I was babysitting when I was 10. Admittedly, it was for the baby next door and my mom was there if I needed anything, but still!

In non-babysitting job news, we have a scheduled deployment today at our client's (the giant gov't agency) at 3 and the developer is STILL coding/troubleshooting some key functionality, nothing has been tested, and I'm updating doc as he finishes coding. Granted it's an internal app only used by a few people but STRESS FEST! AND it was supposed to have been deployed at the end of December and then a couple of weeks ago and we've had to delay. UGH!

Younger days or older, I have never been comfortable babysitting. I did a fairly good job, as I recall but the idea of being responsible for a life made me tense.

Give me access to your sanity? I'm a champ. Baby? eek.

I had fun with the kids, more so as they got older and could communicate with me. One of the best compliments I've ever gotten was the time I had to take a short break from babysitting due to being in a play; when I was available again, I called my two biggest clients (both of my neighbors across the street), and the one mom said, "Oh, I'm so glad you're available--the girls have been asking for you!!" Turns out I was the only babysitter who took it upon herself to read to the girls without being prompted by the parents.

I loved babysitting and did a lot of it all the way until I went to college. I started when I was 12, babysitting in the neighborhood, but soon graduated to gigs further away. I charged twice the going rate and was much in demand, I am proud to say.

I had quite the babysitting business back in my early teen years. In the past couple of years I have watched the dojo baby and it made me kind of amazed that I looked after infants as a young age.

I don't recall thinking of it as being trusted with another's life. More that I got to play with this kid for a while.

My most traumatic experience is a toss up between two situations. Once the kid was sick and the toilet backed up and I'd never plunged a toilet before. I didn't want to leave the kid alone but I didn't want the parents to come home to that mess. The other trauma came when I was left with a pair of siblings and the mom had made a point of telling me there was a pizza to microwave for dinner. Seems simple but the pizza was much larger than the microwave. I was stumped for quite a while and felt bad cause I didn't know what else I could feed the kids. Finally one of them told me that "mom cuts it up before she puts it in the microwave". Oy.

"It is the height of hubris to think we could [destroy the earth]," Beard told MinnPost, before saying that even devastating nuclear events shouldn't cast doubt on his theory that the earth can always be repaired.

Oh, the earth will be repaired in a couple of million years, but the humans just can't seem to hold out that long.

And if he wants to ignore all the passages about stewardship that's fine, but it doesn't make him much of theologian if he does -- so he should probably zip it.

As far as babysitting... I'm doing it right now, AIFG.

I did a lot of babysitting, too, starting at 10 as a "mother's helper," through post-college. I would totally babysit more now if more of my friends with babies were local.

My "babysitting" was all chaperoning. Has its own perks and downfalls.

I started sitting at about 12, including quite a few late Saturdays with the worst toddler in the world. Her parents paid double what anyone else did, and I was the only one who would babysit her. I was always exhausted afterward.