Informative Essay On Babysitting Legend

Many people claim they do not believe in urban legends, however, some urban legends have the power to make people stop and question themselves. What if these legends that are passed down from generation to generation by the word of mouth or electronically have truth to them? A few years ago, when I started to babysit, my older siblings told me about one of the most notorious urban legends, the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs. This legend is about a teenager who is babysitting, when a mystery man unexpectedly calls from inside the house. With my knowledge of this legend, I will provide a summary of the story, basic research, and an analyses of the legend. When I was fourteen years old, I got my first babysitting job. I thought I was on top …show more content…
This idea is universal to the majority of urban legends because over time they are altered to fit the setting in which they are being told, to make them sound true. The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs has many interesting variations that I was unaware of before I dug into this legend. Some of the variations that stood out to me were the number of children murdered, what the mysterious caller says on the phone, who makes the calls and what happens to the babysitter. First of all, the number of children upstairs varies from one to three. When the mystery caller calls, unlike the way I was told the man sometimes is said to be laughing or making threatening statements. In an alternate humorous version of this urban legend, the children upstairs are the ones making the phone calls to prank the new babysitter. The last variation that has a really big impact on the urban legend is what happens to the babysitter. The version my older siblings told me, the babysitter ends up dying, in other versions she is saved by the police or she kills the mystery man herself. No matter what version of the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs is told, I can conclude that this urban legend is not true