Nobody ever seems to give babysitting the credit that it deserves. Everybody sees it as some insignificant childhood job that teenage girls do during the summer. Although that is somewhat true, it should get more recognition than that.

Ever since the age of 11, I have been a babysitter. I remember going to babysitter training and learning CPR and first aid skills, and being super excited by it all. Since then, I have been babysitting during the school year and all throughout the summers. Babysitting constitutes my job, and I have been a part of the club for years.

Though it’s not an exclusive club, it is definitely one that requires a certain set of skills. While the list is extensive, you have to be responsible, timely, clean, respectful, fun(ny)… Adults are trusting you with their children and their homes. I feel like a lot of other jobs don’t require the same amount of responsibility that is required from babysitting, so why do they deserve more credit?

Ok, I can understand why more professional jobs receive more credibility than babysitting, but that doesn’t mean that everything about babysitting should be discredited. What would these parents do without babysitters and nannies? They’d be in a pretty big hole, I’d say.

I can’t say that I’ve ever had a “real” job until I got to Scripps. That in no way means that I have never worked before. I worked from 8 am to 5 pm nannying all summer, sometimes being gone from home longer than my working parents. Yet babysitting doesn’t show well on a resume, nor will people really accept references from people for whom you have babysat.

I am proud to say that I am a babysitter. I love playing with little kids and getting to be in charge for a while. I feel like I carry a lot of responsibilities as a babysitter, and I also have been prepared well for many possible jobs in the future. When looking for jobs after college (or even during college and internships and everything), I know that I will be better off because I was a babysitter and will have a valuable set of skills. So even though it might not be the best job to have on a resume, I know that it will have provided me with really valuable experience.