Say Hello to Your Friends.

I don’t quite know how this happened, but last weekend, after watching several hours of Olympic trials for gymnastics and swimming, my dear friend abovethetitle and I started talking about The Baby-sitters Club. And by “started talking,” I meant “obsessed over it for hours, talked about our favorite characters, ranked our ten favorite books,andwatched the stupid movie and an episode of the TV show.” Because that is a totally acceptable activity for two women in their late twenties to do on a weekend.

Mock us if you want, but there’s nothing wrong with indulging in nostalgia every once in awhile, and The Baby-sitters Club was my childhood obsession before I even learned what the word “obsession” meant. The Baby-sitters Club series predates all of my obsessions that weren’tThe Wizard of Oz or created by Jim Henson, Disney, or Beverly Cleary.

In fact, I think The Baby-sitters Club was influential – nay, VITAL – to my development as a feminist.

You might laugh at me. I might deserve it. But the influence The Baby-sitters Club had on my life and my perception of female characters is undeniable.

First of all, The Baby-sitters Club focuses on a group of hard-working, industrious young women who create their own business at the age of twelve. Their business has rules, structure, and organization. Each person has a different responsibility, and while they take home their own earnings from their baby-sitting jobs, they also contribute to a larger purpose and pay union club dues. It’s democracy in action! Or maybe socialism in action, depending on whose definition of socialism you’re following.

Secondly, The Baby-sitters Club has a variety of female characters from different backgrounds. Sure, they’re fairly stereotypical, but young girl readers can easily feel a kinship with at least one of the club members. We adult women who play the “which one are you?” game with the Sex and the City characters got our start twenty years ago with the characters from The Baby-sitters Club. (For the record, I’m probably a Kristy/Dawn hybrid with a little bit of Mallory, which disturbs me because I found those three the most annoying when I was a kid. I don’t know what this says about me.)

Third, The Baby-sitters Club had characters that weren’t easily pigeonholed or one-dimensional. All of them had outside interests aside from babysitting, and none of them were completely predictable. Shy, nerdy Mary Anne was the only one who had a steady boyfriend. Claudia was Asian and not good in school (umm…way to break stereotypes, BSC?) And while I was growing up, I thought it was so cool that Stacey was really into fashion and boys but ALSO was really good in math. Mary Anne and Claudia were my favorite baby-sitters, but Stacey was probably the most complex (and she had the best books, all filled with boys and gossip and diabetes drama!)

Fourth, The Baby-sitters Club introduced this writer to the concept of multiple perspectives. It blew my young mind to read The Truth About Stacey (my first BSC book and one of my favorites) and see everything from Stacey’s first-person point of view, and then to read Mary Anne Saves the Day and see the same people from another character’s point of view. I just thought the concept was so neat!

Fifth, The Baby-sitters Club were the first books that introduced me to Important Issues. I’m sure I’m not the only person who first learned about diabetes through Stacey McGill. I learned important lessons about racism after Claudia and Jessi were treated badly by those creepy Aryan kids in the neighborhood (and by the way, did you know that Jessi’s black? Don’t worry – the other babysitters totally don’t care!) And I was rather impressed with the way the series portrayed autism in Kristy and the Secret of Susan (one of my favorites), because Kristy wasn’t able to “save” Susan or cure her autism, and it was okay, because Susan was going to be fine.

Finally, The Baby-sitters Club focused on female friendship above everything else. I mean, sometimes these girls threw total shit fits when a club member made a friend outside of the BSC or had temper tantrums when a member got a makeover, but hey, they still love each other in the end!

For those reasons, I was SUPER EXCITED when I saw that Scholastic was planning to re-release the series. I didn’t even care that the publishers were updating the technology and changing Walkmans to iPods – as long as they kept Claudia and Stacey’s outfits the same, I was cool with it.

Because I really think that tween girls NEED series like The Baby-sitters Club. I’m not sure there’s a current serial that has the same cache with the young crowd. (Gossip Girl exists, but I consider that as more of a Sweet Valley High replacement than a BSC replacement.) So many books aimed at tween and teen girls focus overwhelmingly on boys, clothes, makeup, boys, popularity, gossip, and boys. The Baby-sitters Club deals with all of those topics, but it’s a fourth or fifth priority after baby-sitting, friendship, Important Social Issues (The More You Know…), and Learning Things. No, they’re not great literature, but they were an essential part of my development and provided endless hours of entertainment and spent allowance money.

So, um, I may or may not be planning a reread of the entire BSC series (aside from the mysteries, because I don’t care about them, and the Little Sister series, because I hate Karen). Other bloggers have taken on this project before, so I’m not going to pretend that I’m original and dibbly fresh with this idea, but I feel compelled to revisit a series that meant so much to me when I was growing up.

Or maybe I just want to yell at Dawn, cheer on Mary Anne, groan at how pathetic Mallory is, take note of Claudia and Stacey’s outfits, find the most awkward version of the “Jessi is black but we’re open-minded and totally don’t care” description, and build up a case of evidence for the increasingly popular “Kristy is a lesbian” theory.

Either way, we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, say hello to your friends. Say hello to the people who care. Nothing’s better than friends, because your friends are always there.