[[WMG: All the babysitters are [[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya Haruhi-like]] [[AGodAmI gods]].]]
And all of Stoneybrook is in on it, hence why they tend to let their lives revolve around the club, and indulge them in their beliefs, such as the girls believing they're still thirteen, even though years passed and they physically aged. (Seriously, some of those covers? They look sixteen, seventeen.) It also explains some of the plot holes, like 'how can they afford ____ on a 4 dollars an hour salary', answer being 'because the merchants know better to anger gods'.
* Which is funny because Karen is an EldritchAbomination, and everyone, including the babysitters, keep her happy so she doesn't destroy Stoneybrook.

[[WMG: Patrick Thomas is not David Michael's biological father.]]
Patrick left right after David Michael was born. While Charlie, Sam, and Kristy are all relatively close in age, David Michael was a bit of a latecomer. Finally, David Michael didn't get an invite to Patrick's wedding in the Friends Forever spin-off, while his siblings did.
* One fanfic suggested that Richard Spier fathered David Michael.
** The hilarious site [[http://uandme4bsc.com/ U&Me4BSC]] suggests that Richard not only fathered David Michael, but all of the two-named kids in Stoneybrook... including [[ChocolateBaby John Phillip (Squirt) Ramsey and Emily Michelle Thomas-Brewer]].
* Whether he is or not, I wonder if the reason Patrick and Elizabeth's marriage fell apart is because Patrick was convinced that David Michael wasn't his. There's never any reason given for why they split up, other than that Patrick is a massive flake, but if he suspected (correctly or otherwise) that Elizabeth was cheating then that could account for his walking out.

[[WMG: David Michael was an accident and Patrick resented it.]]
Going off some of the same premises as the previous entry, maybe Patrick and Elizabeth decided they were done having kids after three. They went on some kind of birth control, it worked for a while (hence the age gap) but then it failed and Elizabeth got pregnant again. Patrick ''really'' didn't want more kids and ended up resenting Elizabeth and David Michael for it, leading to him walking out and to his continuing to push David Michael away when he finally reappears. It would make him a massive JerkAss but it's not that far-fetched.

[[WMG: Watson is Emily Michelle's biological father.]]
The whole adoption was a little fishy. It happened much more quickly than international adoptions usually do, there was no home visit from a social worker or anything, no visits by Watson and Elizabeth to Vietnam, just a "oh by the way, we're putting the kid on a plane like she's so much cargo." [[note]]At the time, some international adoptions agencies did not require the parents to visit the country and ''did'' just send the children to the destination country (accompanied by an adult from the orphanage to make sure they arrived safely), so that part isn't completely unrealistic, but they would still require home visits and other processes that would presumably be noticed by other people living in the house.[[/note]]This all might make more sense if Emily was the result of an "indiscretion" on an Asian business trip, and Watson wasn't "adopting" her so much as he was providing the evidence for his paternity (at which point, since she's his kid, it's presumably much easier to claim her than it would be to adopt).
* There are also references in one of the "Little Sister" books to there being issues with adoption paperwork ''after'' Emily is already living with them, suggesting the adoption isn't quite final yet. This doesn't really make sense with how international adoptions work (the agency would usually make sure everything was in order before the child left the country), but ''would'' track with a second-parent adoption situation. (The Meta reason is likely the author getting mixed up between how things work for international adoptions and something like a domestic foster-to-adopt situation, where the child ''would'' be living with the parents before the adoption was finalized, but in-universe, who knows?)

[[WMG: Stacey's diabetes stands for HIV.]]
A life-threatening disease which made Stacey lose a lot of friends and have people scared to talk to her because they're afraid that they will catch it. The series started in the late 80s.

[[WMG: Claudia has dyslexia and possibly other learning issues.]]

Her spelling is atrocious, as all her notebook and journal entries show. But, she has also had significant trouble in all school subjects for most of her educational career, to the point that she [[spoiler: had to repeat seventh grade during a few books, but was then bumped back to eighth.]] It's extremely possible that she has dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, or some combination of these and/or other learning issues. In fact, in ''Claudia's Book,'' an entire chapter is dedicated to the fact that Claudia did especially poorly in fourth grade. It was suggested that she be tested for learning disabilities but for some reason, the Kishis did not have this done. Instead, Claudia transferred to an alternative school, where she did much better, but eventually transferred back to her old elementary school to be with her friends.

As to why the Kishis did not have Claudia tested, several theories come to mind. During ''Claudia's Book,'' Mrs. Kishi tells her daughter that "it is not worth sacrificing your happiness...for scholastic achievement." Perhaps the Kishis allowed this philosophy to blind them to a real issue. A darker theory would be that John and Rioko Kishi simply gave up on Claudia's ability to succeed in school, choosing instead to focus energy on Janine while avoiding blatant ParentalFavoritism in other areas.

* YMMV, but dyslexia actually doesn't seem to fit very well with Claudia's particular difficulties. Dyslexia isn't just having problems spelling, it's a specific set of difficulties in which a person's brain has difficulty connecting written letters and words with their phonetic sounds, as well as perceptual issues when looking at words. First of all, if this was Claudia's problem, she should have as much difficulty reading as she does writing, but that doesn't seem to be the case, she just has trouble staying interested in reading things that don't interest her (but she ''does'' like reading things that ''do'' interest her, which is the major piece here). Secondly, while Claudia's spelling is atrocious, it's not the kind of bad spelling that's typical of dyslexia -- Claudia's spellings are almost always phonetically correct, even if they're way off the actual spelling of the word (i.e. "farrow" for "pharaoh" at one point), whereas a person with dyslexia would be prone to mixing up letters within words in ways that don't necessarily make phonetic sense. Some type of learning disability seems likely, but it probably isn't dyslexia. Similarly, dysgraphia also doesn't really fit, as this would also affect her ability to draw and paint, which clearly isn't an issue for her. Furthermore, a couple of books from her POV indicate that she often just doesn't know how words are spelled in the first place, which isn't really how dyslexia or dysgraphia work. (Dyscalculia ''is'' possible and could explain why math is especially hard for her even compared to other subjects, but her spelling and other academic difficulties are probably something else entirely.)

[[WMG: Claudia has ADHD.]]

Claudia's characterization is actually very typical of inattentive-type ADHD, particularly of the way it often presents in girls. Admittedly, her characterization changes over the course of the series, but if you follow the general arc (before the worst of the {{Flanderization}} sets in), she's intelligent (it's mentioned that she has a high IQ) and capable of high achievement at times, but she's inconsistent, disorganized, and forgetful. Specific instances I can think of include:
* In ''Claudia and the Middle School Mystery'', she gets a good grade on a test by studying like crazy. This shows she is capable of learning and retaining the material, but it takes a level of effort that wouldn't be sustainable for every class all the time.
* I can't remember which book, but there's one where she mentions getting a B-plus (which is pretty good for her) on a paper after Mimi suggested a topic she found interesting. Of course, anyone can have an uptick in their performance when their interest is engaged, but the difference in what they can accomplish with and without that interest is much more significant in people with ADHD.
* In ''Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout'', she makes a mention (in a dream, but presumably based in reality) about having remembered her book "today". Academic struggles alone wouldn't explain mistakes like forgetting to bring materials to class, but more general difficulties with organization and forgetfulness would.
* The particular problems that Claudia has with spelling come across like she's guessing at spellings based on phonetics because she doesn't know or can't remember how those words are meant to be spelled (and she even outright says this in a couple of cases). This is completely different from how dyslexia works (see notes under previous entry), but is consistent with difficulties in retaining information; ADHD has been linked to challenges related to short-term memory.
** When it comes to things like class vocabulary words (as opposed to just writing in the club notebook or the like), another piece of it is that she doesn't do the assignments that are meant to teach her the words (for instance, in ''Claudia and the New Girl'', she has ''no idea'' how the word "pharaoh" is spelled because she didn't do her reading the night before; had she done the reading, while she might still not have gotten it exactly right, she likely would have at least picked up on the fact that the word starts with a P rather than an F). A lot of kids with ADHD have difficulty completing all of their out-of-class assignments, either because they have trouble keeping track of all of what was assigned or because they become overwhelmed and struggle to get everything done in a limited time. In fact, in a later book, Claudia mentions that she now has to have someone help her with her homework every night, which may well be as much about keeping her on task and assuring the assignments are actually completed as about helping her get the right answers.
* In the books narrated by her, the reader gets a look inside her head, and there are definitely moments that will feel familiar to a reader with ADHD. The spelling test at the beginning of ''Claudia and the New Girl'' is one prime example.
* There are a couple of books in which a central conflict is that she gets caught up in something (usually art-related) and starts neglecting her responsibilities with the BSC. That kind of hyperfocus, potentially to the detriment of other responsibilities, is common in ADHD.

This also helps to explain why she wasn't tested. Because of the occasional high achievement and the ability to hyper-focus on things the person is interested in, ADHD, especially the non-hyperactive variation, is often misread as [[BrilliantButLazy laziness]] or lack of effort (this would have been even more common at the time, when ADHD was less well-known and understood). Claudia's parents, and even her teachers, may have been under the mistaken impression (as many real-life adults have) that she couldn't have an actual disorder causing her problems because she had a high IQ and occasionally produced good work, so they assumed Claudia had the ability to do better and just wasn't trying hard enough. And while ''Claudia's Book'' indicates that Claudia was tested for learning disorders, ADHD isn't a learning disorder and requires a different set of tests to diagnose it; if no one identified ADHD as a possibility, which is entirely plausible given that ADHD is notoriously under-diagnosed in girls and non-white children and that Claudia checks both those boxes, then they probably wouldn't test her for it and the diagnosis would be missed.

* Incidentally, the 2020 series very much seems to support the idea that its version of Claudia, at least, has ADHD. Not only does the series' Claudia expressly mention having difficulty focusing in school, but the series' portrayal of Janine seems to suggest she might be on the autism spectrum; the two disorders are known to co-occur in the same families to a significant extent and are believed to share a genetic link, so Janine being on the autism spectrum would mean a higher probability that she would have a sibling with ADHD.

[[WMG: In the 2020 series, at least one of the girls will be [[AdaptationalSexuality gay or bisexual]] ]]
They've already [[AdaptationalSexuality made Dawn's father gay]] and included a transgender child among the babysitters' charges, so this clearly isn't a series that's afraid to show LGBT characters.

[[WMG: Jack Schafer was cheating on Sharon]]
In Dawn's Book, it's mentioned by Dawn that her father was staying out all night and not telling anyone where he was going. The fact that Sharon moved across the country and took the kids away from him says a lot. Maybe she wanted to see if he had cleaned up his act while she was gone.

[[WMG: Jackie Rodowsky has dyspraxia]]
Throughout the series we see Jackie have trouble being uncoordinated. In Jessi Ramsey, Pet Sitter when Kristy sits for him it's mentioned that he even had trouble buttoning up his shirt. In one book we see him trip over nothing to several instances of him breaking bones. Developmental coordination disorders includes: poor timing, poor balance
clumsiness to the point of knocking things over, causing minor injuries to oneself and bumping into people accidentally. It could be a mild case seeing as he doesn't have other symptoms like problems chewing food.

[[WMG: Seth Engle, Karen's stepfather, is unable to have children of his own]]

Considering that Lisa has children with Watson but has not had any children with Seth has always been a bit of an eyebrow raise. Watson and Elizabeth do eventually adopt Emily Michelle but there's been no word on any other children for Lisa and Seth. Seth does bond very well with Karen and Andrew almost like another father to them so it seems likely that he's always wanted children but isn't able to have them. Sterility for the most part is often blamed on women and it would be fairly recent that they pointed to the idea that there are a good amount of men who actually are sterile. It could be that because of his sterility, he and Lisa decided not to have any other children but unfortunately he isn't able to adopt Karen and Andrew as his children due to their father being active in their lives.
* Alternatively, it could be that one or both of them doesn't ''want'' to have children in that relationship. As good as he is with Karen and Andrew, parenting a baby is different from raising an older kid, so maybe Seth doesn't want to have a baby, or maybe Lisa didn't want any more kids (or couldn't have them for some reason) after Karen and Andrew and Seth was okay with that.

[[WMG: Lisa and Watson's divorce was a result of her having an affair with Seth]]

In one of Karen's books (I want to say it was the one where she writes her autobiography), it was mentioned that before her parents had a divorce, Seth would come by the Big House often when Watson was at work. Seth does carpentry/handyman work so it runs the theory that the reason why Lisa and Watson had such a sudden divorce and Lisa's very quick marriage to Seth might have been the result of Watson catching the affair. The very acrimonious divorce and custody switching constantly could very well be a form of Watson getting revenge for being cheated on since it went from him getting every other weekend to nearly every weekend to every other month to every ''six'' months (good thing this series runs on ComicBookTime).
* None of the custody changes are initiated by Watson, though. The first one (going from every other weekend to alternating months) was because Karen and (to a lesser degree) Andrew were upset at how little time they got to spend with their father's family and basically begged for an equal split. The six-month chunk was a one time thing because Seth temporarily had to relocate out of state for work, so switching off every month wouldn't be feasible (the kids couldn't very well switch back and forth between schools every month), and the original arrangement in that situation actually favored Seth and Lisa, as the plan was that the kids would move with them, while Watson would go back to having only weekend visits until they got back and the previous arrangement could be restored. Watson does end up getting primary custody of Karen for the six months in the end, but that's only because she developed such severe homesickness (almost bordering on depression) that her parents realized the situation wasn't tenable, and Andrew ''does'' end up staying with Seth and Lisa for the duration. So that definitely had nothing to do with whatever happened between Watson and Lisa.
* As for the rest of it, an affair is one possible explanation, but the divorce was actually not a particularly acrimonious one. There's tension after the fact, but it's not particularly nasty even compared to other examples in the series (the Barretts, Stacey's parents, etc.), and the worst of it seems to come out in situations that are already stressful in other ways which could explain why things get heated. Also, while the divorce seemed abrupt to Karen, it's entirely possible that there were actually ongoing problems that the parents hid from the kids, particularly given that Karen was only about five or six and might not pick up on some of the more subtle indicators of trouble. An alternate explanation could be that Seth and Lisa's friendship started off innocent, but that Lisa was having issues with Watson in other ways, and the combination of all of this caused her to develop feelings for Seth; this could have even been the thing that made Lisa realize that they weren't going to be able to save the marriage. And even if nothing happened between Lisa and Seth until the divorce was final, her immediately getting together with her "friend" would still likely wound Watson's pride, as it suggests Lisa essentially left him for Seth, which could contribute to why things are strained between them, especially at the beginning. (A more benign situation would also explain why they're able to get to a point of cooperating better later in the ''Little Sister'' series -- that certainly comes a lot easier if she didn't actually wrong him.)