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At what age did YOU babysit?
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Anonymous
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I was reading the babysitters-in-cab thread, and noticed many people think 13 is too young to babysit. I'll admit, there are many 13 year olds that are too immature to take care of children-- but there also 18 year olds who are too immature!
When I was 11 (in the early '80's), I was booked every weekend for babysitting. On a typical Saturday night, I'd be playing with the kiddies, warming (in a real oven!) and serving their dinner, feeding and rocking the baby to sleep, getting the 2-10 year old crew into pj's and into bed, then watching cable tv until the parents came home after midnight. I certainly wasn't the only pre-teen babysitter in the neighborhood, either. Anyone else? |
Anonymous
| 11 in the early 80's while my aunt and uncle were smoking dope and getting shnockered. |
Anonymous
| I was 11 too when I started babysitting for neighborhood kids at night. I would walk to their house, make them dinner and put them to bed. The parents wouldn't be too late (no later than 10 pm on weekends). I made a lot of money this way. My mom was always available in case of a real emergency but I never really had one. |
Anonymous
| 12 - in 1992. All for relatives and in a small town in the middle of nowhere. |
Anonymous
| 13/14 in the mid 90's |
Anonymous
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People think 13 is too young because they are not raising children to become adults. They are raising little entitled brats who will be 50 years old with a high school mentality. But really, they can't help it because they are immature themselves.
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Anonymous
| 12, in the 70s. |
Anonymous
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The summers I was 12 and 13, I provided daycare for a part-time working mom. I worked six or so hours a day, four days a week. The first summer, it was just the 1-year-old. The second summer, it was the now-2-year-old and his 3-month-old baby brother. And of course, I also had evening gigs for other families. By the time I was 13 and 14, I had a half-dozen "regular" families I babysat for, with kids ranging from newborn to eight or nine years old.
This was 1989-1991 or so. |
Anonymous
| 12 and I can remember leaving the baby in the bathtub to answer the phone. I'm so glad he survived! |
Anonymous
| 16:31 here... as a PP noted, it was a given that my own parents would be available to help if I needed it. I think that was the norm. And I did have to call once, when I couldn't get the baby to stop crying. My dad, who is a doctor, walked the six blocks from our house to check on him. |
Anonymous
| 12. I was the first babysitter for at least two infants - one the child of my junior high English teacher and one the child of my junior high History teacher. It was in the early 80s, but in the midwest, not here. I had a thriving business every weekend. |
Anonymous
Oh, and another time my friend came with me and the baby was asleep when we arrived. She wanted to see how cute he was so we woke him up and kept him up for hours playing. |
Anonymous
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I was 11 when I started babysitting (late 80s, early 90s). When I was 11, I only babysat in the afternoon, but by 12 and 13, I was babysitting well past midnight.
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Anonymous
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I worked as a mother's helper at age 11/12 (would go to the pool with them and watch the baby while she went into the water with the older child) in 1985. I had a few similar gigs at ages 12/13 but didn't start regularly until 14 because we moved and it took a while to get established as a trustworthy 13 year old.
I would not trust a 12 or 13 year old with my child today, maybe not even as a mother's helper. We didn't have cell phones or the internet; the ways in which I could be distracted from the children by my friends was much more limited. Yes, I did call friends after the kids went to sleep, but I wouldn't do that while I was supposed to be watching them because I would expect to be fired if they reported that I was doing so. I think it would be a rare young teen today who wasn't texting the whole time. I hope they exist, though, because I'm going to need a good babysitter soon! |
Anonymous
| I started babysitting in 1982 at the age of 12. |