ABSTRACT
Where the parents do leave the children in the evening, who in fact is responsible for them? In at least one in fifty of these homes, nobody: small children are left in bed, and if they wake they are entirely dependent upon somebody in the next house who may or may not hear their crying. Twenty-one per cent of the parents who ever go out are already living with relatives, usually the baby's grandparents, and leave the child with them, and 37 per cent call upon relatives living elsewhere to baby-sit for them: most of these parents, of course, live in the older parts of the city. Eighteen per cent leave the baby in the charge of older siblings, who are not necessarily old enough to be responsible: their ages range from 8 years to adulthood. Sixteen per cent have friends or neighbours who come in (unpaid) to look after the baby; and, finally, 6 per cent of parents who ever leave the child (only 3 per cent of our total sample) employ a paid baby-sitter. Here again, the social class differences are considerable, as we shall see later; the number of unskilled workers paying for this service is negligible. Except in certain very restricted areas of the community where a satisfactory source of supply coincides with an above-average demand (among university wives, for example), the baby-sitting business does not appear to be booming.
