Boys Can Babysit Too

When you think about giving the neighbour kid a call to babysit, are you thinking of a girl or a boy?

Most of us are thinking about a girl. There are lots of reasons for that – we certainly still see childcare as women’s work, and some of us just don’t trust males around our children, which is sad. There’s still an outdated notion that a man who takes interest in children who aren’t his has some sort of creepy motive, when people don’t generally think the same about females.

Which is too bad for all the teen boys out there who would make fabulous sitters. Certainly on my husband’s side of the family where all the nieces and nephews except ours are in their teens and 20s, it’s the boys who are most likely to be holding or playing with our kids and if any of them lived closer, we’d be hiring them for child care regularly. And my dad is as likely to take care of my kids as my mum is.

That’s why I liked this story about a group of Boy Scouts getting babysitter training from the Red Cross as part of a badge program. It’s the same certification that girls receive,, and qualifies them to babysit for younger kids. Unlike other classes, though, this one was all-male, which gave the boys a chance to see that they were not alone in being interested in caring for kids.

They learned how to change nappies, feed babies and market themselves to parents.

How do you feel about boy babysitters? Are you fine with it, or do you feel more comfortable with girls?