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I never had a babysitting job when I was a teenager, so my first experience with the task was years later with a very special baby, my newborn son. I was just finishing up master's degree requirements at the university, while my wife had a part-time night job as a medical professional. We needed to work up a baby care schedule.

In those years before computers and the internet, I had to spend many days and nights poring over stacks of books and banging out papers on my trusty Royal portable typewriter. I did make some money as a grad school lab assistant, but nowhere near enough to support a wife and our newly-arrived son. Of course, we certainly couldn't afford to pay a babysitter. So, I was elected to half of the job.

We had to work out a mom and dad babysitting schedule. It had to assure us that we could meet our first obligation of caring for our son, while still being able to do everything else to continue my wife's career and my college studies. Anyhow, our jobs rarely allowed us to spend time together in the apartment at the same time, so we had little trouble making up the official babysitting list.

My first 12-hour shift was from 2 pm to 10 pm, while my wife was with the baby from 10 pm to 6 am. I took over again until 2 pm, and the rotating routine was repeated. My shifts were convenient, because sometimes when I wasn't feeding the baby or changing diapers, I could sit at a nearby desk and work on my projects.

I also needed some of my free time to get to the university lab and attend classes four days a week, so I managed to schedule them all when I didn't have my babysiting shifts, and on Fridays when I had no classes nor work. This went on for more than two years until I finished my graduate studies and started looking for a job.

This was years before Email and cell phones, so there were some extra duty switches on our babysitting schedule when I went out on job interviews. Fortunately, after six weeks of pavement- and heart-pounding searching, I was offered a job in the city that required just a few minutes' drive to the local train station, followed by a half-hour's ride into the city.

Very soon, my newly-acquired, steady flow of income also gave us the great luxury of hiring several young girls who lived in our apartment building to be babysitters. Then, feeling secure that my job would last long enough for us to afford to move out of the apartment, we bought our first house in a nearby suburb, and my wife quit her job.

Finally, after three years of nightly feeding and diapering, my babysitting chores were over, and I could breathe a sigh of relief and relax in my new home. At least until my wife told me she was pregnant again, this time with a daughter.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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