Agreed. However, I know of families with several children and the oldest seems to be looking out for the younger ones, it is their own ideas, not of the parents. Not getting baths, etc.... that should still be up to mom odr dad.
IMO, there is nothing wrong with this, it is simply that big sister or brother loves helping out.
I have a problem with it. Children are not competent to take care of babies, toddlers or other young children. They are meant to be siblings, not parents or caregivers. They need to develop in their own way. It's fine if an older child is asked to help out; not fine if the older child is given full responsibility for younger sibs. For a 1 year old, it would appropriate for a 12 year old to watch/play with the baby for 10-15 minutes while Mom or Dad gets ready for something. Beyond that is beyond a 12 year old's average attention span. Sure, big bro or sis may *love* helping out, but there are competencies involved in childcare. It's a big responsibility on many levels.
We see in this case that the adult mother, herself, was lacking in what I would call situational awareness (which becomes more complicated with each additional person in the party, no matter their ages - but much more complicated with small children).
Where I live, no one is supposed to babysit anyone until they are at least 14. I think if a family is going to designate a 14 year old as a caregiver, that child should go through classes on babysitting, child safety, and have a phone app that sends information to the adults in charge, prompting the 14 year old child to have to send pictures and interact. I also think the children who are turned over to a 14 year old should be at an age where they can speak, make their wants known, and no younger than 3-4. Even then, that's pushing it - for more than hour.
Good parents don't risk putting too much responsibility on one of the older children (it's awful for siblings to feel responsible if a sibling dies or goes missing or is hurt on their watch). Having a 14 year old help a responsible adult as part of family expectations is good
Putting a child in charge of younger children, especially on an ongoing basis, is not good, IMO.
Families with several children make their own choices, of course. I always feel for my own students, many of whom have been responsible for sibs for a decade before they even get to college (that's right; they've been babysitting/doing child care services since age 7-10).
I should also add that prior to the advent of Civilization (a mere 6000 years ago - less if you aren't from Iraq or Iran), it appears it was common to have 3-4 adults per toddler. Yep. That's how the !Kung-san people lived (for a long time, and what all their folklore says; we are all descended from a group that lived like the !Kung and was the largest group (10,000 people) in the world at the time (50,000 years ago; we were hunter-gatherers for 250,000 years before that - and hunter gatherer moms rarely have more than 2 living children, spaced about 4-5 years apart).
Lots of food increased women's fertility, but I don't think that was what nature had in mind. We are a very difficult-to-raise species, IMO.
IMO.
