The vital work of childminders and the wider early years sector seldom receives the recognition it deserves, but that doesn’t diminish its impact, says Georgina Young…
We’ve all heard it, haven’t we? Sometimes whispered under the breath. Sometimes said to our faces. Sometimes posted online by strangers who’ve never set foot in an early years setting. “They’re just babysitters.”
I remember reading a thread on a parenting forum – a discussion about early years options – where someone boldly declared that childminders weren’t as safe, skilled or educated as nursery staff. That we were the “lesser” choice.
It stayed with me, not because it was true but because it’s so common.
But I’m not just anything. None of us are. We aren’t just wiping noses or watching the clock. Childminders are not just filling time until school starts. We’re not just there.
We are the safe base, the trusted grown-up, the first teacher, the calm in someone else’s storm. We are doing some of the most important work there is, and we do it with knowledge, intention and love.
The truth is it probably won’t be the last time we hear it. Every time it happens, it’s a reminder of how much work we still have to do to shift the narrative – to speak up, stand together, and show the world what this profession truly is.
Because we are not babysitters. We are educators. We are nurturers. We are highly trained professionals doing complex, skilled, emotionally demanding work – work that forms the foundation of everything that follows in a child’s life.
Childminders carry far more than clipboards and crayons. We carry stories, worries, milestones, and moments. We carry a responsibility that’s hard to describe: to keep children safe, to help them feel seen, to lay the groundwork for confidence, compassion and curiosity.
It’s a quiet kind of weight, mostly invisible to the outside world. But it’s there, in our posture, in our planning, in our hearts. We show up every day with this weight and with love.
I remember a morning when my own children had been under the weather. I’d barely slept, and my body ached from the demands of motherhood, work and life.
But I still rose early, set out our learning environment with thought, love and passion; still smiled as I opened the door, and gave every child the love and support they needed that day to thrive.
Because I knew those children walking through it needed me. They may not be my children, but I care for them as if they are. I know I’m not alone in that.
Across homes, nurseries, classrooms and settings, thousands of early years professionals do the same, showing up on hard days, in hard seasons, carrying their own challenges silently so they can be a steady, loving presence for someone else’s child.
That is not babysitting. That is commitment. That is heart work.
People often ask, “But what do you actually teach them?” We teach them that they belong. That their voice matters. That the world is worth exploring.
We teach patience and problem-solving through puzzles and pouring. We teach language through stories, songs, and soft conversation at snack time.
We teach science through puddles and seasons, kindness through turn-taking, and resilience through falling down and getting up again.
The learning childminders facilitate isn’t always loud, but it is layered. It’s grounded in child development, attachment theory, observation, and professional reflection, setting children up for a lifelong love of learning.
In my setting, I once watched a child spend days transporting stones from one side of the garden to the other.
Many would see aimless play. But I saw a transporting schema emerging. I saw focus, purpose, pattern. I extended it – baskets, water, weighing scales, tools, books. That’s not filling time. That’s building neural pathways.
We teach with intention. We teach with joy. And we teach with a depth that too often goes unrecognised.
What’s harder to explain – and maybe what makes our work so often overlooked – is how much of it lives beneath the surface.
No one sees us resetting the room long after the children go home. Or the mental load of remembering who likes their toast cut in triangles, who has a speech referral coming, who’s struggling with drop-offs because of things happening at home.
No one sees us on our knees, mopping up a puddle while singing “Wind the Bobbin Up”. Or how many conversations we’ve had with worried parents in car parks, in whispers, in tears.
There’s no payslip for the emotional availability we offer. No bonus for the regulation we lend to children when they can’t yet find it in themselves. But it’s there. And it matters.
The early years sector is not a luxury; it’s the backbone of the working world. We are the reason parents can return to work.
Childminders and other professionals are the reason children start school with the confidence to thrive. We are the reason countless families feel held, seen, and supported during some of the most tender years of their lives.
And yet, we remain one of the most misunderstood and underfunded professions in the country. Early years policy changes hands like a game of political hot potato, but the impact always lands in our laps.
Across the sector, the pressure is mounting. Pay rarely reflects the responsibility. Paperwork piles up. Expectations grow. And still, we show up.
For childminders, I know that invisibility can feel especially heavy. Many do it solo, often with little support, and yet we are still framed as the “cheaper” or “easier” option.
Having walked the path from nurseries to childminder, I’ve seen how differently the roles are perceived, and how wrongly those assumptions are made.
That journey has only deepened my respect for the resilience and professionalism across our sector – the kind of strength that speaks even when the world isn’t listening, and that deserves to be seen, valued, and celebrated.
This is the story of a sector that quietly changes lives, one moment, one meal, one morning at a time.
It’s every educator who has crouched down to make eye contact with a crying child. Every key person who has stayed up late thinking of ideas for their little ones.
Every childminder who opened early or late because another family was relying on them. Every nursery team who’s worked short-staffed but still made magic happen.
We may work in different settings, but we share a mission: to give children what they need to feel loved, to feel capable, to feel ready.
So no, childminders are not babysitters. We are the ones who build the beginnings. And while the world may not always see us, we see each other.
We lift each other. We advocate. We stay – not because it’s easy, but because it’s meaningful. And we will keep showing up, with head, heart and hands, until the world catches up with what we already know.
We are not babysitters. We are educators. We are professionals. We are essential.
And the ripples of what we do today – in the play, in the patience, in the quiet holding – will echo through generations to come.
Georgina Young is founder of The Young Ones Childminding. Read more from Georgina at Guiding The Young Ones.
