Young People Ask . . .

Why Do I Have to Be a Baby-Sitter?

“HOW do you feel about baby-sitting your younger brothers and sisters?” Awake! posed this question to a number of youths. The responses were decidedly mixed.

“I love little kids,” said one teenage girl, “so it’s no problem.” One teenage boy even boasted: “I kind of enjoy the power!” Others, though, registered clear reluctance​—or resentment. “I do it because I know my parents need help,” explained a young girl. “But I’m not happy about it.” Said another girl: “I sometimes want to go to the movies or something, but my mother will say, ‘Take your little brother along.’ I really don’t want to.”

“Am I My Brother’s Guardian?”

The firstborn son of Adam, Cain, callously asked this question regarding his brother Abel. (Genesis 4:9) And you may also feel resentment if asked to be responsible for your younger siblings. Why should your leisure time be spent changing diapers or tending to scraped knees? As one 15-year-old girl bitterly put it: “I’m not only responsible for myself but for what my brothers and sisters do, too.”

Young Marna has a different complaint: “If we go to a park or something, I always have to take care of the babies and I can’t enjoy myself. It drives me crazy. . . . When I tell [Mom], she says, ‘You’re the big older sister and you have to take care of children.’ I got mad and told her, ‘Maybe my own, but not yours! You had the babies, not us. You should take care of them.’”​—The Private Life of the American Teenager, by Norman and Harris.

Your siblings may be equally unhappy about your being in charge. And they may take delight in sabotaging your best efforts at maintaining law and order. “I sometimes resent having to baby-sit my brother and sister,” one 14-year-old girl admitted to Awake! “The things they do! Sometimes they fight, and I go to break it up, and they tell me, ‘Who do you think you are? You’re not Mom!’ I wouldn’t mind it if they were easier to handle.”

‘Why Me?’

When one large group of teenagers was asked, “Which chores do you think teenagers should do around the house?” baby-sitting was listed by 32 percent! Yes, baby-sitting responsibilities are a fact of life for today’s youths. For one thing, housework can be strenuous, taxing work for a mother. Fathers face the daily grind of working at a secular job. More and more mothers must likewise work both at home and on an outside job. They are often stressed to the limit.

A baby-sitter makes it possible for mom and dad to get some needed relief from time to time. And if they both have outside jobs, a baby-sitter sees to it that the children will be properly supervised until the parents arrive home. True, your parents may be able to afford hiring an outsider to baby-sit. But wouldn’t they feel more secure knowing that their smaller children were in the hands of a capable and loving family member?

Granted, the responsibility to care for your siblings ultimately falls upon your parents. (Ephesians 6:4) But your helping out as a baby-sitter can assist your parents in fulfilling their duties. It is also a way to “honor your father and your mother.” (Ephesians 6:2) Furthermore, baby-sitting is good training for adulthood. One young woman recalls caring for her brothers and her baby sister while her mother, a single parent, worked as a waitress: “Every day I’d look after them until Mama got home. She would leave me a list of things to do: ‘Hang up the clothes, clean the house, start dinner.’” Quite a burden for a teenage girl! But she says: “In retrospect I can see that it was the best thing in the world for me. I grew up faster and became responsible.”

By the way, there is nothing unmanly about a boy’s caring for children. Men commonly did so in Bible times. (Numbers 11:12) And the apostle Paul did not view it as undignified to compare himself to “a nursing mother.”​—1 Thessalonians 2:7.

Getting a Positive View

Getting yourself to enjoy baby-sitting your siblings, however, may take some doing. A certain amount of rivalry often exists among brothers and sisters. And if you are constantly quarreling with your siblings, or if you think of them as a bunch of brats, it may be hard for you to have a positive view of caring for them. It may, therefore, help you to reflect on some of the lessons taught in the Bible.

Consider, for example, the account of young Joseph and his brothers. Because Joseph was favored by his father, his brothers “began to hate him, and they were not able to speak peacefully to him.” Imagine, then, how Joseph felt when his father said to him: “Your brothers are tending flocks close by Shechem, are they not? Come, and let me send you to them. . . . See whether your brothers are safe and sound and whether the flock is safe and sound, and bring me back word.” Local residents would no doubt recall the vicious massacre perpetrated by Joseph’s brothers years earlier at Shechem. (Genesis 34:25-31) It could be dangerous for Joseph to go there! Not only that, but his brothers would be sure to resent his showing up. Yet, out of respect for his father and genuine love for his brothers, Joseph replied: “Here I am!” and accepted the assignment.​—Genesis 37:4, 13, 14.

Young Miriam was another remarkable youth. When the Egyptian Pharaoh hatched a plot to kill Hebrew babies, Miriam helped protect her baby brother Moses. When the infant was safely placed in a tiny ark and allowed to drift down the river Nile, Miriam did not indifferently brush off her brother’s fate as her parents’ problem. No, she “stationed herself at a distance to find out what would be done with him.” Miriam even managed to arrange for Moses’ own mother to be assigned to care for him!​—Exodus 2:4-10.

Yes, unlike Cain, who had callous disregard for his brother, God-fearing youths today deem it a privilege and a responsibility to care for their siblings​—even when it is difficult or inconvenient. First John 4:21 says: “The one who loves God should be loving his brother also.” And while this applies primarily to our spiritual brothers, wouldn’t it also be true of those with whom we share both a spiritual and a physical relationship?a

Your concern and interest, your desire to protect, and, above all, your unequivocal love for your siblings can even play a significant role in their physical, emotional, and spiritual development. Still, taking care of small children can be a real challenge, and a future article will have some useful suggestions to help you baby-sit effectively.

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‘I’m Too Old to Need a Baby-Sitter!’

When Awake! asked one group of youths when a child was too old to need a baby-sitter, some guessed “11,” “13,” and, incredibly enough, even “7”! One young girl, though, observed: “I don’t think there’s an age limit. I think it’s a matter of maturity. You can be 15 and be too young to go without a baby-sitter.”

Of course, your parents’ estimate of your maturity may be miles apart from yours. And different families may choose to handle matters differently. So while some of your friends may have the run of the house when their parents go to the movies, you may have to suffer the “humiliation” of having a baby-sitter. This can be particularly difficult if the sitter is an older brother or sister. “I didn’t like having my brother baby-sit me,” confessed young Alisha. “I didn’t like it when he told me what to do!”

Your parents, though, have your best interests at heart. They read in the newspapers about rising crime and child abuse, and they have good reason to be worried. Besides, being alone in your home may be scarier than you care to admit. “I was really afraid to be alone in the house,” said one girl. “So I decided that I’d rather be a little embarrassed than terrified.”

Granted, at times parents underestimate their children. And if that seems to be the case, perhaps you can have a discussion with your folks and assure them that you can handle being left alone. If you rant or whine, you’ll probably convince them of your immaturity. However, if you discuss specifics with them​—for example, how you will handle your time and cope with emergencies—​you may get them to see things your way. If not, perhaps an acceptable compromise, such as your staying at a friend’s house, can be worked out.

Of course, your parents may still insist on your having a sitter. Instead of making things difficult for yourself and your sitter, try to view him or her as a temporary extension of your parents’ authority and cooperate to the extent possible. What if minor abuses of power take place? (“My sister took advantage of me,” lamented one girl. “She made me do her chores.”) It might be best to wait until your parents come home and discuss it with them rather than to wrangle with the sitter.