oh my GOSH. Craigslisters, what the heavens are you smoking?!

Craigslist add for a babysitter under the community subtitle 'childcare' said:

I'm looking for a sitter for my 7 year old son in MY home. He's a good kid and pretty easy to keep busy. He has lots of board games, video games(PSP and Wii), and toys. Must interact with child and play, and help with homework when needed. We have wireless (bring your laptop) and digital cable.

I need you for evenings here and there and weekends (till up to 3am) on occasion. Must be at least 12. Able to drive a plus, but not mandatory. Previous experience not necessary with a parental reference and completion of babysitting class at CYSS. Must like dogs. Contact Heather at above email. Put "FROG" in your subject line. No spam!!!

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Well.. i mean, all i can think to say is.."Hey Robbie, I have some candy in my van. Want a piece?"
I mean, seriously! Toys, board games, wireless internet, digital cable AND the age requirement is TWELVE! Thats FIVE years older than the child that needs to be watched, for those of you less fortunately blessed in the math department. (dont feel bad. i had to use the calculator.) this is another CL horror story in the making!

I assume they'd interview the person over more than just email but yeah, that's... pretty trusting.

Isn't it against the law to hire a twelve year old to baby sit another child? i mean.. how often does it happen that you actually find a twelve year old who's parents would let you hire their child off of a craigslist add? i do hope the louisianians have more common knowledge..

You mean you DIDN'T babysit when you were twelve? Granted it wasn't for people on craigslist, but I babysit a ton when I was growing up. It thoroughly reinforced my decision against having children of my own

oh LOL. No, i din't babysit other peoples kids. But I did babysit my own siblings and they've got me good and ready to WAIT until im married to have kids.
I was assaulted as a child and became fairly reclusive towards well.. generally everyone until i grew up a little and wanted friends again. So, I typically did jobs around the house for extra cash. im still a little hesitant to even answer paper adds because of that little incident.

I babysat fulltime for the people across the street from me when I was 11. I started dog sitting for them when I was 9. They raised and showed Labs. They'd go away for the weekends for different shows and had me look in on the dogs they left home. That got me started on the connection with their daughters.
When I was 11 they asked if I would be interested in babysitting from 8am until 3pm monday thru friday. I of course said yes because I enjoyed being with their girls. I think the thing that helped them make that decision was my mom was home all the time and would be there if I needed anything.
Now, CL? I don't konw that I as a parent would advertise for a babysitter on CL. but that's just me.

I started babysitting at 12... :shrugs:

I watched my little brother every day, after school, when he was 6 and I was 11. I really don't like the CL babysitter idea though...

sibling watching is different i believe.. but i think you have to be certified by some organization if you want to watch other peoples kids, because if something happens the parrents of the kids and your parents get into a LOT of trouble. same goes for sibling watching, but its less common that anything happens because they know the children involved a lot better than being in a strangers home.

As far as I know, there are no laws about babysitting in most (maybe all?) states and you definitely don't have to get any certifications to be able to legally babysit (though CPR/First Aid is useful to know in general). It's the responsibility of the parents to choose somebody suitable. I was babysitting our neighbor kids when I was 12, but my mom would have never let me go to a stranger's house to do it. If I had kids I wouldn't find a babysitter on Craigslist at all unless it was my very last resort, and then I would definitely want them to be at least 18.

That said, I wish there were babysitting jobs like this where I live. Everyone here seems to want you to be bilingual/a retired teacher/group leader certified/willing to practically raise their kids for them. I just want a simple babysitting job to make some extra money. I even have my own car!

There have got to be laws about babysitting in all the states. Otherwise a parent could leave a 4 year old with a 6 year old and say they were babysitting them. In Canada (or maybe it's just Ontario), I believe a kid must be 10 for you to be able to leave them alone, but they must be 12 to be allowed to babysit.

There are laws here about how young you can be & still babysit but I don't know the details. Personally, I started babysitting for neighbors at 12.