For as long as I could remember I’ve babysitted kids, especially my younger siblings. My parents would work long hour shifts, and my sister who is five years older than I am would stay after school for sports. Babysitting for my parents meant I didn’t get paid, which never bothered me. But who doesn’t enjoy having money. It also meant I had less time to myself and more responsibilities. But is it fair that parents leave all the responsibility on a teen?

By my sister doing sports, it limited the choices I could make. I had to think on my babysitting responsibilities and not only on myself. As one of the older siblings, I’m expected to help my parents out whenever they need it. The number one reason I’m always busy is because I’m babysitting. Something parents should respect more is their sitter’s schedule.

Senior Michalina Szelazek said, “I think if I’m asked to respect others’ time, mine should be respected as well. I don’t mind babysitting as long as I’m given an advance warning.” I find it unfair when my parents make me cancel my plans to babysit my younger siblings because as a teen all I want to do is hang out with my friends and enjoy my free time. Szelazek said, “I love my siblings, but once in awhile I’d like to be able to go out too, without having to always bring my younger brother. It also limits me to what I can do when I’m with him.” When it comes to actually babysitting it’s like I’m multitasking. One minute I’m doing my math homework, then I’m cooking some food, and on top of that I’m cleaning up the huge mess in the house. Having to do many things at once can be challenging, and it’s a cycle that seems to be never ending.

Even though babysitting can be a struggle at times there are also lessons that come from it. From all the experiences I’ve had so far from babysitting, I’ve learned to have a lot more patience with children. All kids act differently and some better than others, so babysitting showed me how to deal with kids in different situations. Babysitting is something that not everyone is good at, but takes practice. Personally I love working and being around children because they’re so curious about everything around them. I think everyone should try out babysitting children at some point in their life.

Being a babysitter has it’s unfair moments. Not being able to hangout with friends as much as you want or focus on yourself is only a part of it. There’s going to be days when you feel like tolerating children and days when you won’t. But I think you should still babysit those kids because even though you may not want to it’s going to shape you as a person and make you see things differently. So that one day maybe you’ll be that parent who asks their son or daughter for help to have babysitting duty.