Pre-writing for a thesis
Tricia, my college buddy, was always careful to leave instructions for the day to her long-serving babysitter. She had come to trust the lady a lot since she never seemed to do anything wrong. She could not even remember the last time she had bathed her sweet toddler because the babysitter always did it. It, therefore, came as a shock when one day she offered to do the task and found injury marks all over the child’s body. The babysitter would pinch and bite the baby whenever it irritated her.
I had the chance to observe a close aunt of mine struggle get the right care for her children by engaging the services of a babysitter. Being a career woman, she constantly had to be away from home and could not take her children alone. Considering that her leave of absence from work lasted not more than three months and the babies had to be taken care of, every time she planned for a new baby, my aunt had to include hiring a babysitter in the plan. It is not on a single occasion that she was frustrated by the babysitters. At one time, the situation was so serious that she had to call in the police when she found a horde of drunkards in her sitting room, evidently her babysitter’s visitors. The children were locked up in their room. She had to take them to a childcare center after the incident.
I have over time observed that professional child-care in licensed centers is becoming more popular among women. One of my friends confirmed my belief that child-care centers are better in bringing up children than babysitters when she informed me that her child, whom she had enrolled in a care center, was more jovial than those who had been brought up by babysitters. Several of those I have observed also tend to be more inquisitive and eager to learn than their counterparts at home. Besides, the care center children are safer in the hands of their caretakers and seem to have fewer accidents than those at home. I also feel that there is a possibility of growing up better socially in the centers since there is a lot of interaction with other children of the same age. In addition, the caretakers are educated in that field and would better understand their subjects’ needs. They are actively involved with the kids.
There are two of my friends that have been opposing me strongly on the issue. They argue that training institutions have been established for babysitters and that now anyone can get access to professional caretakers from agencies all over the town. They are also of the opinion that hired babysitters are economical as they will also perform other duties in the house. I have also heard groups that lobby for the rights of children assert that kids need some attachment to their home environment which they lack in care centers. That the baby’s routine should not be interrupted like when it is that they get their nap.
In my opinion against those viewpoints, the courses that babysitters take in those training institutions are inadequate to qualify them for the daily professional care of children. Sometimes it is a two-hour workshop on ‘how to baby-sit’. The purpose of hiring a babysitter is to get maximum care for the child and a multi-purpose babysitter may not offer quality care. Care centers are only for times when the mother is not available and therefore the kids have a chance at getting home attachment all the time they are not in the centers. They are not entirely removed from their homes. Moreover, such agencies for trained babysitters would only be of advantage to the urban folk. This leaves the rural parents out of the arrangement since the babysitters are often uneducated young girls who include available relatives. Childcare centers have been established even in rural areas.
Concerning the best lives for our children, I would urge all the people who are planning families to consider enrolling for professional care in licensed centers. They should also encourage others to follow suit. It is only by doing this that we take care of the all-round development of our children and prevent the misfortunes that come with babysitting.
Thesis statement
Our continued absence from home more often than not demands that we book our children into child-care centers.
Plan of Argument
My argument is therefore that all mothers who are planning time away from home should leave their young children in the hands of licensed childcare centers. Mothers ought to agree with my position for three main reasons. One of these is that finding the right person to take care of our babies can sometimes prove difficult and stressful. Secondly, babysitting services affect the child’s development in many ways which include physical, emotional, social, and intellectual aspects of their growth. Finally, a lot of criminal cases involving vulnerable children have come up recently and we do not desire to feel insecure where our children are concerned.
Support
It is not just us but also older women who have difficulties finding the right person to take care of the children in our absence. Most of the mothers in this age are very young and inexperienced on issues of child-rearing. We, therefore, need to be especially careful when taking up the services of babysitters. We often have to adopt a trial and error method and still get dissatisfied. The search takes a lot of time. We should find out the abilities of the people we hire for this task since they are the ones we entrust our kids to. In hiring them, we are obliged to know for instance whether they possess any first aid skills in case of accidents. They also ought to know when the baby shows signs of illness and what to do then. My friend once left her one-year-old baby in the care of her sixteen-year-old babysitter. The baby developed a high fever at some point and the girl thought a cold sponge bath would remedy the problem. She put the baby to bed after the sponge operation contented that the problem was solved. On arrival, the mother noticed that the baby was very ill and getting worse and had to rush it to the nearest hospital in the dark. It was treated as an emergency. Had the babysitter recognized the onset of an illness, she would have sought help earlier.
On another occasion, a four-year-old was left in the care of a girl whose work in the house went beyond taking care of the baby. The girl got busy with other tasks and the kid was left to his own devices. The girl was drawn to groans from another room. On checking out, she discovered an empty detergent bottle on the floor. The baby had drunk the contents assuming it was juice. The girl panicked and by the time help arrived, the baby had passed out. She knew not the first thing about administering first aid.
My argument may be opposed because the babysitter is given instructions not to let the child out of sight for even a moment and to call the parent if they notice anything unusual with the kid. However, we want the best for our children and would not want to take unnecessary risks with their lives. It may not be possible to keep an eye on the kids at all times because of other commitments. The best solution would be the acknowledged professionals at the centers. The chances of neglect and failure are minimal. Whenever my son falls sick at the center, the care provider takes her to the hospital and only comes to me for a hospital fee refund.
The aim of babysitting is not just looking after the child physically. This is only basic. The child’s needs go beyond observation. They need to grow from all perspectives. A child I know has grown withdrawn from lack of playmates as the only presence in the home during the day is the babysitter who has no idea that a child needs play. The babysitter is also very reserved and talks very little with the kid. I have observed that even in the presence of other kids, the child recedes into her cocoon. She may not grow up to be interactive from these early experiences.
My neighbor, the child’s mother, defended herself when I confronted her saying the kid will open up at school when he meets other children. A base has already been created through and it is not likely that the kid will change much. If she had been exposed to the outside world at an earlier age, she would have grown around other children and therefore learned to interact. A childcare center would offer such exposure. Besides, there is so much to learn from the caretakers whose total attention is dedicated to their brood. The kids’ minds are opened up early and it just enhances the ability to learn later.
On returning home from the center, my son is always eager to narrate his experiences which include something new he learned during the day. The moment brings us even closer and I feel like I am giving him the best. He would not have much to tell me if he spent the day at home under a babysitter. The provider of child care provides activities that are appropriate for development and guides the children towards acceptable behavior. They stimulate language development, self-help, and motor skills besides providing for social and emotional skills.
At home and abroad, in newspapers and on news, even in daily conversations, I have heard of mothers who have lost their children to babysitters and others who blame the latter for the involvement of their kids in criminal cases. Nearer home, I have heard of a real-life experience from my friend’s niece. Her babysitter had been acquired from one of the so-called agencies. One day on returning home from work, the lady found a note on the couch insinuating that the girl’s dream had finally come true in the acquisition of a child. She went wild and combed every nook and cranny to no avail. Attempts to trace the babysitter and the young girl have proved futile. She has never given babysitters a thought ever since. Such episodes are reported almost daily. Worse is heard when child-trafficking rackets are exposed, sometimes revealing demand for sacrificial babies in cults. The easiest agents for sources have often been innocent-acting babysitters whose backgrounds we do not look into.
Some babysitters also initiate children into such criminal activities as drug-peddling deliberately or unknowingly, owing to their vulnerability. Babies learn from observation and it is only inevitable that they copy even what we consider as vices. They cannot distinguish the good from the bad at that early age and will be lost before we know it. I once watched a four-year-old proudly roll a piece of paper and show off his ability to puff and when asked, he innocently declared that the errand boy did it and he looked cool. You should have seen the look of horror on mommy’s face.
I have heard mothers argue that it is easy to track run-away babysitters if we take precautions and hold their national identity cards on hire. This argument may not hold with the current availability of fake identity cards and the fact that underage girls often come in handy. It would be nearly impossible to track down a criminal, especially with so big a population to search from. Registered centers are however traceable as it is not likely that they will be mobile. They cannot disappear and we do not have to worry about the security of our children when they are not in our care. The babies also have positive behavior to emulate and people are ready to reprimand any misbehavior.
There are just endless reasons why I relentlessly persuade all mothers to take up licensed centers instead of babysitters. While babysitting is usually done by teenagers, child care is trusted to adult females who are themselves mother figures. Babysitters are often there so that they get money while child-care provides care, guidance, and an early chance at education as we attend to other duties. To add to all these, we get permanent care for our children instead of unreliable part-time babysitting. It is worth our money and our children will be so happy where they are entertained, fed and looked after that they will be reluctant to go home come evening. Let the kids come home all mud and dirt but happy and safe.
Conclusion
I still believe that for all the right reasons, we should stop hiring babysitters and go for licensed centers any time we need an extra hand. Attempt we may but we are likely to fail miserably in finding the perfect babysitter. Even if it were possible, the kind of care they provide would fall short of meeting all the needs of their subjects, and the proper development of the kids will be at stake. We also do not want to lose our children physically, morally, or otherwise and wish we had done something when it is already too late. The best has been provided for our children. Let us embrace it for their sake as well as ours. Mothers, this is especially our responsibility because we understand the pains of child-bearing better.