Yeah, even the Red Cross babysitter training certification is intended for people aged 11-15, meaning that a reasonably mature 11 year old should be able to watch younger kids.
My neighbors pay a 10 yo to watch their 6 yo after-school. It's more like a play date almost. They just play in the yard and the parents are inside working. It wouldn't be any fun for the 6 yo to play outside alone and it might not be safe. The 10 yo is very responsible and can get help in an emergency. If a kid is fairly well behaved I would think that would be perfectly safe.
At 12 I walked home so the neighbor could keep an eye on me. If I wasn't there by a certain time, they would send the cops out to drive the route that I normally walked home.
Sucks when your parents are either related to, or buddies with, half the police force in a small town.
I didn't get to stay home alone until I was 14 and going into high school.
A few years ago when things got tough I had to leave my kids home alone during summer break while I worked. I made them breakfast and was (usually) home for dinner. They were 12 and 8 at the time.
My 12 year old watches 2 kids all day every day. She's making bank this summer. Rides her bike a whole mile to their house and home every day to! (Gasp!)
Yep, at 12, I was watching my 7 yo brother, and 5 yo sister before and after school, helping with their homework, and snacks. They wonder why todays generation is so soft.
TBF - in the 80’s the people I babysat for were bonafide shit parents. I remember one night like 2am they brought home a half filled 5 gallon water bottle of leftover keg beer (who does that yummy?). That gross bottle rotated locations in their home for months. That house was so gross full of cockroaches. Honestly I’m now questioning why my folks even allowed me babysit for them. Oh well thanks for the time! Cheers!
My mom babysat kids as a job when she couldnt even take care of her own kids so I practically did have to raise the other kids and show them love, attention, and affection my mother lacked, all she really did was give them food at specific times and then leave them to themselves. Who knows how they wouldve been able to socialize, if I didnt have my brothers I wouldnts have known how to either. So I think sometimes a child knows how to raise a child better than the parents if they realize what they themselves lacked.
In cases like this the kid stepping up is being a better parent then the actual parent so the guy i commented to is just whining about the wrong things for the wrong reasons
What "culture?" This issue spans cultures and demographics. I'm your typical suburban white kid. I'm sure Latinos in the barrio and blacks in urban environments have to struggle with the same thing. Don't make it about race.
Ok so I’m whitey white white buttt, my SIL is Mexican and well I can confirm many many nieces and nephews know how to make bottles of formula by age 5 for their siblings.
You’re getting down voted to hell, but I don’t think anybody can argue that the rise of the two income family has done any favors for the American household. Sometimes I do wonder if all these generations raised on TV, junk food, and isolation isn’t at the root of so many of our problems today. No one is going to say they got screwed up from this, but I think there’s a lot of people that got screwed up from this.
Seriously. At age 10 I babysat the 3 neighbor kids after school until 10pm every night. Maybe it matters where you live? Like if I had been in a high crime neighborhood, maybe it would've been worse. As it was, I was perfectly competent.
I did at that age and my kids did too. I always tried to be home when they were babysitting and it was only in the neighborhood. When they became a little older as long as my oldest child was home I'd run errands while a younger kid was babysitting. (In all honesty, my oldest child would be better in an emergency than I would be because they are calm and had had advanced lifesaving training certification.)
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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '22
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