Babysitter: An American History

By Miriam Forman-Brunell
NYU Press

     When Mom and Dad want to have a “date” night and go out on the town, who watches the kids? For nearly a century, it’s been the babysitter. Miriam Forman-Brunell, professor of history at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, brings critical attention to the ubiquitous, yet long-overlooked, role of the babysitter in American history.
     Drawing on her extensive research on the history of girls’ culture and employing a broad range of vibrant sources, Forman-Brunell analyzes the figure of the babysitter in the popular imagination. In writing this book, she amassed a wealth of popular artifacts and texts from which to draw: the Babysitter’s Club book series, songs such as the Lunachicks’ “Babysitters on Acid” and the 1960s hit “Baby Sittin’ Boogie,” the Little Lulu cartoons, Barbie doll babysitting accessories, the suburban horror movie The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, urban legends, magazines, newspapers, TV shows, and more. What emerges is a fascinating and multifaceted history.
     Forman-Brunell shows that in addition to the obvious fears involved in leaving one’s children in another’s care, babysitters have often been targets for social, cultural, generational, and sexual anxieties, and thus present a fascinating mirror for American society. She also delves into the world of the babysitters themselves, gaining important new perspectives on how the American teenage girl responded to the roles and responsibilities placed upon her throughout the decades.


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