American teenagers are losing babysitting gigs as helicopter parents demand ... trends now
Teenagers are losing their babysitting gigs as millennial helicopter parents refuse to leave kids home alone or demand they complete training courses.
Babysitting is a rite of passage for many teenagers, who are finally granted a sliver of independence when a neighbor or family friend pays them to watch their kids for a few hours every so often.
But a new generation of parents have changed the babysitting game by only hiring sitters who have specific training to look after their kids, even if it's just for a short stint.
Teenager babysitters still exist, but nowadays, they have to take safety courses, learn CPR and even get their lifeguard certificates just to be considered by picky parents.
Parents are even requiring babysitters to plan out enriching activities for their young children prior to the babysitting gig, according to Yasemin Besen-Cassino, a Montclair State University sociologist and the author of 'The Cost of Being a Girl: Working Teens and the Origins of the Gender Wage Gap.'
Teenager babysitters still exist, but nowadays, they have to take safety courses, learn CPR and even get their lifeguard certificates just to be considered by picky parents
As teenagers spend all of the moments outside of school striving to build an impressive portfolio, teens certainly do not have time to complete the intense babysitting training that today's parents are requiring
Besen-Cassino told The Atlantic that modern intensive-parenting approach isn't just to ensure the physical safety of their kids, but to ensure the children's future financial security.
She said the parents want to make sure their sitters can use every spare moment to 'enrich' their kids with skills.
The researcher has found that parents today want their children to stay away from screens and games and instead learn math, piano or another language.
A similar trend is being seen with the teenagers missing out on babysitting gigs.
Teenagers are too busy enrolling in SAT prep or filling the extracurricular section of their college applications to the brim with clubs, teams and charity work.
As they spend all of the moments outside of school striving to build an impressive portfolio, teens certainly do not have time to complete the intense babysitting training that today's parents are requiring.
As teens are edged out of the babysitting industry because they can't provide the qualifications most helicopter parents are asking for, professional childcare services are dominating the field and driving the price of childcare up even more.
This has left lower-income families with no choice but to rely on friends and family for unpaid childcare.
Middle-class families are forced to make sacrifices to scramble together the average cost of a nanny or sitter - which can be as high as $26 an hour in areas like New York City and Los Angeles, according to care.com.
While the archetypal sitter seen in pop culture is a neighborhood girl who will 'hang out' with the kids while the parents have a date night and order pizza for dinner, this stereotype is no longer up to the standards of 'intensive' parents.
Intensive parenting has blown up in the past few decades, and as technology has allowed parents to install nanny cams, they can easily watch over their sitters from their phones to make sure standards are being met.
Nanny cams are enough to deter teens, who don't want to be watched over by another set of parents when
