The babysitting job is a pretty old one, being around since the Middle Ages and brought to the United States by the colonists. The word "babysitter" means someone who stays with the baby, while the parents are doing something else in a different room or away from home. Today, it usually refers to the time a girl or a woman has to look after the kid in the evening for some hours. In the colonial period and even today, there are more terms used when referring to those who take care of our children: nanny, governess, and chaperon.
The nanny was usually a young girl who lived with a rich family while taking care of all the family's children, up to an old age. Nowadays, she is hired for a new born and stays with the baby for about five years. Earlier, the nanny had her own chambers called nursery. She usually had one or two younger girls to help her out. Nowadays, she can live with the family to be able to care for the baby at any given time, or she could have her own apartment and even a car.
The governess was the lady hired to teach and train the children how to read, write and such other things. Today this can be viewed as a private teacher, or home schooling teacher, but it isn't quite the same as in the past.
The chaperon (a French word) was the lady who would accompany one or more young adults to social events, in order to prevent inappropriate behavior. Nowadays, this adult is usually found in school trips, and the role belongs to a teacher or two.
Throughout time, there have been wet-nurses: women who breastfeed the babies of other women. They were:
- Very popular during the Colonial Era, when it was forbidden for the lady of the house to breastfeed.
- Even today, this custom survives, but mostly because some of the mothers do not have enough milk for their babies, and they do not want to feed them baby formula (special milk created for babies, in the lab).
The babysitters are sometimes requested to wear a uniform, but it really depends on the environment, since in some cases it might even be recommended. Not all babysitters are trained ones; especially in the United States, these are teenagers who need some cash. However, more and more families are searching for specially trained nannies who will not treat their kids badly, let alone hit them.
This is a job for those who love children, who have a lot of patience with them and who understand that they have special and different needs than adults. An online guide to how much to pay the babysitter says that the minimum can be US$ 3 or 4 per hour, if the person is a teen between 11 and 14; US$ 5 or 6 if she is 14 to 16 and more if above 17. Of course, if the child has special needs, you might want someone older and more experienced; or if you have more kids who need supervision, then the pay increases with US$1 for each extra child.
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