Baby Sitters

~TC I SEE WHERE the baby-sitting industry has been rocked by two major developments that threaten the livelihood of all those bratty 15-year-olds who traditionally dominate the profession.The first is a series of steady rate increases and perquisites (cooking the baby sitter's favorite food, renting whatever movie the baby sitter wants to see, etc.) agreed to by some desperate parents, which has set off a good deal of grumbling among other parents who are not -- how to put this delicately?

After reading your article ("Maryland task force recommends banning crib bumpers," May 20) on Maryland possibly banning the crib bumpers, I definitely find myself on the side of banning them. Granted, I'm only a teenage babysitter, and I won't have the responsibility of a child for many, many years, but I had never even thought that there were "dangers of bruising" or any other type of reason to install the bumpers in the first place. I agree with the members of the task force that say babies can't exert the force to hit their head on a side of the crib hard enough to bruise.

A 23-year-old Annapolis man was being held on $3,500 bond at the county jail on charges of child abuse, battery and third-degree sexual assault.According to police reports, the man was baby-sitting an 11-year-old girl in his home when the alleged assault occurred Friday night.The girl told police the man came into her bedroom, fondled her, then told her to go back to sleep. Instead, she crept out of the house, went home and told her mother what had happened.Casey H. Brooks of the 1100 block of Frederick Douglas St. was arrested early Saturday.

Cari Allison would rather start her own business than deal with finding another baby sitter.The Davidsonville mother of two sons, Joshua, 4, and Ryan, 2, had a steady baby sitter, but is losing her because the sitter is moving. Mrs. Allison, who knows the troubles of finding a reliable sitter, decided to make it easier for herself and others by creating a directory called the Baby-Sitting Network.The publication, which she hopes will come out quarterly, will list about 50 sitters from five areas: Annapolis, Bowie/Crofton, Arnold/Severna Park, Glen Burnie/Pasadena, and Deale/South County.

A paradox of modern family life is that many parents, fTC desperate for a night out, routinely hand over that which is most precious to them to people whose most predictable trait is unpredictability.The fact is, kids 10 to 14 are the nation's de facto baby sitters at an age when some cities deem them too young to be left alone unsupervised. They are trusted, sometimes cajoled or even tricked, into caring for mixed groups of needy infants, defiant toddlers and rowdy preschoolers when they themselves are testing the limits.

These are smart girls, these kids in "The Baby-Sitters Club," and so talented: One's artistic, one's pretty, one's athletic, one's an Earth child . . . and they're all one-dimensional.The movie, based on the incredibly popular series of books by Ann M. Martin -- they have sold more than 125 million copies -- has good intentions. It features some spirited role models for young girls, and goodness knows they are rare enough in movies these days. But the characters are bland and obvious, especially when compared with the richness of movies aimed at the same audience, such as "A Little Princess."

A Western District officer took time off from fighting crime Wednesday afternoon to help a baby sitter who had been locked out of a house by a toddler, county police said.Officer Howard Brown went to a house in the 2200 block of September Drive about noon and found Julissa Cassidy, 23, and 4-year-old Raleigh O'Conner outside. They had been locked out by Michael O'Conner, age 15 months, police said.It was about noon that Raleigh walked out of the house and wandered down September Drive. Ms. Cassidy chased him, and Raleigh's brother slammed the front door and locked them out. The boy and Ms. Cassidy's 9-month-old daughter, Alison Cassidy, were inside.

A girl in the care of a baby-sitter while her parents were away on vacation was killed yesterday in a traffic accident on a rain-slicked road north of White Marsh in Baltimore County, police said.Police declined to identify the victim last night, because her parents had not returned home.Sgt. Stephen Doarnberger, police spokesman, said the child, about 6 or 7 years old, was dead on arrival at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.Three other people were hurt in the 11 a.m. accident on Philadelphia Road at Allender Road.

A 15-year-old Glen Burnie girl was raped Saturday night while baby-sitting at a Ferndale home, county police said.The girl was at an apartment in the 6300 block of Centennial Place South about 10:40 p.m. when a man entered through an unlocked door on the second-floor balcony.The man then went downstairs, found the girl asleep on the couch and raped her, police said. The man then fled.The girl was treated at North Arundel Hospital and released. She described her assailant as a 40-year-old black man with a scruffy beard and shaggy hair.

A Loganville, Pa. woman said she did not leave her babies alone while she drove to Glen Rock to do laundry. “I left them with a baby sitter,” said Kayla Ann Rafferty, 23, of the Midway Motel on Main Street. “I never, ever leave the babies alone.” State police said they found Rafferty's 2-month-old and 1-year-old daughters alone in the motel room after receiving a report of children crying there. A caseworker from the county's Office of Children, Youth and Families took emergency custody of the babies, police said.