"Today, the teen babysitter as we knew her, in pop culture and in reality, has all but disappeared. People seem to worry less about adolescents and more for them, and for their future prospects. As Fass put it, 'Teenagers don’t seem very grown-up these days.' There’s not much reason to fear or exalt babysitters anymore—because our society no longer trusts teens to babysit much at all."
'.. human parents ...aren't psychologically adapted for this isolation, a new study with a group of hunter-gatherers in the Congo suggests. A "mismatch" likely exists between the conditions in which humans evolved to care for babies and the situation many parents find themselves in today, says Deniz Salali, who contributed to the study.'
(NB Deniz Salali will be talking for Radical Anthropology in February)