Babysitting
In some countries, various organizations produce courses for babysitters, many focusing on child safety and first aid appropriate for infants and children; these educational programs can be provided at local hospitals and schools.
As paid employees, babysitters often require a disclosure or assessment of one's criminal record to ward off possible hebephiles, pedophiles, and other unsuitable applicants.
[3] Despite women gaining the right to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, traditional gender roles persisted, particularly concerning motherhood and domestic duties.
While family size decreased, meaning women bore less children, they also dedicated more time to child-rearing, following advice from psychologists like John B. Watson and Arnold Gesell.
[1] Historically, girls from various backgrounds had been responsible for childcare duties, but societal changes led to the disappearance of roles like "Little Mothers" and "baby tenders."
However, sociologist Ernest R. Groves warned against hiring high school girls as babysitters, because of fears about their immaturity and lack of responsibility.
[1] The field of babysitting experienced significant growth during the Great Depression partly due to families' financial constraints, which limited teenagers' allowances and job opportunities.
[1] During the Great Depression, concerns about teenage girls' behavior and the need for better childcare led to the employment of male "child tenders," a term used before "babysitter."
Many adolescent boys were among the one million unemployed youth during this time and they took on various jobs to earn money, including household chores and tutoring.
[1] Despite legislative efforts like the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which restricted employment for those under seventeen, babysitters were still tasked with chores beyond childcare.
[1] During World War II, the demand for babysitters increased significantly because of the rising birth rate and the working mothers needing childcare.
[1] Adults during World War II saw babysitting as a solution to social problems, aiming to keep teenage girls off the streets, provide them with respectable roles, and prepare them for future domestic responsibilities.
Similar to approaches taken during the Great Depression, wartime authorities promoted babysitting as a patriotic duty, encouraging girls to contribute to the war effort by caring for children.
These courses taught practical skills like diapering and preparing formula, aiming to assure mothers that young babysitters were reliable sources of childcare.
The feminist concept of comparable worth influenced their perception of the value of babysitting work, leading to frustration over gender-based wage disparities.
Boys, in particular, were perceived as more challenging to manage, with some exhibiting dangerous behavior like wielding knives or engaging in destructive activities[1].Babysitters used various strategies to handle difficult situations, such as sending children to their rooms or threatening to call parents.
Despite expert advice to communicate openly with parents about challenges faced while babysitting, sitters were reluctant to present a laundry list of wrongdoing.
[4] In 1863, after the Emancipation Proclamation, African American women began to dominate the domestic workforce due to limited employment opportunities and segregation.
By the 1930s, domestic workers in Chicago faced issues such as employers offering work to the lowest bidder at designated locations known as "slave pens".
[5] In 1934, Dora Lee Jones established the Domestic Workers Union, advocating for wage and hour laws and inclusion in the Social Security Act.
Amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1974 provided protections like minimum wage and overtime pay, but those caring for the elderly or children were again excluded.
[4] During the post-Civil War era and the Jim Crow period, the mammy stereotype surfaced as one of the most pervasive and enduring images of Black domestic workers.
Portrayed prominently in popular culture, such as in 1939's "Gone with the Wind", the mammy caricature depicted Black women in domestic servitude roles.
Local initiatives emerged to address these issues such as in 2014 when Chicago implemented its first minimum wage ordinance, explicitly including domestic workers.
In India and Pakistan, a babysitter or nanny, known as an ayah or aya, is hired on a longer-term contract basis to look after a child regardless of the presence of the parents.
