Baby Sitting Business Pays For Study Time But Has Its Pitfalls

"The reason students baby-sit," says John W. Holl director of the Students Placement Service, "is that it allows them to be paid while they are studying. Of course study in this case depends on quiet and orderly babies." But not all babies are quiet and orderly.

Owing to the natural dangers of the business, student baby sitters are allowed a certain amount of choice. Holl keeps a record of his sitter's preferences as to age, sex, and intensity of recreational activity of their charges. A man who likes to help older children with arithmetic can certainly do so if he wants. An especially talented diaper man likewise has plenty of chance to exercise his talents.

Complaints from the parents are noted down on the chart and new sitters are sent out to try their hand with the babies. Several mothers have called to report that a sitter scared their children, and Holt shifted the over brutal students to families with hardier babies.

Diplomacy Needed

Holt is always involved in delicate medication between families and sitters. One time parents walked in on a sitter an hour before the expected time to find him sitting in the living room with his shoes off. The parents objected. Holt firmly upheld the right of all students to take their shoes off whenever they wished.

All of Holt's crew is employed to watch the children of married students. Hence they are given rock bottom wages. Holt is faced with the delicate problem of keeping two groups of students happy. He feels the married ones would feel the pinch too much if they were forced to pay the unmarried ones any more.

The rates are 50 cents an hour before seven and after midnight, and 35 cents between seven and twelve when the baby is presumably no bother at all, being asleep.

Steady Customers

The normal procedure for sitters is to form lasting friendships with three or four families and always sit with their children. This has the advantage of forming "uncle" relationships with countless moppets and of knowing, where in the house the toys are kept in case of a crisis. The fact that it also leads to a more thorough knowledge of the inside of the icebox is frowned upon by Holt who finds other jobs for such miscreants.

As long as the family doesn't object, the placement bureau permits lonely sitters to bring girls with them. Of course this ruins chances for study, but then it's not every day you can get paid for having a date.