My parents started leaving us home without a sitter when I was 9, which meant my eldest sibling was 13 or 14, but really it was my 11 year old sister who was the one in charge, primarily of our baby sister who was about a year old. She was one of these babies who never took to strangers and would howl when left with a sitter. Every time my parents hired a babysitter after my little sister was born, the sitter sat around doing nothing while my older sister took care of the baby, so eventually my parents gave up paying for sitters for the six of us and left us alone. We were pretty priggish and responsible kids, though, so the biggest danger was that we might (gasp!) turn on the television while they were out. We weren't allowed to watch television, so that was a big deal.

We all started babysitting for pay when we were 12, usually with short daytime gigs at that age and then evening hours when we were 13. I made some pretty decent money babysitting as a teenager.

My own daughter is 11 now and (Lord knows I love her) she's a complete flake. I can't imagine leaving her in charge of children at this point! She loves playing with younger kids, but if she gets distracted by something more interesting (a good book, a movie, someone's Facebook farm, etc.) she gets sucked in and is completely unaware of anything else going on around her. I've tried leaving her "in charge" of her younger brother while I do things like take a shower or switch off the laundry in the basement, with instructions to just let me know if he goes outside or gets into something. She's great for 5 minutes and then gets distracted and I'll come back upstairs and find that my son is out on the roof naked or something like that. So I think it'll be a while before she's left in charge of other kids with no adults around!

Sarah