Bring Back the Teen Babysitters

I'm advocating for the return of character- and skill-building.

When I was a child, young teens and tweens looking to make a little cash often offered babysitting services to families in the community. It was a bit of a win-win. Teens could earn their own money, often in cash, without the rigid schedule of many part-time retail or food service jobs. They also gained experience with young children, a skill that pays dividends far beyond a weekend gig. In the community where I grew up, people knew each other and each others’ kids, and a major driver of that familiarity was babysitting. These days, I see it less and less.

We need to bring back affordable, experienced teenage babysitters.

Let me be clear about a few things: 1) I believe in paying all babysitters a fair wage for both the number of children and their level of experience, and 2) I believe we ought to be doing more to encourage teens to become the kind of experienced sitters parents feel good about hiring. My own experience hiring teens is, essentially, this: teens with less experience are charging more than many professional sitters because they believe that babysitting both requires no particular expertise and is an undesirable part-time gig. I placed an inquiry on our local sitters group and was quoted an eye-watering 30% more per hour than the highest rate we’ve paid— from a teen without considerable experience— to watch my two children ages 3 and 5 while I was home. We ended up hiring a professional for the high end of market rate in Cleveland (including covering dinner, and going out), for less. In my friend group, the experience of teen babysitters has been fairly mixed. Most agree that the teens they know can supervise elementary children for short periods but lack any experience with babies, including skills like preparing a bottle or putting a baby down for a nap. This is a nonstarter for most families who regularly need babysitters (those with at least one child under 3).

I don’t blame the teens here—with sports and activities starting earlier, becoming more specialized, and taking more time, it’s understandable that most won’t prioritize babysitting without a little push. This shift, combined with a move toward smaller family sizes, is complicated further by distinctly Millennial concerns about “parentifying” teens by asking for any help with younger siblings. As a result, not only are we drowning in a sea of no-longer-original “eldest daughter” content, most teens will first be responsible for a baby when they’re handed their own newborn. I don’t think this is positive, my own desire for an affordable night out aside.

I’ve written a lot about the rise of anti-child sentiment, and how the consequences are serious for both women and children. In a society where interacting with young children is optional, rare, and positioned as an imposition, it really is no wonder that we’ve found ourselves debating whether a baby should be allowed to enter a grocery store. Many adults without children of their own lack a basic understanding of both developmentally normal behavior for children and an appreciation for how complex behavior management of young children can be. There is simply no replacement for firsthand experience managing a toddler when it comes to building empathy and solidarity with caregivers—whether or not you choose to become a parent yourself. If your only firsthand knowledge of children comes from what you’ve heard about your own childhood from your parents decades later, I will gently suggest that you are getting a very filtered version of events. I’ll hold your hand when I say this, but your aunt’s insistence that she once left the pool with you when you were acting up and you never ever did it again is the kind of hyperbolic war story that conceals the larger truth— that this was a skill you worked on for a long time. This example stands out 20 years later only because it was extreme.

Before you grab the pitchforks, I am not asserting that we should draft every 13-year-old into indentured servitude caring for a colicky baby. I am proposing, however, that my fellow parents view babysitting as a character- and skill-building exercise on par with other volunteer or paid work. Encouraging teens—both boys and girls—to learn the basics of caring for young children is a life skill every bit as necessary as diligent personal finance and safe driving. We live in community with one another, and, despite what the tradwife bloggers will tell you, caregiving is not an innate skill we “mamas” are born knowing. Caregiving is learned. Even if your teens never babysit for pay, I do not believe you are doing them a disservice by occasionally expecting them to mind their younger siblings or cousins. Even if you don’t have a large family, it’s reasonable for energetic teens to be drafted to pitch in leading a game of tag at the block party. Purposeful exposure to responsibility for younger humans is no more “damaging” than teaching your teen to do laundry or cook a few simple meals. In fact, the idea that caring for children is a life skill versus a special interest is a necessary condition to equitable caregiving and a village model for mutual care. If the (mostly) mothers of young children are the only ones in society with an incentive to understand the ins and outs of child development and discipline, they can’t effectively advocate for their needs with their jobs, male partners, community, politicians, and friends. If you are already a parent of a teen, you likely understand the necessity of village and community. As the immediacy of the high-needs years fades, though, it’s understandable that the passion for creating these spaces may give way to inertia and exhaustion.

More broadly, I hope we can view our skepticism of babysitting vis-a-vis other “real” jobs as what it is—part and parcel to the systematic devaluation of caregiving work. Colleges, counselors, and prospective employers of teens should consider viewing babysitting work as real and challenging. Having a babysitting business is equally or potentially more socially beneficial than a teen “founding a start-up” or “starting a non-profit” to be abandoned as soon as the ink is dry on a college acceptance. Teens are motivated by social reward, and we cannot reasonably expect them to gravitate toward work that many of their parents, friends, role models, and even the media they consume often considers menial.

Finally, I’m going to challenge my fellow parents of young children to partner with their communities in giving teen sitters an opportunity. While I don’t think anyone is obligated to pay 30% more than the market rate to someone whose experience level doesn’t work for them, I do think it’s reasonable to challenge our assumptions of what makes an ideal babysitter. Too often, I see my fellow parents react with horror at the prospect of anyone without an Early Childhood Education PhD spending a few hours with their kids. While I always encourage diligence and reference checks, as well as open lines of communication with the parents of any teen you hire, I think we could all calm down a bit. It might pay dividends to take the extra time to hire a teen to help out while you’re home a few times. Show them how and be available for questions and answers. While it might seem tedious to have to train a sitter, a responsible teen who knows your children is worth the effort. I’ll also challenge the preconception that teen sitters aren’t sometimes better. The teen years are a time when young people still retain some of their childlike wonder, and can connect with younger children in a different way. When I was a teen, I often enjoyed playing with dolls and trucks or sharing my favorite nostalgic movies with the kids in my care. It was fun for me to have teen sitters and fun to be one, and it benefitted me in either direction.

Whether or not your teens babysit, I hope you will join me in the call to action to shift our view of caregiving skills from a nice-to-have (primarily for young girls with a pre-existing interest) to a need-to-know for all teens regardless of gender. The caregiver gap is one of the most persistent gender gaps that still nonetheless structures more of many families’ lives than any other deficit. If more men could begin their parenting journey with an understanding of caregiving as a gender-neutral and valuable skill, so many of the daily misunderstandings and disagreements that persist around the “mental load” may recede with time. We can address it together—and I promise, we’ll keep the snack cabinets stocked, with access to DoorDash and Netflix after bedtime, get home on time, and pay in cash.

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