Are male babysitters not a thing here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. This area is very conservative in general and also has a high transient population. May be different in other places where the babysitting boy has been known for years.

I’m the prior poster in the NYC area and I think this is key - in our suburb, people generally know each other or know a friend of a friend if that makes sense. I bet this is a lot of the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gives up his teen social life to babysit? No, thank you!

Yep it's a little odd, to be honest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gives up his teen social life to babysit? No, thank you!

Yep it's a little odd, to be honest.

My son babysat every Saturday night. He wasn't giving up his teen social life at all. It was one night a week.

[Anonymous]

On two occasions when my kids were young we had male teenage babysitters for a few hours in the evening. Both times bad things happened. One was mean to our dog and the other did something inappropriate with a preschool age girl. We also had plenty of teen girls babysit with zero bad events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bet it’s the age more than gender. People barely let 16 year olds walk to the store alone around here.

I’d sooner believe the average DCUMer was hiring someone to babysit their 14 yr old than that they hired a 14 yr old babysitter, lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a biological fact that teenage boys mature more slowly than teenage girls, and are statistically far more prone to commit violence or sexual abuse. Even most extremely liberal parents are highly unlikely to select a teenage boy over a teenage girl if selecting an anonymous babysitter. If your son truly wants to find babysitting gigs he needs to find a way to forge these connections in advance to prove himself and not rely on replying to random postings.

This. I hate it when we all have to pretend crime statistics aren’t real or that it’s somehow bigoted to be aware of them and let them factor into your decision making. Men commit 99% of sexual violence. It’s not rational to have a male in charge of your children when it’s equally easy to find a female. It blows my mind this isn’t obvious to people.

Plus I’d never trust a teen with a child under age 10, regardless of sex.

Once again you misunderstand the real life impact of statistics. Women are statistically more likely to commit violence against a child yet we don’t judge all women as inherently suspicious.

Women spend much more time with children and have a higher number of interactions with children. If you normalized the number of acts of violence to the time spent with children, men would come out higher.

[Anonymous]

I once had a school staff member quite relentlessly encourage me to hire her 14 year old then son. Who she said adored my 7 year old son. I just got a funny feeling and had to consistently politely decline. Since then, the child—now adult actually—has had quite the journey, very confused sexually, and into a lot of trouble. There is just some discomfort with males as babysitters. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a biological fact that teenage boys mature more slowly than teenage girls, and are statistically far more prone to commit violence or sexual abuse. Even most extremely liberal parents are highly unlikely to select a teenage boy over a teenage girl if selecting an anonymous babysitter. If your son truly wants to find babysitting gigs he needs to find a way to forge these connections in advance to prove himself and not rely on replying to random postings.

This. I hate it when we all have to pretend crime statistics aren’t real or that it’s somehow bigoted to be aware of them and let them factor into your decision making. Men commit 99% of sexual violence. It’s not rational to have a male in charge of your children when it’s equally easy to find a female. It blows my mind this isn’t obvious to people.

Plus I’d never trust a teen with a child under age 10, regardless of sex.

Once again you misunderstand the real life impact of statistics. Women are statistically more likely to commit violence against a child yet we don’t judge all women as inherently suspicious.

This is a thread about male babysitters. If male babysitters, who are very rare, were more likely to commit crimes against the children they care for, that would be shocking indeed. So I think you’re the one who doesn’t quite grasp statistics.

[Anonymous]

My son was in great demand as sitter for families with boys but not until he was older. And he mostly sat for families who knew us or knew him through the summer camp he worked at. At 14 he volunteered at an after school program and then was a camp CIT. His babysitting jobs started more at 16 (other than our immediate neighbors).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet it’s the age more than gender. People barely let 16 year olds walk to the store alone around here.

I’d sooner believe the average DCUMer was hiring someone to babysit their 14 yr old than that they hired a 14 yr old babysitter, lol

Lol, pathetic yet true!

[Anonymous]

I would not hire 14 years old for babysitter regardless of gender. The most I would do is to hire a high school male , not for babysitter, but take my boy to play outside for sports. I am not comfortable a male with my daughter. She still sometimes come out of bathroom naked on the bottom without pulling up her pants at age 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bet it’s the age more than gender. People barely let 16 year olds walk to the store alone around here.

This but also I think it’s social connections more than anything. People are most likely to either hire a friend’s child they know well or a vetted adult to look after their kids. Since you guys moved recently, non one knows your son well so they’re not going to hire him to babysit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet it’s the age more than gender. People barely let 16 year olds walk to the store alone around here.

This but also I think it’s social connections more than anything. People are most likely to either hire a friend’s child they know well or a vetted adult to look after their kids. Since you guys moved recently, non one knows your son well so they’re not going to hire him to babysit.

I agree, I think it’s mostly this. I have 2 boys and would be happy to hire a male babysitter, but more likely would hire someone who is known to me through the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

I would not hire a male babysitter. My sister and l were molested by a male babysitter when we were 7 and 5. He went to our church, and was probably 16 or 17.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TBH, although we are very progressive and open minded, I would not trust a male babysitter around my kids.

Its just weird. sorry not sorry.

Why? You automatically put a pedophile label on a boy who wants to babysit yobestm extra money which is the same reason girls babysit. I have no dog in this fight but I think you and other women who feel this way are accusing these young boys of a terrible thing.