Fewer teenagers join ranks of baby sitters

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(GANNETT PHOTO NETWORK) SCI-HURTKIDS: Babysitter Megan Reser comforting five-year-old Christopher Malison after a fall in a playground at Pinkham Park in Visalia, California. (GNS Photo by Johanna Vossler, Visalia Times-Delta)

Updated: February 28, 2012 8:19AM

Where have all the teenage baby sitters gone?

About 2 million baby sitters and nannies nationwide are in the SitterCity.com database, and, according to executive vice president Melissa Marchwick, they are getting older.

When the site was launched in 2001, the average age of the sitters was 18. Now it’s 21.

At Care.com, managing editor Katie Bugbee says that many retirees and unemployed professionals are putting themselves back into the baby-sitting market and making a career out of it.

Lauren Dee, a St. Paul, Minn., mother who formed the Great Escape Co-op four years ago with other parents, said not only are teens busier these days, but the ones who are available are harder to find.

Neighborhoods and communities aren’t as connected as they were when she grew up in the 1980s, she said. And parents feel increasingly uncomfortable leaving their children with teens they don’t know, especially if they need a responsible driver to cart their children to activities.

“When I was a teenager baby sitting, I’d been in every house on the block, I knew everything about all the families and they knew me,” she said. “Neighborhoods are different these days. We don’t have teenagers nearby that we know and trust.”

“Parents aren’t comfortable with the idea of a 13- or 14-year-old caring for their children, and by the time they’re 16, they’ve found other jobs,” said Mary O’Connor, owner of Nannies From the Heartland. “Our clients are saying they want experienced, older caregivers.”

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