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4 hours ago
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From the age of 16 to 22, I was a children’s entertainer. Most often a fairy, sometimes a witch, ballerina, princess or mermaid – with conspicuous legs underneath her tail. One time, hilariously, a ladybug.
The hourly rate was excellent, the costumes were cute and the tiny customers even cuter.
My special skills were memorising every child’s name, preparing hundreds of fairy-bread triangles, vacuuming a party space in full costume, singing while I applied sparkles to the eyelids of my pint-size revellers, and driving a small hatchback car filled with 50 bubblegum-pink helium balloons.
Oh, and the position required a strong tolerance for the behaviour of parents.
Of course, the job taught me about children. Their belief in magic starts to wane about age four but it lingers till shortly after they reach double digits. Boys and girls are equally likely, when presented with a choice of prizes, to select lipstick, nail polish and glitter eye shadow. The truth of who a person is or could be? It’s already there, when we’re tiny.
Group dynamics don’t change that much. Watching two dozen six-year-olds would often remind me of fully grown colleagues at a work event: tension, competition, humour as deflection, delicate alliances that can shift within the hour. Victory in a game of pass the parcel, disqualification during musical statues, scarcity of a certain type of snack – these things could reveal a child for who they already were and hint at who they might become.
I’d been babysitting for years by this stage and I’d quite recently been a child myself, so these didn’t feel like huge revelations.
What I noticed about the adults, though? Ooft. Revealing in a way that’s stayed with me all these years later.
My knowledge of parenting at the time was minimal; I had my own parents, I’d interacted with parents of friends, but I hadn’t watched close-range how they treat their small kids, each other, and the young woman they paid to enchant their children for an hour or two.
Sometimes I’d host a party inside a fairy shop but it was when I did home visits that I observed the most.
It had never occurred to me, before I got into the fairy business, how many different motivations there might be for throwing a children’s birthday party. For the loveliest families, it was obviously just a celebration, a gesture of joy and relief that their kid had made it another year round the sun.
For others, it was more complicated. The especially lavish parties were so clearly a display of wealth, a declaration of status, a way of staking claim to a particular spot in the kindergarten hierarchy. The outfits, the expensive presents, the politeness of a guest – I watched as all these factors affected the way a host received their guests.
Some parties weren’t even really for the kids – it was my job to distract them while the parents drank, ate and did the type of socialising only parents of small children can do.
The gender dynamics at these events were a nightmare. Overwhelmingly, the mothers were the planners, the caterers, the ones who greeted me, paid me and either made me feel welcome in their home – or not. The fathers, mostly, gathered in small circles around a barbecue, clearing their throats and talking about golf. There were exceptions. But not as many as I would have liked.
One mother teased me for not driving a nicer car. When I was half an hour late (mortifying but genuinely unavoidable) to a Beauty and the Beast-themed party, the parents threatened to write into the local paper about me and then – while their child was begging me to stay at increasing volume – practically manhandled me out of their home.
I lost count of the creepy dad and uncle figures who’d find an excuse to stand too close to me, make lurid comments within my earshot or ask if I did grownup parties.
Sometimes, I’d be treated like a princess. Thanked warmly and profusely, offered refreshments, reviewed enthusiastically. I’d witness real, gorgeous love between children and the family members who doted on them.
Other times, I was a lowly employee. Ordered around, spoken down to, admonished in front of other guests for the crime of not fulfilling some specific but unspoken expectation. Or worse, sexualised.
As for the kids, yes, they could be rude, too. Accused me of not really being magic (fair), snapped my wings against my back (ouch), flouted the rules of basic party games.
But when they asked for things nicely? Were gentle with each other, shared their presents, gave away their best treats to their little friends? When they looked up at me as though I might actually really be magical? It was unbelievably sweet. It was an honour, to be who they thought I was: a real-life fairy (or witch or ballerina or princess or mermaid or ladybug).
It’s the kids who made that job magical. But it’s the parents I still think about today.
