How would you navigate teenage babysitters and their cell phones/social media? I have two young daughters, and we are choosing to keep them off of our own social media platforms. I have a hard time trusting teenagers’ attentiveness towards my children (distracted by their phones instead of interacting with my girls) as well as trusting that they will respect our wishes to keep our daughters off of Snapchat/instagram/tik tok/etc. ?
This was always my concern as well when my kids were little. (And I think one of the biggest barriers for most families!) In fact, we had a couple of times where my kids were on snapchat with teenage babysitters, ugh.
One thing that ended up working for us was getting a landline and asking the babysitter to not bring her personal smartphone. If there was an emergency, there was a phone available to call me or 911.
This has been a complete non-issue for us. Just as our extended family and friends respect our wishes, and do not post photos, we have never had a single issue with babysitters doing the same. We tend to hire people we know, and know their parents, but I think you would be surprised at how seriously teenagers take babysitting when they are hired. They tend to want to prove they are capable and do a great job!
This is a great and underrated point. Parents have always had to vet the responsibility level of the teenagers they’re hiring as babysitters, but part of that vetting today is those babysitters’ social media / digital use, for sure. In my experience, it’s just like all the other vetting, you talk to the parents to start and just be transparent about what you’re looking for.
I read an article a few years back that there was a trend among the wealthy to provide a flip phone and ask their nannies to hand in their smartphones during their babysitting hours. It made a lot of sense to me to not want to pay a babysitter who would be distracted.
This is such a good perspective! And I agree with others' qualms about phone usage.
I babysat so much when I was in high school and it was really valuable. It was also scary. I imagine that other sitters have experienced scarier things (like predatory adults, etc.), but one of the houses I sat in just had a layout with a lot of blind corners. And I love horror movies. It often occurred to me that someone could break in and the kids were up this long, narrow staircase, and it was just little old me protecting them. My imagination had me looking over my shoulder constantly after bedtime. But, the thing is, that scary aspect of babysitting was formative too. Knowing that I was in charge and that I could be brave (even if the fears were imaginary) was a big part of the experience. And the money helped!
That stat about the average age of babysitters (in Britain, but I’m sure it’s true in North America too) rising from 14 to 34 shocked me, but when you think about it, it makes sense. It’s part of this entire trend toward higher-touch, higher-stress parenting.
Lately, my circle of closest friends (all of whom have kids under 10 and we have all read _The Anxious Generation_ and are trying not to repeat the mistakes of 10 years ago) have been talking a lot about why our parents never seemed to be so stressed as everyone is today. Digital technology is of course a big part of it, and I think at this point a well-understood one among educated parents.
But this babysitter thing is just such a perfect example of Haidt’s “step 0” in the rise of phone-based childhoods. We stopped trusting anybody to do anything so like now date nights mean hiring expensive professionals if you aren’t lucky enough to have a grandparent nearby, which many people aren’t. Even put aside how good it is for the teenagers themselves, just the difference in expense to be able to go out makes a big difference to parental sanity!
The cool thing is, if you can find even a small group of people who realize the insanity of the last 30 years and just… stop doing it! … and don’t judge each other for it, this stuff is actually reversible pretty quickly within a social circle.
If you hire teenage babysitters, tell people about it! Not in an obnoxious way, but even a single sentence dropped into a conversation when you’re describing how you went out with your spouse, can help normalize it and give someone who may have felt that hiring a 15-year-old was irresponsible, the confidence to do it.
(I know everyone in this comment section probably already Irish teenagers as babysitters, but if we want to change the world, you have to reach the people who don’t already “have religion” so to speak)
That big of difference shocked me too, but also matches with my experience. People have accused me of being "parentified" for babysitting my sibling and cousins when I was 13. It's gotten so extreme that some people think that young teenagers doing any type of babysitting is literal child abuse.
I also did a ton of babysitting (beginning as a preteen on the Midwest, all through college, and going on as a young professional in NYC to make some extra money after my 9-5 job) and am so grateful for the experience for all the reasons you say. My husband and I have four young children now and live in a community with a lot of neighborhood teens, some of whom are great babysitters — but we’ve learned the hard way that we really need to vet them beforehand for screen habits (basically by knowing their parents well and having a sense of their family culture and rules) because we’ve gotten distressing reports from our kids about babysitter phone use (not just checking, but watching videos non-stop and even showing them to the older children). I thought maybe we could avoid this by verbally stating our family rules regarding screens (which is to say, we happily share chosen movies and shows together, but we never hand kids personal devices etc.) and even writing them out on a short list of key info for sitters — but we realized that some teens, even really sweet ones, just *cannot* put away their phones for a couple hours! I’m sure the 90s babysitter equivalent was to have the TV on the whole time…always a risk, but still…
We recently did a tour of a private all-girls school near us and they mentioned they have an explicit program of the older girls (I think they said 14-18) providing baby sitting services to families in the school, which I thought was pretty nifty.
I have tried and tried to get teenage babysitters and found that teenagers are now too busy. A lot of them have activities or schoolwork until the late evening every night. I've had a few one-off them given up on asking them as they're never available.
I had very similar experiences to yours as a teen babysitter (although I never nannied) and it was absolutely formative. One thing I would add is that it was formative professionally because different sets of parents had very different ways of treating their babysitters; I had to learn how to politely insist on things sometimes (like setting a rate when the parent would rather pay me "whatever" or would even forget to pay) and asking about house rules. I also noted the things that parents did that made a positive difference and that gave me some great nuggets of information. Plus there were things like noticing what mattered most to particular parents. Great experiences overall.
Now as a mother, my eldest daughter started expressin interest in babysitting at about 10 and she got herself a couple of mother's helper jobs. These transitioned into solo babysitting after a couple of years and were great training for her.
Finally, have you read "Babysitter: An American History" by Miriam Forman-Brunell? It was on my TBR forever and I read it a couple of months ago -- very interesting read. At times in history, it seems, older teens were considered the best babysitters, and at other times, preteens and young teens were.
I had a similar babysitting experience - often tedious but they had packaged snacks! Cable packages! Good magazines! I also really liked having my own money.
I see kids being walked or dropped off at school now and think "I was babysitting at that age?" And I definitely had the Calvin kids. I was the nosiest babysitter though - like just completely without shame browsing through photo albums, peoples' books, snack cupboards. I was like a little detective.
Oh my gosh. The snacks! They had all the things we didn't have in our pantry -- I remember getting especially excited when I saw Fruit by the Foot in there, ha!
Actually, what the United States needs is more babysitting co-ops. Teenagers could be incorporated into them but parents would be the main participants. Kids need more relationships with adults other than their immediate family and teachers.
We’ve had excellent luck with teenage babysitters — especially once we found a few homeschool families who have kiddos either flexible schedules, and got a roster of 3-4 names that we could call on (cuz those teenagers definitely have lives!).
One note I’d add is I’ve been especially thankful to find 10-12 year olds who are excited to be “mothers helpers” while I was WFH… they didn’t have to do much other than play with the kids, but it was a HUGE help and an awesome opportunity for an age group that are usually excluded from job-jobs.
I live in Los Angeles in a rare community where HS babysitters are really common. I love it. I also don’t think babysitting should cost $25-$30/hr! My kids love knowing different teens and see in them around town, in high school plays, etc. I hope they grow into being babysitters too.
This is great. I know a lot of people who get their child their first iPhone so that they can babysit, though. Maybe this should go hand in hand with Bring Back the Landline House Phone!
Our experiences with teenage babysitters have all been positive. They love it, our kids love it, my wife and I love being able to go out and enjoy a fun evening out. Great post!
How would you navigate teenage babysitters and their cell phones/social media? I have two young daughters, and we are choosing to keep them off of our own social media platforms. I have a hard time trusting teenagers’ attentiveness towards my children (distracted by their phones instead of interacting with my girls) as well as trusting that they will respect our wishes to keep our daughters off of Snapchat/instagram/tik tok/etc. ?
This was always my concern as well when my kids were little. (And I think one of the biggest barriers for most families!) In fact, we had a couple of times where my kids were on snapchat with teenage babysitters, ugh.
One thing that ended up working for us was getting a landline and asking the babysitter to not bring her personal smartphone. If there was an emergency, there was a phone available to call me or 911.
This has been a complete non-issue for us. Just as our extended family and friends respect our wishes, and do not post photos, we have never had a single issue with babysitters doing the same. We tend to hire people we know, and know their parents, but I think you would be surprised at how seriously teenagers take babysitting when they are hired. They tend to want to prove they are capable and do a great job!
This is a great and underrated point. Parents have always had to vet the responsibility level of the teenagers they’re hiring as babysitters, but part of that vetting today is those babysitters’ social media / digital use, for sure. In my experience, it’s just like all the other vetting, you talk to the parents to start and just be transparent about what you’re looking for.
I read an article a few years back that there was a trend among the wealthy to provide a flip phone and ask their nannies to hand in their smartphones during their babysitting hours. It made a lot of sense to me to not want to pay a babysitter who would be distracted.
This is such a good perspective! And I agree with others' qualms about phone usage.
I babysat so much when I was in high school and it was really valuable. It was also scary. I imagine that other sitters have experienced scarier things (like predatory adults, etc.), but one of the houses I sat in just had a layout with a lot of blind corners. And I love horror movies. It often occurred to me that someone could break in and the kids were up this long, narrow staircase, and it was just little old me protecting them. My imagination had me looking over my shoulder constantly after bedtime. But, the thing is, that scary aspect of babysitting was formative too. Knowing that I was in charge and that I could be brave (even if the fears were imaginary) was a big part of the experience. And the money helped!
That stat about the average age of babysitters (in Britain, but I’m sure it’s true in North America too) rising from 14 to 34 shocked me, but when you think about it, it makes sense. It’s part of this entire trend toward higher-touch, higher-stress parenting.
Lately, my circle of closest friends (all of whom have kids under 10 and we have all read _The Anxious Generation_ and are trying not to repeat the mistakes of 10 years ago) have been talking a lot about why our parents never seemed to be so stressed as everyone is today. Digital technology is of course a big part of it, and I think at this point a well-understood one among educated parents.
But this babysitter thing is just such a perfect example of Haidt’s “step 0” in the rise of phone-based childhoods. We stopped trusting anybody to do anything so like now date nights mean hiring expensive professionals if you aren’t lucky enough to have a grandparent nearby, which many people aren’t. Even put aside how good it is for the teenagers themselves, just the difference in expense to be able to go out makes a big difference to parental sanity!
The cool thing is, if you can find even a small group of people who realize the insanity of the last 30 years and just… stop doing it! … and don’t judge each other for it, this stuff is actually reversible pretty quickly within a social circle.
If you hire teenage babysitters, tell people about it! Not in an obnoxious way, but even a single sentence dropped into a conversation when you’re describing how you went out with your spouse, can help normalize it and give someone who may have felt that hiring a 15-year-old was irresponsible, the confidence to do it.
(I know everyone in this comment section probably already Irish teenagers as babysitters, but if we want to change the world, you have to reach the people who don’t already “have religion” so to speak)
Oh, for a comment edit function on Substack! “Irish teenagers” of course should be “hires teenagers” in the last paragraph 🤣
Nothing wrong with Irish babysitters either. Maybe they'll teach the kids to sing. 😂
That big of difference shocked me too, but also matches with my experience. People have accused me of being "parentified" for babysitting my sibling and cousins when I was 13. It's gotten so extreme that some people think that young teenagers doing any type of babysitting is literal child abuse.
I also did a ton of babysitting (beginning as a preteen on the Midwest, all through college, and going on as a young professional in NYC to make some extra money after my 9-5 job) and am so grateful for the experience for all the reasons you say. My husband and I have four young children now and live in a community with a lot of neighborhood teens, some of whom are great babysitters — but we’ve learned the hard way that we really need to vet them beforehand for screen habits (basically by knowing their parents well and having a sense of their family culture and rules) because we’ve gotten distressing reports from our kids about babysitter phone use (not just checking, but watching videos non-stop and even showing them to the older children). I thought maybe we could avoid this by verbally stating our family rules regarding screens (which is to say, we happily share chosen movies and shows together, but we never hand kids personal devices etc.) and even writing them out on a short list of key info for sitters — but we realized that some teens, even really sweet ones, just *cannot* put away their phones for a couple hours! I’m sure the 90s babysitter equivalent was to have the TV on the whole time…always a risk, but still…
We recently did a tour of a private all-girls school near us and they mentioned they have an explicit program of the older girls (I think they said 14-18) providing baby sitting services to families in the school, which I thought was pretty nifty.
I have tried and tried to get teenage babysitters and found that teenagers are now too busy. A lot of them have activities or schoolwork until the late evening every night. I've had a few one-off them given up on asking them as they're never available.
I had very similar experiences to yours as a teen babysitter (although I never nannied) and it was absolutely formative. One thing I would add is that it was formative professionally because different sets of parents had very different ways of treating their babysitters; I had to learn how to politely insist on things sometimes (like setting a rate when the parent would rather pay me "whatever" or would even forget to pay) and asking about house rules. I also noted the things that parents did that made a positive difference and that gave me some great nuggets of information. Plus there were things like noticing what mattered most to particular parents. Great experiences overall.
Now as a mother, my eldest daughter started expressin interest in babysitting at about 10 and she got herself a couple of mother's helper jobs. These transitioned into solo babysitting after a couple of years and were great training for her.
Finally, have you read "Babysitter: An American History" by Miriam Forman-Brunell? It was on my TBR forever and I read it a couple of months ago -- very interesting read. At times in history, it seems, older teens were considered the best babysitters, and at other times, preteens and young teens were.
I had a similar babysitting experience - often tedious but they had packaged snacks! Cable packages! Good magazines! I also really liked having my own money.
I see kids being walked or dropped off at school now and think "I was babysitting at that age?" And I definitely had the Calvin kids. I was the nosiest babysitter though - like just completely without shame browsing through photo albums, peoples' books, snack cupboards. I was like a little detective.
Oh my gosh. The snacks! They had all the things we didn't have in our pantry -- I remember getting especially excited when I saw Fruit by the Foot in there, ha!
Actually, what the United States needs is more babysitting co-ops. Teenagers could be incorporated into them but parents would be the main participants. Kids need more relationships with adults other than their immediate family and teachers.
We’ve had excellent luck with teenage babysitters — especially once we found a few homeschool families who have kiddos either flexible schedules, and got a roster of 3-4 names that we could call on (cuz those teenagers definitely have lives!).
One note I’d add is I’ve been especially thankful to find 10-12 year olds who are excited to be “mothers helpers” while I was WFH… they didn’t have to do much other than play with the kids, but it was a HUGE help and an awesome opportunity for an age group that are usually excluded from job-jobs.
In animation, some of them are treated as antagonists or full-blown villains, so they aren't exactly a "beloved" institution to all.
I live in Los Angeles in a rare community where HS babysitters are really common. I love it. I also don’t think babysitting should cost $25-$30/hr! My kids love knowing different teens and see in them around town, in high school plays, etc. I hope they grow into being babysitters too.
This is great. I know a lot of people who get their child their first iPhone so that they can babysit, though. Maybe this should go hand in hand with Bring Back the Landline House Phone!
Our experiences with teenage babysitters have all been positive. They love it, our kids love it, my wife and I love being able to go out and enjoy a fun evening out. Great post!