The Baby-sitters Fight Club
The Baby-sitters Fight Club
BSFC #1: Kristy's Great Idea
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August 1986 brought us so many things: Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, Howard the Duck, and most importantly, the first Baby-sitters Club book, Kristy’s Great Idea. Brooke and Kaykay explore the feminist and queer subtext of the inaugural BSC text, discuss the respective merits of at-home perms, and bid a fond farewell to Wilford Brimley. DIABETUS!
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Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is: You don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about The Baby-sitters Club series of books by Anne M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel.
Kaykay Brady :And I'm Kaykay Brady.
Brooke Suchomel :And we're friends who met while working in the publishing industry, where we bonded over our shared love of books and pop culture and smartly stupid jokes, and that's what we aim to serve up here in this podcast. But you may be wondering: "Why 'The Baby-sitters Fight Club'?" First of all, it made us laugh. But beyond that, I'm a former PhD student in literature, and I believe that plot, at its essence, is really the introduction, exploration, and resolution of conflict. And I think that the way that both children and children's literature grapple with -- and fight back against -- serious issues in the world is really often overlooked. Earlier this summer, I found myself with some unexpected free time, which led me to do a lot of self-reflection. And one of the things that really struck me was the impact that children's books, and "The Baby-sitters Club" in particular, had on my life; how what I read shaped who I was and who I became as a person. So I decided to revisit these foundational texts in my and so many other people's life to explore the messages that I received and the lessons that I took away. And since so much of the series is grounded in female friendships, I asked Kaykay if she was down for a little socially-distanced nostalgic book club with me.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I was so happy to be invited to do this podcast with my good old buddy. I was a little too old to have experienced the Baby-sitters Club books in real time. I'm a few years older than Brooke, so I was sort of reading "Anne of Green Gables" and "Little Women" and those kind of stories. But I knew about this series and I knew about the impact of this series and, you know, younger people had often talked about it. So I was curious to check it out. And I was an English major, an avid reader, I just love character study. And I love to read, especially, like female centered books, books written by women --
Brooke Suchomel :By women, for young women.
Kaykay Brady :That's right. And books written by late in life lesbians.
Brooke Suchomel :Right?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I loves me some late in life lesbians. And late in life lesbians was like the 80s, come on.
Brooke Suchomel :And late in life lesbians love you. The feeling's mutual. So I think you're gonna really relish this series.
Kaykay Brady :So you're saying that Anne M. Martin's gonna love me.
Brooke Suchomel :She is, absolutely.
Kaykay Brady :I can't wait. I can't wait. So yeah, and not only did I want to sort of engage in these really popular books that I had missed out on, but I would basically read the phone book if Brooke suggested it. So...
Brooke Suchomel :That's our next episode. Spoiler alert.
Kaykay Brady :"Reading Phone Books with Kaykay and Brooke."
Brooke Suchomel :Mm-hmm. Well, the next episode won't be on the phone book. Sorry.
Kaykay Brady :Ope, turning off. Everyone's turning right now.
Brooke Suchomel :I know. We just lost our entire audience.
Kaykay Brady :But it will be about phone calls.
Brooke Suchomel :It will be, soon enough. Yeah. But it will also not be about the TV show, just to clarify that right off the bat. So, since we're both 80s kids, we really want to stick specifically to the primary sources in this particular podcast, and I am totally in love with the fact that this series is experiencing yet another resurgence with the rebooted TV show on Netflix. But since this is all new to Kaykay, and since this is really grounded in -- "What are the messages that people that grew up in the 80s and 90s, like us, the sort of messages that they received from the literature that they were reading at that time?" -- we're just going to stay focused on the root texts, sort of keep it to the pure uncut 80s action.
Kaykay Brady :We're Baby-sitters Club purists.
Brooke Suchomel :We absolutely are. Although, you know, there's absolutely a potential that we'll eventually expand our focus to the TV shows, movie, and such, do a little special episodes here and there
Kaykay Brady :Then we're, we're classic Baby-sitters Club.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, Baby-sitters Club O.G.s.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, if we needed another podcast title, there it is.
Brooke Suchomel :Put that in the back pocket.
Kaykay Brady :That's right.
Brooke Suchomel :But first, the book that started at all. August 1986 brought us so many things: Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" and Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling"; the cinematic masterpieces "Stand by Me" and "Howard the Duck"; and the debut of Howard Stern's radio show. But most importantly, it also brought us the first Baby-sitters Club book, "Kristy's Great Idea."
Kaykay Brady :Yes.
Brooke Suchomel :So to give everybody a refresher, I'm going to go ahead and read from the back cover copy, and I quote, "Kristy thinks the Baby-sitters Club is a great idea. She and her friends Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne all love taking care of kids. A club will give them the chance to have lots of fun and make tons of money." So 80s right there.
Kaykay Brady :Make tons of money.
Brooke Suchomel :Tons of money, make tons of money.
Kaykay Brady :Well, we'll get into this, we'll get into, you know, capitalism and feelings.
Brooke Suchomel :As you do in America in 2020. "But nobody counted on crank calls, uncontrollable two-year-olds, wild pets, and parents who don't always tell the truth. And then there's Stacey, who's acting more and more mysterious. Having a baby-sitters club isn't easy, but Kristy and her friends aren't giving up until they get it right." End quote.
Kaykay Brady :Woo-hoo. Some editor just earned their, their salary.
Brooke Suchomel :It's a very tight six sentences.
Kaykay Brady :It's got some like nice 80s wackiness, too, you know, like, "Nobody counted on crank calls" -- I expect like a penny whistle like [whistle sound]
Brooke Suchomel :Put that in in post.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, please!
Brooke Suchomel :So we're gonna discuss all of this and more problematic 80s nostalgia in this episode, so let's dive into The Baby-sitters Club book number one, "Kristy's Great Idea."
Brooke Suchomel :Long time Baby-sitters Club fan. And it was really fun for me to go back and reread it and have all of these feelings that I remember feeling when I was, you know, eight years old and first getting into this coming back to me. As someone who is experiencing the joys of The Baby-sitters Club for the first time, talk to me. What was your, what was your take on "Kristy's Great Idea"?
Kaykay Brady :Oh man, it was just, it was a warm 80s hug. It was just kind of --
Brooke Suchomel :The best kind of 80s hugs.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, no, it was uh, it just brought me right back to that time, and definitely reading it as a grownup was less nostalgia and more concern for 80s children, who are now, me, basically, adults, right?
Brooke Suchomel :We're learning so much about why we are the way we are.
Kaykay Brady :Correct. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it just does not age well.
Brooke Suchomel :So what stood out to you as problematic?
Kaykay Brady :Well, here's a quote directly from "Kristy's Great Idea." She said, "When David Michael gets like this, it's important to ignore him and pretend everything is fine." So I'll give you a context of what that meant, is it meant that David Michael was devastated because none of his siblings could babysit for him and his mom is working all the time. And he's a latchkey kid, and you know, basically he's not getting enough attention, clearly.
Brooke Suchomel :Right, getting passed around from one sibling to the next when Kathy can't come over. Uh huh.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah. And then like his mom, like calls all these babysitters who can't babysit and he basically starts crying. Just a perfect little time capsule of 80s right there.
Brooke Suchomel :That moment, though, it was interesting that you singled out that particular moment. That was the one that really jumped out the most to me when I was rereading it as well. We both kind of honed in on that early on. I think that's Gosh, that's what, Chapter One?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, it's early. Because this is the crux of how the Baby-sitters Club comes to be.
Brooke Suchomel :Exactly, exactly. It's the genesis of Kristy's great idea. That's where the great idea crystallizes, and that great idea is the Baby-sitters Club, but the thing that stood out to me about that, and I love that you're looking at it from David Michael's perspective, as we all should, really, as the youngest person, the most impressionable person in that scene, but for me looking at it from Kristy's perspective, and frankly looking at it as somebody who is kind of watching Kristy's response, and that's one of the reasons why I love this book series so much, which, you know, we'll get into, is just the fact that each book is told from the perspective of that Baby-sitters Club member. So we get to get inside the head of Kristy, and then we get to get inside the head of Claudia, and then we get to get inside the head of Mary Anne, and Stacey, and, spoiler alert, down the road, Dawn, etc. And I just love how that makes it possible for you to understand these characters when they are characters in someone else's story. They're richer in that way, because you can see who they are, their own perspective of themselves, then you also get to see how others perceive them. But looking at it, you know, as this first book, the first chapter of this first book series that goes on for decades and is still with us today, I love how you really understand that when you're reading this now as a grown-ass woman, looking back and seeing the messages that you were getting as a child, that the thing that really led her to this great idea was her empathy. Was her seeing that her mom's pizza was getting cold because she was too busy having to call around trying to find somebody to care for her kids. And Kristy feels bad for her mom, that her mom who works all day and comes home and brings them this pizza, she's not able to eat. You know, she's sad because she looks over and she understands that her brother is feeling bad right now about this, like, is perhaps blaming himself for this. And so she recognizes the way that these people that she cares about are feeling and she wants to solve that problem for them. Like she thinks about what could we do, and not just like what someone could do to solve that problem, but what could I do? Like, she takes that initiative to solve it. And I really, I really, really love that.
Kaykay Brady :Well, she is, she is a budding lesbian. So, you know, we are all about initiative. It's what we're known for.
Brooke Suchomel :Right, right. You're gonna erect that tent yourself.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, well, I was thinking, I remember you and I were talking about how you felt like being a reader as a child, like, developed your empathy.
Brooke Suchomel :Absolutely.
Kaykay Brady :And as you were talking, that's exactly what I was thinking about. Like, giving the perspective of all these different characters is like helping a young kid develop their empathy and developing their ability to have that like theory of mind, right, where like, other people think different thoughts, other people have different insecurities, and everyone's kind of fighting their own battle. So that's cool. I really like the way you describe that. Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. And it's one of those things that, I don't think it really hit me as much until, you know, we're talking about it right now. And I'm just trying to think about what other books in the 80s were out there that did that. What other -- were there other series that were told from a range of perspectives?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I was thinking the same. I don't know. I mean, there was a rash of books after this you know, like there was the Sweet Valley High, I think that was after this. I don't know. Then, then like Audrey and I were thinking about like, what other Y.A. books were there -- you know, there was like, Ramona Quimby, Judy Blume, but that was always from like a one character perspective. It certainly wasn't multiple.
Brooke Suchomel :I have opinions about Sweet Valley High. Hoo.
Kaykay Brady :Another podcast! It's gonna be our break off. Well, do you want to talk about the plot?
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, let's, let's, let's dive into the plots.
Kaykay Brady :Because I just had fun, like, summarizing the plots in like one or two sentences and even that I thought was really fun and instructive. So it was like really funny to me to just write out these sentences and I thought you might enjoy them. All right, so -- and there's like many, many plots. I have like five plots, okay. All right. So, Plot A, I say, "Kristy unleashes the Baby-sitters Club as a distraction to her mom's deep pain, and Watson's and her mom's deepening relationship and they all, and they all learn lessons about business management."
Brooke Suchomel :I love it!
Kaykay Brady :Plot B: "Kristy gets a taste of dog sitting, and Claudia learns about extinguishing behavior through operant conditioning." I'm not only a psychotherapist in training, but I was a dog trainer, so this was like right up my alley! So basically, the dogs are running away from her, and everyone's instinct is to chase the dog. But actually what you want to do, and what Kristy did so well, is she ran the opposite direction. And then also when the kids were losing their shit, she basically ignored them and started reading a book. That's operant conditioning, boy. I mean, I will say I was a little stunned that Kristy did not like dog sitting.
Brooke Suchomel :Hmm.
Kaykay Brady :I mean, what kind of budding lesbian is this?
Brooke Suchomel :It is interesting. I've been doing a lot of research on Ann M. Martin, and I wonder how much of it is, just, I don't know. Like, is it because Ann M. Martin seems to be, like, very much a cat person? But then you've got Louie, right?
Kaykay Brady :Oh we'll get into cats. We'll talk about Boo-Boo at length.
Brooke Suchomel :Oh yeah yeah, but then you get it, like, she loves Louie, right? Like, she loves her collie, Louie. But maybe it's just a matter of, she has this idea in her head of what her club is and what they do.
Kaykay Brady :And it is not for dogs.
Brooke Suchomel :Right, it is very much not for dogs, as we see again when later on, you know, Mrs. McKeever calls back and she's just like, "No, we don't want your business." Which is a choice.
Kaykay Brady :Hey, sometimes you gotta know what you don't want.
Brooke Suchomel :This is true.
Kaykay Brady :You know what I mean?
Brooke Suchomel :She's like, line in the sand. But, um, but yeah, no, you're right. Like, why not? Why not dogs? And I think it's because Kristy is just like, that's, that's just not what we do here at the Baby-sitters Club.
Kaykay Brady :All right, so, C plot: "Stacey and Sam begin a romance and Kristy tries to unpack heteronormative culture and beauty standards." I was very struck, by there's one line Kristy's like, "I guess Sam is a hunk? And I guess --"
Brooke Suchomel :A foxy chick!
Kaykay Brady :"Stacey is like foxy --" Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel :A gorgeous hunk and a foxy chick.
Kaykay Brady :That's right. That's right. And I thought to myself, don't worry, Kristy, you know, someday you're gonna understand why you have no interest in boys, and some lesbian will love your sensible outfits, your business acumen, your sports skills and your ability to flip your eyelids.
Brooke Suchomel :It's true. Yeah, all of those things are plusses. Every single one of those things.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, with the right woman. Absolutely.
Brooke Suchomel :Right. Exactly. Yeah. I love that. I actually have that too, in my book where, you know, she said, "When I heard that later, I thought about what they looked like. And I tried to figure out what they saw in each other." And then, in parentheses, "I have absolutely no interest in boys, of course," like, underlined, absolutely no interest, but that she realized that kind of information might be useful one day.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah. And of course, you know, that's gonna resonate with me as a budding lesbian. I was Kristy, 100 percent, good at sports, you know, having no idea what my sister was doing with the opposite sex
Brooke Suchomel :Right, flipping your eyelids.
Kaykay Brady :Well, I never could flip my eyelids but I could do a lot of really fun eye crossing. I'm a pro.
Brooke Suchomel :When you read about flipping your eyelids did you think about flipping your eyelids?
Kaykay Brady :I sure did.
Brooke Suchomel :Did you do it?
Kaykay Brady :I mean, if I wasn't a middle aged woman with like, allergy crunchy contacts, I would have tried it.
Brooke Suchomel :I seriously considered trying to flip my eyelids.
Kaykay Brady :Why don't we try it? Did you want to try it right now? Should we take a second?
Brooke Suchomel :Should we try to flip our eyelids?
Kaykay Brady :I can't, I, I'm having such bad allergies. But --
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, I know.
Kaykay Brady :Right. So Brooke is now giving it a whirl -- yeah, she can't.
Brooke Suchomel :I tried to do it when I was younger and I could never --
Kaykay Brady :It's not for straight girls.
Brooke Suchomel :No. No, I could never flip my eyelids, but I could also never do a cartwheel. So right kind of square in the middle. Neither Kristy nor a Stacey here.
Kaykay Brady :Was Stacey cartwheeling, does that come later?
Brooke Suchomel :Well I don't I know, I just imagine --
Kaykay Brady :Sure.
Brooke Suchomel :-- that that would be, I mean, 'cause Stacey is like, peak 80s girl.
Kaykay Brady :Sure.
Brooke Suchomel :Right?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, yeah, that's probably her sport.
Brooke Suchomel :What -- right, cartwheels. What all 80s girls strive to be.
Kaykay Brady :"I'm a competitive cartwheeler."
Brooke Suchomel :Right, she's got a, she's got a gold medal in the cartwheel.
Kaykay Brady :All right, should I tell you about the next plot?
Brooke Suchomel :Please do.
Kaykay Brady :Okay, this I think we're gonna have to do a deep dive on. All right, so, "Mary Anne meets Watson's kids, a cat is body shamed, and a strong woman of independent means is dubbed a witch." So I got a serious theory about this. Do you want to hear it?
Brooke Suchomel :Please.
Kaykay Brady :All right, so my theory is that Morbidda Destiny is Kristy's latent lesbian panic. So the name is the tip off to me. "Morbid" comes from the word for "disease," which, at the time, homosexuality was still a disease in the DSM. And "Destiny," you know, she'll, she'll try to keep it down, but she can't escape it. And like, maybe Morbidda is just like a sad old lesbian who lost her partner that did all the home repairs.
Brooke Suchomel :The one who could flip her eyelids.
Kaykay Brady :Exactly, and then Morbidda is like in this totally oppressive heteronormative culture. And maybe she's growing weed in the garden and that's why the cat got fat!
Brooke Suchomel :Right, cutting into profits.
Kaykay Brady :And that's why the cat was like freaking out, like, the cat goes over to Morbidda's. And then he comes back and he's like running around like a motherfucker.
Brooke Suchomel :Right. Psychoactive --
Kaykay Brady :Maybe she's growing weed! Like, someday they're gonna love Morbidda. They're gonna be like, "Dude, we thought you were a witch but, like, you're just a super cool lesbian who's growing weed."
Brooke Suchomel :Is that why she's, like, upstairs and you see the window shade snap down and then snap back up? It's just, like, her getting glimpses at her past and her past getting glimpses of their future?
Kaykay Brady :Oh, damn, that's deep girl. I love it. I'm here for it. And then of course, the last plot is the big reveal, which is diabeetus.
Brooke Suchomel :Right, which is so weird!
Kaykay Brady :Which is so timely because we've just lost Wilford Brimley.
Brooke Suchomel :RIP sir. Like, sidebar: A, I didn't realize he was still alive, and B, I didn't realize the man was 85.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Which means that, like, back when he was kind of like playing all of his old man roles --
Kaykay Brady :And he looks like 80 years old, he was like 42.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. Or like, maybe "Cocoon" is real. Like, Wilford Brimley has been an 85 year old diabetic all this time. And now, he's looking around at what the world has become, and he's just like, "I'm out. You know, this is not for me." And I get it.
Kaykay Brady :You know, I think Stacey could have used some Wilford Brimley support, for sure.
Brooke Suchomel :She really could've.
Kaykay Brady :I mean, she's struggling with this.
Brooke Suchomel :She needs to check her blood sugar, check it often, eat her oatmeal, you know? And she'll be okay.
Kaykay Brady :That's right, it stabilzes your blood sugar. Here was the hilarious thing to me. They said they moved from New York City because of her diabeetus?
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah.
Kaykay Brady :I was like, something's not -- it's not passing the smell test.
Brooke Suchomel :It is strange, right?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :You know, you're talking about all of the, the sort of undercurrent of homosexuality that is, you know, just beneath the surface there for Kristy. And yet the big secret reveal is that Stacey has diabetes, which- who cares? Like, who frickin' cares?
Kaykay Brady :Exactly! That's enough to move out of New York City?
Brooke Suchomel :Right? "We can never show our face!"
Kaykay Brady :Like, you got to flee like, like it's a pandemic? That's so strange.
Brooke Suchomel :Right, right. Yeah, it is. It is so bizarre. And I remember being confused about that as a kid, too, with like, why would somebody be so ashamed of diabetes that they wouldn't want to let anybody know they had it? But then, who am I? Like, I didn't have juvenile diabetes, so --
Kaykay Brady :Sure.
Brooke Suchomel :-- how do I know how somebody might feel about it? And I get that, like, being different, and your best friend here in your new town is this, like, total junk food addict --
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :-- who is stashing gummy bears in her pencil case and jawbreakers in her sneaker box and all of that stuff.
Kaykay Brady :That's a heartbreak, man. That's a heartbreak.
Brooke Suchomel :Everyone has secrets in this --
Kaykay Brady :Well, it's so funny --
Brooke Suchomel :-- except for, except for Kristy, when you think about it.
Brooke Suchomel :Oh, but Kristy has the biggest secret of all!
Brooke Suchomel :Right, but she doesn't know it. She doesn't know it yet.
Kaykay Brady :Well this is where I think Ann Martin doesn't know it yet.
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :So like, Ann Martin's like, "There's a big secret -- haha, it's diabetes! Sorry, you thought it was something else? Absolutely not."
Brooke Suchomel :No, it's Stacey's diabetes.
Kaykay Brady :So it falls a little flat.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, everybody's like, "And?" You know, "Dot-dot-dot?" Like, "That -- that's all you got for me, lady?" So you've got Stacey with her diabeetus deep dark secret.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :You have Claudia and her secretive nature with her junk food. Like --
Kaykay Brady :She's like hiding it.
Brooke Suchomel :-- she has to stash the candy everywhere. And then also, she points out that, like, she dresses wacky, but she doesn't wear her skeleton earrings that jangle around, like, she keeps thos, y'know, she puts those on at school. She doesn't want her parents to see that. So I think with Claudia, she is trying to come into her own as, like, she's obviously the one who's going through the most obvious sort of pubescent changes. Like --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- Kristy talks about how ever since seventh grade started, they never were super tight with Claudia before, but now they've definitely got different interests. Claudia wants to, like --
Kaykay Brady :Be with the boys.
Brooke Suchomel :-- talk about boys, doesn't want to play tetherball with them at recess, she wants to watch the boys play basketball.
Kaykay Brady :That's a real shame because tetherball is a fine game. That is a fine game.
Brooke Suchomel :Tetherball is legit, it is.
Kaykay Brady :I mean, if that isn't, like, the, the crystallization of an 80s childhood, you know, it's like you're slam -- you're like punching a fucking volleyball into your friend's face.
Brooke Suchomel :Right, right.
Kaykay Brady :Like, around a huge metal pole. You know? I mean, it's just..
Brooke Suchomel :On concrete, unsupervised.
Kaykay Brady :It reminds me of those jabby lawn darts that parents used to play with.
Brooke Suchomel :How did any of us survive --
Kaykay Brady :I dunno.
Brooke Suchomel :-- the 80s, really?
Kaykay Brady :Even without diabetes!
Brooke Suchomel :But then you've also got Mary Anne, who isn't allowed to even talk to her friends on the phone.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Instead, she has to communicate, like the hostage that she is --
Kaykay Brady :With Morse code.
Brooke Suchomel :-- with frickin Morse code with a flashlight upstairs in her room at night with her friend across the street, like --
Kaykay Brady :I mean, here was my question --
Brooke Suchomel :Ugh, her dad needs therapy. Oof
Kaykay Brady :I mean, everybody in this whole book needs therapy. Like --
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :-- don't even get me started. We could do an entire podcast diagnosing. I have some working diagnoses going on already.
Brooke Suchomel :Mm-hmm.
Kaykay Brady :But, why didn't they get some walkie talkies? I mean, that's what me and my bud next door did in the 80s.
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :We had, like, we just brought our asses to Service Merchandising and bought some quality, quality walkie talkies.
Brooke Suchomel :Well, you had more -- I think you had more freedom than Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady :Ah, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :I mean, Mary Anne can't even spend $3 of her own babysitting money --
Kaykay Brady :Oh, for pizza.
Brooke Suchomel :-- on pizza --
Kaykay Brady :Right, she's not getting walkie talkies, yeah, all right.
Brooke Suchomel :-- because her dad wants her to save it for college or quote unquote clothes that, like, he dictates as he dictates also whether or not, like, she can't even wear her hair down. She has to wear her hair in braids, you know?
Kaykay Brady :This is, you know, now that you're describing it, it's very disturbing!
Brooke Suchomel :Isn't it disturbing?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, I mean, it's really like, her, like Mary Ann's dad is just like keeping her --
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :-- like, trapped in a frickin box. Like trying to -- obviously can't, can't deal with the fact that he's got a pre-pubescent daughter.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And he's alone.
Kaykay Brady :Well, he has some complicated bereavement going on.
Brooke Suchomel :For sure.
Kaykay Brady :It's what we call that.
Brooke Suchomel :For sure. But you know, his daughter is 12 years old, so -- poor stunted Mary Anne. She'll come around a little bit later, but man, oh, I felt so bad for her in this first book.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, she is kind of like a sad sack character.
Brooke Suchomel :Totally.
Kaykay Brady :And she really gets lost even, even, like, with the author trying to, like, bring her forward. I still think for me, I'm just like -- Mary Anne, like, I glaze over.
Brooke Suchomel :And it's funny that you say that because Ann M. Martin claims -- so there's a profile of her in Vulture that came out, I think it was like 2016. And she says in that interview that she's a Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady :Ha.
Brooke Suchomel :And I've got a different version -- so there's been so many different sort of, like, re-dos of The Baby-sitters Club --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- over the years. And when they came out with them in sort of like new editions in the 1990s, there was a new interview with Ann M. Martin in the back, and she talks about the way that this book series came about, etc. She mentions that Kristy is her favorite babysitter --
Kaykay Brady :I assumed she was Kristy. Like, I thought this was a Louisa May Alcott / Jo situation, straight up.
Brooke Suchomel :Totally. I don't remember whenever it was she came out, like, Ann M. Martin came out, I don't know, like a decade ago or so. And it was just like, oh, that made so much sense because it was very obvious to me as a kid -- even before I knew what gay was, I didn't know what gay was, but I knew that, like, whatever gay was, that's what Kristy was, to me. Right?
Kaykay Brady :Wow.
Brooke Suchomel :Which was, but that was like, it was like, "That's cool!" You know?
Kaykay Brady :I mean, like, I that's very early, especially in the culture of the 80s to be having those thoughts.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, like, there was just something different about Kristy.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :I just knew that Kristy was not, like --
Kaykay Brady :Oh shit, story of my life, girl.
Brooke Suchomel :Right?
Kaykay Brady :That, that should be like, be my autobiography subtitle.
Brooke Suchomel :You know, so it was like, oh, well I -- like, it just, it just made sense. And I think that there was something that I had read previously that talked about how, you know, she identified with Kristy, but then reading this article from 2016 and she talks about how much she identifies with Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, shocking.
Brooke Suchomel :And, and the writer of the piece talks about how Ann M. Martin is just painfully shy.
Kaykay Brady :Ha.
Brooke Suchomel :Still. Like, to this day.
Kaykay Brady :Interesting.
Brooke Suchomel :Just incredibly shy.
Kaykay Brady :So Kristy was sort of like who she wanted to be.
Brooke Suchomel :I think so.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah. Well, and Kristy is a fucking baller. Like, she's the one that comes up with the Baby-sitters Club. She has all these like ideas for like, how to make it better, like really smart ideas. I was consistently impressed with, like, her quality control.
Brooke Suchomel :Right. Right. And it's funny that you say that because reading it again now, you know, gosh, this would have been almost 30 years since -- over 30 years, you know, since I would have read it the first time. I remember reading it -- and we talked earlier about who do you identify with, th-, now that The Baby-sitters Club is back out on Netflix, you see a lot of the BuzzFeed quizzes --
Kaykay Brady :Totally.
Brooke Suchomel :-- and such, you know, like, "Which babysitter are you?" And I remember even thinking about that when I was a kid reading this for the first time, and I knew I was a Kristy. I knew I was Kristy.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :But I didn't want to be Kristy.
Kaykay Brady :Ha.
Brooke Suchomel :I didn't want to be Kristy at all. I wanted to be Claudia. I wanted to be Stacey.
Kaykay Brady :And what was it about those two that made you want to be them?
Brooke Suchomel :Stacey to me, as I mentioned before, was like that aspirational -- what the ideal girl was at the time.
Kaykay Brady :'Cause she's a foxy chick?
Brooke Suchomel :'Cause she's a foxy chick, even with her diabetes and all, and for me, I was like, "Ooh, diabetes!"
Kaykay Brady :She's a foxy chick with diabetes!
Brooke Suchomel :"Just a foxy chick with diabetes!"
Kaykay Brady :"Ooh, diabetes!"
Brooke Suchomel :But like, diabetes kind of makes you cool! You know what I mean? It's like there's something --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah yeah, there's something different about you.
Brooke Suchomel :-- different about you.
Kaykay Brady :She's from the big New York City.
Brooke Suchomel :Right. I mean, obviously, she's just so glamorous. I kind of had the same reaction to Stacey as a reader that Mary Anne did to her, where everything's like wow --
Kaykay Brady :Oh, I see.
Brooke Suchomel :"Ooh, wow, you took the subway to Coney Island? Wow!"
Kaykay Brady :Okay, can we talk about that?
Brooke Suchomel :Please.
Kaykay Brady :Why is she taking so many trains to Coney Island? The B, the D, the F -- they all go right to Coney Island from anywhere in Manhattan.
Brooke Suchomel :Well, maybe, maybe, that's it! Maybe Ann M. Martin had never taken the subway --
Kaykay Brady :Well, she probably hadn't lived in New York City until she started making like crazy money, or maybe, maybe you're saying --
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, like, sort of on the outskirts?
Kaykay Brady :Because like she wasn't rich before she wrote this, I'm assuming.
Brooke Suchomel :No, they said she was a teacher, and then that she also was an editor.
Kaykay Brady :Oh, okay.
Brooke Suchomel :And, and what's really interesting is that this book series was not her idea.
Kaykay Brady :Ah.
Brooke Suchomel :So she had written a few books for Scholastic previously --
Kaykay Brady :Aha, right.
Brooke Suchomel :-- and her editor at Scholastic pitched this to her --
Kaykay Brady :Whoa!
Brooke Suchomel :-- and said, "Hey, what do you think about doing a four-book series?" So it was just initially meant to be just four books.
Kaykay Brady :From like the four perspectives?
Brooke Suchomel :I don't even think that she even said the four perspectives.
Kaykay Brady :Ah.
Brooke Suchomel :So -- and this is in the 90s version of this first book that I have where there's this extra sort of letter from Ann M. Martin, and it's a "Dear Reader." And she talks about, like, how The Baby-sitters Club came to be about and mentions that in 85, she had just left her job, and she used to be a teacher, and started to write books for kids full time. And apparently in this interview that I read with her from Vulture -- so she was 30 years old when she started writing the Baby-sitters Club.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :And she mentions that she had been a book editor too, so I'm not quite sure what her publishing history was like, but that the editor just pitched really the title to her, so just said, "Hey, would you write a four-book series called The Baby-sitters Club," and so she had to figure out what that would be about --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- what shape it would take. And so it was her idea to make it about a business run by a group of friends, she says. And so she came up with four different characters and decided to write each book from the perspective of each of those characters. And she said that she based Kristy on her best friend --
Kaykay Brady :Ah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- from when she was growing up and Mary Anne on herself. So it's really interesting that the character that's based on herself is the character that --
Kaykay Brady :Gets lost.
Brooke Suchomel :-- fills least fleshed out.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I mean, that makes sense too, in a way.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. Because it's hard to, like, go there.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, and also, like, you are the observer, right?
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :And so like, Mary Anne could play that role of being the observer and the others are more of the actors.
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :That is really interesting.
Brooke Suchomel :But Mary Anne will come in later on to save the day --
Kaykay Brady :What?
Brooke Suchomel :-- in book four.
Kaykay Brady :Oh, right. I haven't read that yet, but I am super looking forward to that.
Brooke Suchomel :Stacey is what, to me, was what, like, society tells you --
Kaykay Brady :Ah, yeah yeah yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- you should aspire to be. You know? And so that was the message that I think I was picking up, like, she's tall, she's thin --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- she's blonde with a perm, as everybody -- probably not even Ogilvie, right? Like, she didn't do that, her mom didn't do that in her bathroom herself.
Kaykay Brady :What is Ogilvie?
Brooke Suchomel :Oh, Ogilvie perms? It was the at-home perm.
Kaykay Brady :Oh shit. I didn't even know there was such a thing. That sounds dangerous!
Brooke Suchomel :It -- almost as dangerous as the at-home hair highlighting kit --
Kaykay Brady :Oh shoot.
Brooke Suchomel :-- that I, the hair frosting kit that I did, that I had a, a really not-brilliant idea to do myself in the early 90s.
Kaykay Brady :Did you have hot sticks? Am I getting this right? Did you have hot sticks?
Brooke Suchomel :Not hot sticks. I had a spiral curling iron.
Kaykay Brady :Okay.
Brooke Suchomel :I had a flattening iron. I had -- we had hot rollers. We had many different size of hair curlers --
Kaykay Brady :Damn.
Brooke Suchomel :-- but yeah, Ogilvie was an at-home perm that you could do, but I think Stacey probably got it done in Manhattan --
Kaykay Brady :Professionally, of course.
Brooke Suchomel :-- because she was so fancy.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, so like Stacey's who society tells you you should want to be. And Claudia was who I wanted to be.
Kaykay Brady :Ah.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, who -- like, me, personally --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, she's an artist. She's cool.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah.
Kaykay Brady :She dresses like Milli Vanilli.
Brooke Suchomel :She doesn't, or at least puts on a show of like, not giving a fuck. And I love that about Claudia. Although I know you've got feelings about Claudia too, so I'm sure we'll, we'll talk about that. She's not without her problems. That is for sure. She's also a problematic character.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I want to hear your thoughts on that.
Brooke Suchomel :On why Claudia is problematic? I think the one scene that I read that really struck me as -- well, all of the scenes in the book strike me as very real.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :I think that's why I loved this series so much. I think that's why this was what I would spend my babysitting money on.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :You know, have my mom, like, I would -- drop me off at the mall. I'm going to go straight to Waldenbooks.
Kaykay Brady :Waldenbooks! I was just gonna say, Waldenbooks, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Absolutely. You know, I had a choice between Waldenbooks and B. Dalton but Waldenbooks was my jam.
Kaykay Brady :Waldenbooks was the go-to, obviously.
Brooke Suchomel :So good. And I knew exactly where they were, and I would just make a beeline for it --
Kaykay Brady :Right next to the Spencer's, right near Claire's, across from Auntie Anne's Pretzels.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, all of those stores were on the second floor of Westdale Mall, and I think that's why I never went to B. Dalton, because it was on the ground floor. Like, ground floor was more adult stuff, upstairs was more like kids stuff.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, that's where the party's at.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. It's where they had the store where you could go and get like stuff screen printed.
Kaykay Brady :Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :You know, custom screen printing? So awesome. Glamour Shots was also really close to Waldenbooks, and so I always pictured Stacey as, like, your ideal Glamour Shots girl.
Kaykay Brady :Obviously.
Brooke Suchomel :But I think that's why, like, I would spend so much time and money invested in these books because it just felt real to me.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Even the little things, like, school gets out at 2:42.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Y'know, just the little minutae where it's like, yeah, there are really weird start and end times to classes. I think it does a really good job talking about the highly imperfect relationships that kids have.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :A lot of books I remember reading, their depiction of friendships just didn't necessarily ring true to me because they were either so idealized or so, like, when there was conflict, you didn't necessarily understand where it was coming from. It would kind of feel out of the blue. Whereas this, you understand, Claudia is Kristy's friend of proximity.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, Claudia hangs out with Kristy and Mary Anne because they're on her street.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :If they didn't live on her street, you can tell, they wouldn't hang out. And everybody has those friendships, right, as a kid?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, you make you make a really good point, too, in terms of like, they also really understand each other. Like, they understand their vulnerabilities. And then like, occasionally in a fight, they might attack those vulnerabilities like human beings do. And then in their stronger, better moments, they're sort of holding those vulnerabilities as friends, right? But like --
Brooke Suchomel :Exactly.
Kaykay Brady :-- it is cool to see, you know, the kind of like, rupture and repair that they go through in the end where they have the big fight over Stacey, and then they kind of come back together.
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :Which feels pretty real, too, you know what I mean? Because at that age, like, you're always fighting with your friends, like everything's very dramatic. And then you forget about it and you go to the mall. You go get some Glamour Shots.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, and I think that that is not something that was, at least at that time, I didn't see that honest reflection of my life. Even though this is still, in many ways, idealized, you know, there's a lot of problems that kids have to deal with that aren't addressed in these books. But there's also a lot of things that kids deal with that I had never seen --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- in books before. And that insecurity, that feeling of instability with your friendships.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And I think Claudia is probably, not probably, the -- Claudia is like the most destabilizing force there. You know, she's kind of the linchpin. They come to her room.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Like she's the only one with her own -- I mean, the fact that Claudia had her own phone line?
Kaykay Brady :Oh, please.
Brooke Suchomel :Amazing, right? Like, that's, like that's why she's the coolest because you're like, that's who you want to be --
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :-- you want to be, you know, the girl who has her own phone line in her room and Claudia, where she is problematic, it was in the way that she sort of confronted Kristy. Like, you see her taking her new friend, who is the cool friend, her side.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, that's pretty garbage. Especially when technically the new friend did lie.
Brooke Suchomel :She did lie. She did lie.
Kaykay Brady :I mean, that's garbage.
Brooke Suchomel :Right. Right. And so you've got, like, these two separate confrontations of Kristy confronting Stacey about something and Claudia immediately jumping to Stacey's defense. So like, for instance, when -- the first time was when they first meet Stacey and Stacey isn't having the junk food because of the, you know, spoiler alert, diabeetus.
Kaykay Brady :Diabeetus.
Brooke Suchomel :You know, she asks, "How much do you weigh?"
Kaykay Brady :Did ask that?
Brooke Suchomel :She did.
Kaykay Brady :Oh, yeah, she said, "It's not healthy to diet if you don't need to lose weight."
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I remember that.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, so it wasn't "How much do you weigh" in, like, a shaming way.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :But you know, there is, there's probably a better, like, "Oh, I'm concerned about you," but you know, you're 12 years old.
Kaykay Brady :Sure. You don't know shit.
Brooke Suchomel :What the hell do you know about, how to, like frame concern?
Kaykay Brady :Oh my God, and let's not even get into 80s fat shaming. Oh my god.
Brooke Suchomel :Oh God.
Kaykay Brady :That's like a pox on the society, you know --
Brooke Suchomel :Absolutely.
Kaykay Brady :-- the amount of a horrible fat shaming in the 80s. Homo shaming and fat shaming.
Brooke Suchomel :So much shaming of things that now it's like, kind of great to see, like the positivity movement --
Kaykay Brady :For sure.
Brooke Suchomel :-- coming around. Again, it's like, how much of that is we were raised with this and we saw that it was bullshit --
Kaykay Brady :Of course!
Brooke Suchomel :-- and we, you know, opted to reject it? So hopefully kids growing up now won't have to deal with that same absolute bullshit that tormented --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- you and I, and I think everybody else that we grew up with that didn't have a naturally fast metabolism. Um, but you know, so the way that Claudia just sort of like jumps to Stacey's defense.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :I think, especially when you're looking at it from Kristy's perspective, that sort of like raised my hackles.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Even though Claudia was the cool girl that I wished that I could be.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Reading it now, it's like, ehhh, like what's, what's that all about? But then you think about the fact that like, well Claudia would have her own insecurities too.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, every single girl in this book has their own insecurities.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And it comes to light and you understand it, like, they're, they're very realistic, they feel, they ring very true.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And no one is a perfect character, like there's no, quote unquote Mary Sue. You know, the Mary Sue persona of, it's like, where the author writes the character --
Kaykay Brady :Ah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- from, like, their own perspective, but they make that character perfect --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, right.
Brooke Suchomel :in every way. And nobody in this book is perfect.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Nobody.
Kaykay Brady :So in other words, like, men writing women characters is what you're talking about.
Brooke Suchomel :Exactly, exactly. Or women writing the kind of characters that they think that their male editors would want or their male sales people want.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And it's interesting that Ann M. Martin's editor that, you know, pitched the series to her was a woman.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :You can tell this is a book written, conceived of by women, for young girls, and I think perhaps Ann M. Martin's sexuality might have something to do with the fact that it doesn't feel like anything is for the male gaze.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, none of this is being written for any, for any sort of striving for what men might want or what they might like. Every single, almost every chapter in this book passes the Bechdel Test.
Kaykay Brady :Of course, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :So for that to be, when you get something, when you get literature and art that is grounded in female relationships, and purely female relationships, not men's interpretation of female relationships or females acting in a way that they think men would want --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- I think that that really helps young women develop a better sense of self.
Kaykay Brady :No doubt.
Brooke Suchomel :A healthier sense of self, so...
Kaykay Brady :And the one thing that's occurring to me as you're talking, it's really interesting the way that the friends are able to communicate with each other and talk about feelings and how things make them feel, they can't do that with their parents.
Brooke Suchomel :Absolutely.
Kaykay Brady :Right? So like, they're the only, like, true, honest relationships you're seeing in these books are actually between the friends. Between the babysitters.
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :Whereas, like, there's a lot of repression and denial and just, like, not talking about things going on with parents. And then you're having like, you know, crazy societal things going on, right? Like, you have, like, shifting gender roles and, like, divorce rates are skyrocketing and like nobody's talking about it. But like, this is a place where, like, they can talk about what's going on between them.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. Although I think that the relationship between Kristy and her mom is interesting, because, ah, there's a lot to unpack there, too. But I think that they do attempt --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- you know, to, to make that connection, and I don't know --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, and there is some talking about it. You're right.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, I don't think that they really get there, but there is an effort there.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :There is an acknowledgement of things but, I mean, oh boy, that, that relationship is, ah, is a little tricky.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I think I'm, I'm operating on 2020 awareness of emotions.
Brooke Suchomel :For sure.
Kaykay Brady :Right? Because like, they never talk about --
Brooke Suchomel :Which is not the 1980s.
Kaykay Brady :Do you know what I'm saying? That's what, so, so we were gonna have a section where we said, "Who wins, who loses?" So maybe I'll go into it. Who loses? Feelings. Feelings lose. You know, like, there's like not a single "How did that make you feel?" in the whole book, which, like, oh man, I lived through the 80s, Millennials listening, and it tracks.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Kaykay Brady :The idea of what was happening maybe was discussed but nobody actually says, "Okay, you're upset and scared because your dad has moved away and, like, you fear losing your mom."
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah.
Kaykay Brady :You know, all I can think the whole time is like, oh my God, if somebody would just sit down with any of these kids and, like, have a discussion about their feelings around this.
Brooke Suchomel :Mm-hmm.
Kaykay Brady :I mean, but then the Baby-sitters Club would have never existed, so --
Brooke Suchomel :Right, right.
Kaykay Brady :Who won? Capitalism. Capitalism wins, man.
Brooke Suchomel :Isn't that always the way? That is the story of America, right? Who wins? Capitalism. Who loses? Emotion.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah. Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. Yeah. Sense of self.
Kaykay Brady :It's like, we can't deal with our feelings, so we're gonna make some money. We're gonna elevate our business game.
Brooke Suchomel :Right. Although, you know, this is the thing, where the good business comes about from a recognition of somebody else's feelings.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, that's a, that's a healthier frame.
Brooke Suchomel :So it's like, just, do we just need Kristy Thomas to like, run --
Kaykay Brady :The world?
Brooke Suchomel :Is Kristy Thomas Elizabeth Warren? I think there's an honest conversation to be had there, you know? And then maybe, and then like, let's, let's pool our, let's pool our resources together --
Kaykay Brady :She's got a plan for that.
Brooke Suchomel :-- so that we can all enjoy this delicious pizza, and Stacey, you can have a salad and a Diet Coke and an apple.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, and like, your brother's crying in the corner because he can't find a babysitter? She's got a plan for that!
Brooke Suchomel :She does. Oh, yeah, I would vote for this woman, I'll tell you that much.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, obviously.
Brooke Suchomel :As I was thinking about what, what are they fighting, I came down with the complexities of interpersonal relationships.
Kaykay Brady :Oh shit. Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Right? That's the theme that comes through again and again. So what I sort of identified as like the A plot was, from a, sort of a structural perspective, it's the formation of the Baby-sitters Club.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, that is the theme that ties everything together.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And the B plot to me, the thing that seemed to have the most focus on it and have sort of the most packed into it, was Kristy trying to deal with her mom's relationship with Watson.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :I love how Watson's cast as, like, he's the "good dad."
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Kristy's dad is the bum who like --
Kaykay Brady :What, he like, moved to California with a new wife.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, hasn't called them in a year.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :You know? And that gets mentioned as an aside, but hoo, there would be a lot to unpack there. But as a 12 year old girl, would you actually be doing that unpacking in that time?
Kaykay Brady :Certainly not.
Brooke Suchomel :Coming from somebody who was in a similar experience at the time --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah. Certainly not.
Brooke Suchomel :-- no, you would not. You would just be looking for any sort of distraction. And then the C plot was the nuances of pubescent female friendship dynamics.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Kristy mentions that she and Mary Anne just finished playing with dolls last summer.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :And her friend, Claudia, who was part of their trifecta is all about, "I just want to talk on the phone about boys." When you are going through that and just seeing how your friends are sort of maturing at different paces and wondering, "What do I have to hold onto?" -- particularly when you're in a situation where your mom is dating, we know that Watson isn't the first guy she's dated, Kristy talks about how she's ran off other guys because she doesn't want anything to change at home. Because --
Kaykay Brady :Oh, I forgot that.
Brooke Suchomel :-- she's had you know, so much upheaval in her life.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :It's like, "Oh, now it's, like, you might settle down with this guy? And then we all have to pack up and move and get used to a whole new family dynamic?" It's just too much, when she's already playing surrogate mom, at least one day a week for her brother.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :And then for pay for other people's kids, and it's always, with few exceptions, Watson and then Mr. Johansson at the end there, it's the moms that are calling, right? Dads are not very present in this book --
Kaykay Brady :That's true.
Brooke Suchomel :-- except in their absence.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Or their problems.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, Mary Anne's dad who never appears directly --
Kaykay Brady :Is controlling her whole life, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- but when he when he does appear, it's never in a positive context.
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :So, you know, it seems like to me, they're fighting all of this, "How do I make my place in a world in relationship to other people?"
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And that is something that I think every single one of us fight all the time. That never goes away, but you really first start to realize it when you're about the age that they are in this book, which is 12 years old. And I think the tool that they use, and that Kristy, even though Kristy is, like, I feel really bad for her when she talks about, she needs to, like, watch her mouth.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, her mouth gets her into trouble.
Kaykay Brady :Sure.
Brooke Suchomel :She's too outspoken, even when it's just so damn hot --
Kaykay Brady :Decorum!
Brooke Suchomel :-- in that un-air-conditioned classroom -- right! She just, she's just like, "Okay, good. I can get up and hopefully get some fresh air." And you know, she gets in, she gets in trouble for that, but she immediately feels bad.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Which again, she feels bad for a lot of things that it's like, I don't know that you need to feel bad about that, sweetie, like, it's okay, you know? But she does have a lot of empathy.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :She's very focused on other people. Even, like, when she is called to go, finally, at the end, watch Watson's kids.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Which she had been saying, "I'm not going to do" for so long. She wonders to herself, even though she doesn't like Watson, she doesn't want her mom to be with Watson, but she wonders, how does her mom feel that Watson's rushing off to be with his ex-wife in the hospital? Like, she's always thinking about other people, and when you know, they have fights, like, with Stacey, the first time that she sort of meets Stacey and she's like, "Well, does your mom know that you're dieting?"
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, "Why are you dieting?" And it's, it's out of concern for somebody else.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :So I think that there's, you know, the tool that she uses, that I think that they all use, to some extent, and we'll see it in later books, is they really use empathy.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :As their tool which, as a 12 year old girl growing up in the 80s, good on ya.
Kaykay Brady :Seriously.
Brooke Suchomel :'Cause we were not really given --
Kaykay Brady :No.
Brooke Suchomel :-- you know, the tools for, for empathy --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah that, that's surviving --
Brooke Suchomel :-- in a way that hopefully kids are now.
Kaykay Brady :-- despite the culture.
Brooke Suchomel :Totally.
Kaykay Brady :It was, it was not empathetic time. It was far from it.
Brooke Suchomel :No, no.
Kaykay Brady :And like, you know, it is funny how like, it's pretty revolutionary to read those books in the 80s because everything was from, like, the white male killer perspective.
Brooke Suchomel :Yep.
Kaykay Brady :Y'know what I mean? So to have this kind of, like, female voice with a lot of empathy in it is, like, that's pretty revolutionary in a sense.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. And a range of female voices.
Kaykay Brady :Right. Yeah, not just one, right? Not just like, "Oh, this is a girl."
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. And they're different.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, all of the characters are different. They have shared interests, but they're all unique individuals who over the course of the series get fully fleshed out.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And get, you know, for the most part increasingly complex. And I just think it's, ah, it was really groundbreaking. And I'm really grateful to have had this series in my life.
Kaykay Brady :Aw, I love it.
Brooke Suchomel :To have had something that made me want to just get to know these characters and to give me a different perspective. And I think they gave me, like, tools and ideas.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :You know, just seeing the way that Kristy took initiative. I remember being like, well, when I went to a new school, I was like, oh, let's have a school newspaper.
Kaykay Brady :Right. Atta girl!
Brooke Suchomel :We didn't have a school newspaper, so I like, go to the principal and, like, "Let's start a school newspaper for elementary school," because, hey, I had read in a book where a girl decided she was going to start her own, you know, business and, and it worked out, so I can do it too. So I think that there's, I think that there are some really good lessons --
Kaykay Brady :Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- in this book, along with the obvious problematic things that we see --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- as well, that you touched on.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, I love it. Such a good frame.
Brooke Suchomel :What was your most 80s moment? What jumped out at you? What took you back?
Kaykay Brady :Well, certainly, um, the quote about David Michael.
Brooke Suchomel :Mm-hmm.
Kaykay Brady :That was, I pulled out as my most 80s moment, no doubt about it. Where, you want to ignore him and pretend everything's fine. And also, the way the dogs are all just off leash! I mean, I know it's a tiny thing --
Brooke Suchomel :Dogs run wild! Dogs and cats!
Kaykay Brady :Oh my God, so like, that tracks too. I mean, we had a golden retriever that just, I mean, he was intact, my parents didn't even get him neutered, and he just did his own thing. I mean, he'd be gone for like three weeks at a time, we'd be like, "Oh, Corky's gone." He'd come back missing a tooth.
Brooke Suchomel :Ha, "Corky."
Kaykay Brady :He'd come back missing a tooth in my parents' truck. "Oh, well!" I mean, he's probably impregnating like 1000 dogs. Anyway, that was so 80s to me, you know, because, you barely, you're barely, you know, parenting the children.
Brooke Suchomel :Right, lack of responsibility for others. Yeah, I mean, I thought the, uh, there's so many great 80s moments.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, please, what did you find?
Brooke Suchomel :Like you said, it's like, it's a warm 80s hug, and it's warm in that you're like, "Oh, I remember that." But it's also a little cold, because you're like, "Oh, that's, that was a problem." Like, you know, give your six year old a key, and he'll be fine. He'll be fine.
Kaykay Brady :Okay, can we talk about the basic premise? Like, have your 12 year old babysit? Like, I mean --
Brooke Suchomel :Right. Right.
Kaykay Brady :-- you know, now people are going on to Care Dot Com and need a fucking graduate degree.
Brooke Suchomel :Absolutely.
Kaykay Brady :To like babysit for children.
Brooke Suchomel :Absolutely. And it's still -- that was still very shocking for me, and it's still something that I'm trying to get acclimated to, coming from the Midwest, where by the time I was a 12 year old girl babysitting, I was like: veteran. Right? Like, I was able to charge, like, three dollars an hour.
Kaykay Brady :Well, you were reading The Baby-sitters Club at eight, so you've got, you've got your business practices down, you've got, I mean, like you are a honed weapon. You are --
Brooke Suchomel :Exactly.
Kaykay Brady :-- you're like a babysitting assassin at that point.
Brooke Suchomel :Absolutely. And then to come out to the Bay Area, where people have kids at a later age and have more resources, at least --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- y'know, the circles that I'm in. Now, granted, I'm revealing sort of my class position by talking about how, well, my friends who have kids and going through, like, all of the steps that they go through to get a babysitter.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And the amount of money that they pay and the interviews that they do, and just all of this and I was like, I didn't even know some of the people that I would babysit for. I didn't know who they were.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, that's dangerous.
Brooke Suchomel :Y'know, they lived in the town, and so it was just like, "A friend of a friend needs someone to watch their, like, screaming toddler. You're 10, you can take care of it. They'll pay you two bucks an hour." You know? "All right!"
Kaykay Brady :Yeah. You know, I can't help but thinking about, I mean, like one of our favorite podcasts is "My Favorite Murder." We all know, you know, the crime rates in the 70s and 80s were just like through the motherfucking roof. So it's like --
Brooke Suchomel :Right.
Kaykay Brady :-- we'll get to that later.
Brooke Suchomel :Why would you need to lock your door?
Kaykay Brady :Phantom phone calls, we'll get to that later, but --
Brooke Suchomel :Oh man.
Kaykay Brady :Damn.
Brooke Suchomel :Um, so yeah, so just the the whole premise of it is very 80s. But then the thing that really just like, just warmed my heart was the school lunch.
Kaykay Brady :Ah, right.
Brooke Suchomel :Sloppy Joes, red jello with canned fruit, a cup of coleslaw, milk and a fudgcicle.
Kaykay Brady :Sick.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, the nutritious value. Michelle Obama would not approve. Would not approve at all, and they get it every Friday.
Kaykay Brady :Friday's supposed to be Pizza Day, come on.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah, yeah, I mean that was just so 80s, that is such an 80s meal --
Kaykay Brady :An 80s lunch.
Brooke Suchomel :-- right there, right. Almost as great as the fact that when Kristy's mom decides to tell her children that she has "agreed to get engaged" to Watson?
Kaykay Brady :Right.
Brooke Suchomel :Just the beautiful language that is used to describe that, right? "We have agreed to become engaged," like frickin Jane Austen or something. Um, that they're all just like eating whatever they can grab from the fridge, drinking Gatorade out of wine goblets, and eating fried chicken and Twinkies and leftover Spaghetti-Os.
Kaykay Brady :Oh my God.
Brooke Suchomel :Like, that is also --
Kaykay Brady :It is very Jane Austen. Hey, and Morbidda is like the crazy first wife in the attic, you know?
Brooke Suchomel :Totally.
Kaykay Brady :We got a witch, witch in the story.
Brooke Suchomel :Oh man. Morbidda Destiny comes up, she plays a big role in another series --
Kaykay Brady :Oh, I'm so excited.
Brooke Suchomel :-- which is, Karen Brewer gets her own spin off series.
Kaykay Brady :Get out of here!
Brooke Suchomel :Later on. Baby-sitters Little Sister.
Kaykay Brady :Oh my God, yeah, my therapist told me about this.
Brooke Suchomel :Oh really?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah!
Brooke Suchomel :Your therapist told you about Baby-sitters Little Sister?
Kaykay Brady :Yeah!
Brooke Suchomel :How?
Kaykay Brady :Because, uh --
Brooke Suchomel :I need context.
Kaykay Brady :Well, okay, the whole context is that my sound wasn't working on my Zoom call with my therapist, and I was like, "Oh, it's because I was working on my Baby-sitters Club podcast," and she was like, "What?" And then she's like, "You're doing a Baby-sitters Club podcast?" I was like, "Yeah," she's like, "Oh, yeah, I never read those, but I did read Little Sisters," and I was like, "Little Sisters?!" I was blown away. And then she's, she was telling me a couple of little, little nuggets from Little Sisters.
Brooke Suchomel :There's a whole generation, I think, like a pretty expansive generation, because these books first came out in 86. And then they went through a resurgence again in the 90s --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- when the first Baby-sitters Club movie came out.
Kaykay Brady :Oh, I never saw any of this. I gotta get on all of this.
Brooke Suchomel :Yeah. And now, and then, you know, they came out with, with like a graphic novel version of it about a decade ago, and obviously having a resurgence again. So it's kind of amazing to go back and think about how many young women and not-so-young women today have been impacted by this series --
Kaykay Brady :It's pretty cool.
Brooke Suchomel :-- and will continue to be in the future. And I love, I love the fact that everything that I have read about the the new Netflix series, which I haven't watched --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah, me neither.
Brooke Suchomel :-- we haven't watched yet, because we want it, we want this to be a pure experience --
Kaykay Brady :Exactly, we're gonna do it a book at a time.
Brooke Suchomel :-- for Kaykay.
Kaykay Brady :We're gonna do it a book at a time, y'all. We're gonna just go deep.
Brooke Suchomel :Yep. But I'm sure we'll get to it, and we'll talk about it, but like, everything that I've read indicates that they really updated the series like, I know that they're still sort of holding true to the plots, but that, you know, they've added more diversity and you know, just sounds like they've tried to address some of the problematic things that we've noticed.
Kaykay Brady :Oh, I'm so excited to see that eventually.
Brooke Suchomel :But yeah, it's just, it's really cool to see how this idea that an editor at Scholastic just had for a title, you know, got in the hands of the right woman --
Kaykay Brady :That's beautiful.
Brooke Suchomel :-- at the right time, and thanks to that, I think, some of us are more empathetic. Hey, maybe this is going to be, this is the Baby-sitters Club Generation.
Kaykay Brady :Oh, shit, we are?
Brooke Suchomel :We're the ones -- I think we are. I think us and those beyond us, right? And I think that's why in the midst of everything that's going on right now, which is the absolute shit show of a world that we find ourselves in at the moment, I still have hope that we'll come out on the other side. Like, this is the, this is the pain --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- that has to be, this is like, you know, the cancer that has to be taken out of the body so that you can come together and heal.
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :And I think that people that were raised on books like this --
Kaykay Brady :Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel :-- are actually going to be better positioned to lead us into a better future. See, Kristy Thomas slash Elizabeth Warren.
Brooke Suchomel :All right, so there it is. Episode One, Kristy's Great Idea.
Kaykay Brady :What a journey.
Brooke Suchomel :It was, it was a beautiful journey through 1986.
Kaykay Brady :This show had, this book had everything.
Brooke Suchomel :This book has everything --
Kaykay Brady :Has everything.
Brooke Suchomel :It has fat cats. It has foxy chicks and gorgeous hunks. It has witches!
Kaykay Brady :It's got closeted gay girls.
Brooke Suchomel :What more do you need?
Kaykay Brady :It's got pizza!
Brooke Suchomel :And diabetes!
Kaykay Brady :Or, it almost had pizza --
Brooke Suchomel :Right, it almost had pizza --
Kaykay Brady :Pizza, it almost had pizza, and diabetes!
Brooke Suchomel :It had a hint of pizza, it had the potential for pizza, ah, and Diet Cokes and apples. So yeah, this book really did have everything, but the next book, Book Two, has even more. So, the next episode is going to be our special crossover episode with the true crime fandom because we're going to be talking about Book Two in the series, which is "Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls." Very excited to dig into that with you next, Kaykay.
Kaykay Brady :I know, I'm, I'm so excited to dive into, the, what appears to be the Golden State Killer, but I'm not gonna spoil that too hard.
Brooke Suchomel :All right, well on that note --
Kaykay Brady :Keep on sittin'!
Kaykay Brady :[After theme song] But nobody counted on crank calls! [Whistle]