Men Best Baby-sitters

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 2

Men Best Baby-sitters

(By

JUDITH REGAN

LONDON. Who would you happily leave in charge of your home and family, knowing that any crisis from a stomachache to the house catching fire would be dealt with as calmly and efficiently as if you were there yourself?

The teen-ager from across the road, anxious for extra pocket-money, the elderly spinster, glad of human company, and the girl from the local agency will all do the job adequately. But if you want a fully capable babysitter, you will have to employ a man. “The men on my books are undoubtedly the most capable and popular baby-sitters I have,” said a man who runs a leading London baby-sitting agency. “The children apparently find it such a novelty that they are shocked into behaving themselves.” Number Growing The number of male babysitters has grown enormously in the last three or four years. One agency now has one man to every three women and is looking for more. Students, widowers, bachelors, even authors, are turning to baby-sitting as an ideal way of either relaxing or working in pleasant surroundings—and getting paid for it. One agency worked out that a baby-sitter looking after a child over one year old actu-

ally has a 65 per cent chance of being completely undisturbed all evening. A friend of mine, who was aghast when the sitter sent by an agency turned out to be a man, found he got on wonderfully with the children and voluntarily tackled a pile of washing-up that had been left in the rush to get to the cinema on time. What do the male babysitters themselves think about the job? “I like Spanish children best,” an architecture student told me. “They’re so used to staying up for late meals, having slept all afternoon, that when Mamma goes out, they get out the cards and we play gin rummy all evening.” Not Popular “American children are absolute hell,” said a retired banker. “They are quite uncontrollable.” The, popular image of careless, smoking baby-sitters watching television while juvenile insomniacs jump out of second-floor windows, is not accurate. Most sitters, I found, worry about their jobs and take their responsibility very seriously. “One family I went to used a baby alarm for their three kids,” said a man of 22. “All I did was sit and listen to their breathing, and every 20 minutes I walked from basement to attic (three storeys) to check that they were all right. I must have lost pounds.” A male librarian takes a pile of children’s library books, prepared to read all night if need be, rather than have ructions. Do children like this? Of course. One small boy, aged five, told me: “Give me a man sitter any time. Mummy and Daddy put me to bed and that’s it: a sitter spends hours reading or lets me get up and watch television with him.”

Just what do baby-sitters think of parents? A man sitter told me: "I reckon I get paid while I’m studying, by baby-sitting, but one day I’m going to write a book about the excuses mothers make to themselves about their offspring. “They say when I arrive: ‘Oh, you’re a man! You will be gentle and kind, won’t you? Don’t force him to sleep—l’d much rather you let him jump round a bit. He becomes hysterical and the doctor says it’s bad for him.’ “One husband was astonished. ‘Hysterical?’ said he, ‘I never knew that.’ She’s made it all up in order to soothe her conscience about going out so much.” The standard of babysitters, both men and women, has never been higher. One agency manager, a young man in his twenties, submits employees to a rigorous interview and “selection board” before letting them join. He has 200 sitters on his

books out of the 1000 he has interviewed. All are between 21 and 35, and suitably qualified to look after children. “I have a good few men who go out sitting for me, mostly students who like the pocket-money while studying. “Parents don’t mind men baby-sitters as much as they used to. And children are better behaved with men. Only women sitters go to very small babies, though. Men haven't quite the touch.” Best Range Men are apparently at their best with children in the seven to 10 range. “I have baby-sat at least 400 times.” a law graduate told me, “and only once was I really at my wits’ end. I was minding three small children who just wouldn’t sleep. “They screamed for three hours. I told stories, sang songs. I remembered all my school songs and suddenly they sang with me. “When their mother camel at 2.15 a.m., they’d been asleep one hour. Singing apparently penetrated their ‘hostility barrier.’ They asked for 12 encores of “Clementine.’ “I sing to all of my charges now, whether babies, or in their teens.”