needed the help. In other words, they had officially accepted the charade. My mother withdrew me from the program, assuring me that I wouldn't go to Hell for refusing to be a doormat. Too many times over the ensuing years, I had to call upon that wisdom.