Episode 21 - Sisters for Life

This week on Guides’ Own we talk all about The Baby-Sitters Club in honour of Malia Baker, a former Canadian Girl Guide from BC who recently made her big break in TV! We dive into the books, babysitting as teens, and how we learned about babysitting in guiding.

If you are/were a Girl Guide in your teenage years, it's quite likely that you've done some babysitting. And if you've ever babysat, then we bet you've definitely heard of the Baby-Sitter's Club!

Written by Ann M. Martin, The Baby-Sitter's Club is a series of novels published between 1986 and 2000. They focus on a group of 4 friends - Kristy, Mary-Anne, Claudia, and Stacey - who run a local babysitting service called “The Babysitters Club” in their fictional Connecticut town. The books were seen to be quite progressive for their time, covering issues like divorce, relationships, death, racism, pollution, eating disorders, disabilities (autism; down syndrome; guide dogs), depression, religion, and much more.

According to this article by the Vancouver Sun, "close to 180 million copies of the books (131 main titles) have been sold since The Baby-Sitters Club (BSC), by Ann M. Martin, first appeared in the mid-1980s." The books' success lead to a 13 episode tv series that aired on HBO and Nickelodeon in 1990. There was also a movie released in 1995 that focused on the girls opening a day camp over the summer and saw each girl encountering her own obstacles in life.

More recently though, the BSC has been revived through a 10-part series produced by Netflix. Both of us have watched it and highly recommend that you do too, especially if you're a fan of any version of the series.

The new series is especially exciting for Canadian Girl Guides because our own alumnus, Malia Baker, stars in it as Kristy's best friend - Mary Anne Spier. Malia is a young star and is doing so much, being a true role model for everyone no matter how old. Having only acted in a few small roles prior to this job, Malia says that the BSC was her big break and dream job, especially because she got to work with girls her own age and creating a really amazing bond with them.

And to make sure that we keep it silly just like the best baby sitter, we sing ‘If I was not a Girl Guide’. It's one of the funniest campfire songs out there.

You can listen to Episode 21 now, and catch up on previous episodes, either right here on our website or on your favourite podcast app (Spotify, Apple, Google, Anchor, etc.).

We would love to know what your opening and closings you use in your units. Leave a comment below, or send us a message on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you'd like to contribute to an episode of Guides' Own, send us your ideas for topics, program, campfire songs, etc. send a message to guidesown@gmail.com.

What would you be if you were not a Girl Guide?

Marissa & Taryn