Well, I guess it’s a good thing all those parents who paid me to babysit when I was still a kid myself were so irresponsible. Think of all that spending money I would have missed out on if those parents hadn’t been such slackers!
Seriously though, I think it used to be the norm for girls to start babysitting at around age 12. I was perfectly capable of it and so were most of my peers. My daughter is 12, and I have no doubt she’d be a good babysitter, especially if she took a babysitting course just for some extra tips. A lot of parents around here will pay a younger teen to be “Mother’s Helper,” just to have an extra hand with the kids while doing housework or running errands. From that point, they progress to actually babysitting. Obviously, common sense has to play a role. I personally wouldn’t leave a 12 year old with more than two kids, a newborn, a child with medical issues or special needs, or for an extended period of time (more than 5–6 hours, tops).
The way I look at it, if my kid can keep her grades up, handle her schooling and scheduling of her after-school activities, and generally stay on top of her responsibilities at home, why would she not be able to entertain small children for short amounts of time? She knows how to put together a quick meal and clean up after herself, she knows how to call for help, and she knows what constitutes an emergency and what doesn’t. And she’s normal, not some kind of maturity prodigy.
Like I said before, I wonder when expectations for kids changed so drastically. It used to be that little kids were expected to act like little kids and big kids were expected to act like big kids. Since when has that been reversed?