The year of 2017 has begun and I’ve decided to just talk about childcare from a childcare professionals point of view, to be exact; a babysitter during the year of 2017. What is it like to be an older woman who didn’t have children of her own, but has been at the ready for so many families from the time I was, I want to say, 12. How did I become a babysitter and the owner of a babysitting agency? Trust me, it wasn’t planned, and obviously it wasn’t a goal (since I didn’t plan it). It has been a convoluted journey at best, and a long one, and still is.
I began babysitting at the ripe old age of 12, and I was clueless; imagine! I helped the neighbors, my sister with her four children, and actually worked summers for a family that lived across the street from me. I went to college with high hopes of graduating with a BA in English so I could pursue a career in writing and teaching. I took a break to be a nanny for a family in the Bahamas, and that experience will need to be flushed out at a later date because it’s a doozy. So I’ve always been part of a children’s lives even though I never became a teacher.
Anyway, this year I want to share the experiences of a babysitter. They are very different from a parent, and there are no books for babysitters like there are for parents and teachers. A babysitter’s role in a family is different than both parents and teachers and we fall in some gray-in-between area that can be a challenge to negotiate to make the parents, children, and yourself as a babysitter happy.
Some stories will be funny, I think, and some sad, and some just plain confusing as I have been confused. All-in-all I love every one of the beautiful children I’ve had the opportunity to meet. I feel blessed by a great staff of babysitters, and I believe in what I do. I am committed to being an advocate for quality childcare, and I take it personally if it doesn’t happen.
