the.com/babysitter
A teenager you pay to ignore your kids slightly more responsibly than you would.
means A person, often a teenager, hired to care for children while their parents are away.
from A plain American compound that surfaced in the early 20th century, joining "baby" with "sitter." The "sit" part is the key image: to sit with someone or something, to watch over it by staying put — the same "sitting" you do when you sit a house or sit on eggs. The verb "babysit" actually came afterward, peeled back from "babysitter" — a tidy little case of a doer's name producing the deed.
- word origin
- From sitting on eggs to hatch them
- horror staple
- Slasher films love isolating them with phones
- first gig
- Average American starts around age eleven
- hidden labor
- Often unpaid older siblings since forever
- market size
- Care economy quietly worth billions yearly
mary poppins — fictional character in p.l. travers' 1934 novel and 1964 disney film who cares for the banks children
the nanny tv series — american sitcom (1993-1999) starring fran drescher as a babysitter/nanny for a wealthy family