Babysitter

Mom and Dad need a night off from the kids, and it’s Grandma’s bingo night so she can’t come over. What’s a family to do? The answer: they call the Babysitter. As a Babysitter, you watch kids of all ages when their parents temporarily need to be elsewhere.

You have a lot of the same responsibilities as a Nanny. Like a Nanny, you spend your time with kids, keeping them entertained, safe, and happy. The big difference between a Babysitter and a Nanny is the amount of time you work.

While Nannies have set schedules and spend a majority of their week with the kids, you’re more like a pinch hitter. Though you might have one recurring workday (say, one Friday a month for a parent date night), you tend to come in for random days or evenings when the parents need to be away.

When you’re with the kids, you do fun activities like playing games, reading stories, and setting up art projects. If you have enough time, you might take your charges on a fun outing to the park or zoo. You also fill the role of parent while the real parents are out, so you do things like preparing meals and snacks, brushing teeth, running baths, and enforcing bedtime.

If something goes wrong (for example, when a kid gets sick or hurts themselves), you need to be able to react quickly and calmly. You take the necessary steps to help the child, and then let the parents know about the incident.