One of my regular blog reads is Oh, the Joys. She had a post yesterday about boys babysitting her daughter.

Here's the pertinent part of that post, quoted verbatim:

Later, after listening to me drone on about the mundane ups and downs of finding a baby sitter, a male friend said,

“Aren’t you worried about a boy babysitting your daughter?”

“What?” I said. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

He was talking about the potential abuse of my daughter.

See my innocence smashed to bits there on the floor?

Honestly, nothing like that had occurred to me.

Nothing that disgusting had even crossed my mind.

She concluded the post by asking for insight, perspective, and opinions. And you know what? Reading the comments just cemented my belief that some people are fucking morons.

I can understand a parent being hesitant about having anyone babysit, male or female. I can understand someone who had been abused feeling skittish about leaving their child alone with someone else. What I cannot understand, however, is a parent who would hire a female babysitter but refuses to even consider a male babysitter. And I saw several comments from close-minded women who have no problem making this decision. These are the type of parents who I'm sure will fill their children's heads with racist stereotypes and fearmongering.

Their reasons? Complete and utter bullshit.

Reason #1: Most molesters are men.

Well, no shit, fucknut. So are almost all rapists. And serial killers. And even murderers. This is what's known as a syllogistic fallacy. Just because men are molesters and your babysitter might be male does NOT mean that your babysitter is a molester.

Since almost all rapists are men, does this mean that you'll never let a boy date your daughter?
Since almost all serial killers are men, does this mean that you'll never let a man work with your daughter or talk to her?
Since almost all molesters are men, what happens when your girl babysitter has her boyfriend come visit?

I know! Why don't you create such an environment of fear that boys are assumed to be molesters just because they have a penis? That's an awesome idea. Why don't you just transfer all of your petty paranoia and stupidity to your children so that they're just as fucked up as you?

Here's something else to think about. If you treat someone like something that they're not, eventually they will become that something.

Reason #2: Boys are more hormonal than girls and their brains make them do strange things.

Bullfuckingshit. Find me a boy who lets his little head do the talking, and I'll show you a girl who has recently discovered that her body can convince boys to do whatever she wants. I'll speak in small words here, so see if you can follow along. The goal is to find someone who will know right from wrong even with hormones running wild. See? How hard was that?

Reason #3: Girls are more nurturing than boys.

I babysat from when I was 11 until I was 18. I was an excellent sitter. I watched boys and girls from six months old to 11-12 years old. I changed diapers, made dinner, helped with homework, put the kids to bed, and cleaned up. Some of the kids were family, some weren't. And I got asked back to be the sitter time and time again, because I was the only sitter that the parents liked. The girl sitters? Would sit on the phone all night, have their boyfriends over, and do a piss-poor job of actually taking care of the kids.

Splitting the ability to nurture and care along gender lines is the same thing as expecting all Asians to be good at math, all blacks to be good as basketball, and all Germans to be Nazis. It's a shitty perspective.

It's all about making smart decisions, not stupid fucking choices based on bad information, faulty logic, and fear. You should never assume that a girl babysitter is going to be awesome and you should never assume a boy babysitter is going to fucking molest your child. Anyone, male or female, that watches your child should be someone that you can trust, and you should do your due diligence in making sure your child is in good hands. Simply choosing to eliminate male babysitters from the equation, though, is stupid, ignorant, and sets the worst type of example for your child to follow.

In conclusion, don't be a fucking douchey cunt. The End.

**P.S. Let me say that most of the commenters were intelligent and logical and said things like "you should figure that out on a case-by-case basis". But it was the fucking idiots like Imhelendt who supported this completely illogical and irrational perspective.

**P.P.S. ARRRGGHHHHH I hate ignorant people.