It is a well-known social phenomenon that changing parental work patterns have transformed our all-family life over the past 30 years. One of the most dramatic changes is the increased rate of paid employment among mothers with children. According to published data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall maternal labor force rose from 38 to almost 70 percent during the last 30 years and for mothers with youngest children below the age of 3, this rate rose from 24 to 57 percent. During this same period, the demand for non-parental child care increased dramatically, taking place in a variety of child care arrangements, including babysitters or nannies, family child care, care centers, au pair, family members, neighbors or friend child care arrangements, and other organized activities. Alone in the United States, a large percentage of the 35 million children and adolescents below the age of 14 with working parents are in an arrangement with a babysitter/nanny or an other type of childcare arrangement for an average of 22 to 40 hours a week. Child care is no longer simply a protective or remedial service for children from low-income or troubled families: it is an everyday arrangement for the majority of children in the United States and all other industrialized countries in the world.

There are quite a lot of social studies available determining the effects of child care on children’s cognitive and social functioning (see references below, to mention only a few of them). As a conclusion, if children and adolescents are exposed to high-quality care, their development can be significantly enhanced. However, it has also been shown that society has not taken full advantage of the opportunities of childcare provides. Many children and adolescents spend long hours, often at early ages, away from their parents in unstimulating, mediocre care, resulting in development delays and social disturbances. This conclusion of the social studies leads to a real challenge for the families in need of a childcare service, as well as for the caregiver themselves. Selecting the correct type of caregiver service for their actual situation is not an easy task for the family. There are a lot of services offered in local newspaper ads or the internet and the first question will be if you prefer a full time in-home solution, drop-in or part-time or an off-home solution (care center, all-day school programs, etc.). Whatever the decision will be, the selection of the day care center or the nanny/babysitter never should be performed without considering the children’s opinion. Especially small children have a very fine instinct and they will show you immediately if there is "chemistry" between the babysitter or nanny and the child or not. Definitely it will be not enough to hire a caregiver just by a phone interview or a five-minute talk in your office. In order to find out if the candidate fits well with your family it is essential to perform a personal interview at home, starting with the candidate and the parents and later on also involving the children. There are many reasons to accept or not to a accept a nanny or babysitter, all depends on what you are looking for. It might be important for you if the candidate is old or young, mature or in between, with college grade or even with master degree, short or tall, thin or heavy, white, black or latin, with or without religious background, etc. There are many factors that define an individual but the most important thing of all is that the nanny matches with your family. And also consider the following: The caregiver always should be seen as a person whose primary function is caring for the children. There are too many cases where babysitters or nannies are basically used as general housekeeper, making the beds of the parents, doing their laundry or cleaning toilets, etc. As a consequence, children often are "parked" in front of the TV for hours, instead of stimulating them performing creative activities like attending after-school events, reading books or helping with homework, just to mention a few of the possibilities. For a quality care of their children, it needs to be clear that first priority of the babysitter/nanny is taking care and stimulating the children and in second place realizing other activities like the participation in general housekeeper activities. Both, the family and the caregiver clearly should define this in a contract that will help to ensure that all of the terms and conditions are well understood.

References:

1. Working Families and Growing Kids: Caring for Children and Adolescents Eugene Smolensky and Jennifer Appleton Gootman, Editors, Committee on Family And Work Policies, National Research Council (2003).

2. Caring for America's Children, Anne Meadows, Editor; Panel on Child Care Policy, National Research Council, National Academies Press (1991).

3. Brooks-Gunn, J., Berlin, L.J., and Fuligni, A.S. (2000). Early childhood intervention programs:

What about the family? In J.P. Shonkoff, and S.J. Meisels (Eds.), Handbook of

early childhood intervention, 2nd edition (pp. 549-588). New York: Cambridge.

4. Vernon-Feagans, L., Emanuel, D.C., and Blood, I. (1997). The effect of Otitis Media and

quality daycare on children’s language development. Journal of Applied Developmental

Psychology, 18, 395-409.