"Playground Assistant" -- hire a 5 year old at $5/hr
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Anonymous
| A parent on a neighborhood listserv is trying to market her kindergarten-age daughter -- "highly verbal," "highly entrepreneurial," and "preschool graduate" -- as a paid mother's helper at the playground for kids ages 3+. The girl is asking $5 an hour to interact with kids. Mom says she will linger in the background and offers to keep a look out "discreetly supervising for safety/quality control," but makes it clear that she thinks her daughter should/can be the one to actually watch other people's children. The idea that the girl will eventually want her own push on the swing or a turn on the slide herself doesn't seem to have occurred to her -- although she does call it a "playdate" when she encourages people to contact her to arrange an outing. |
Anonymous
| Sounds more like she wants people to pay her daughter for the opportunity to play with her. Mom needs to find real friends for her daughter. |
Anonymous
| Wow. Just ... yikes. |
Anonymous
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On the one hand, this sounds an awful lot like trying to host paid playdates.
On the other hand, my older kiddo, at age 5, would have made an excellent playground mother's helper for the younger kids. She was very interested in helping 2-3yo kids and less interested in playing with other 5yo. I say this mostly jokingly. At 7, that same kid would've made a great playground monitor and would have 100% told everyone how to use every single piece of equipment. |
Anonymous
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This sounds like something my daughter would have suggested (who is 8 now and has been like this forever). She wants to sell things in front of our house EVERYDAY. I can only squash the entrepreneurial spirit so much, so occasionally I acquiesce and let things happen. I don't usually feel comfortable with grifting neighbors, but on the plus side, she earned $244 this school year.
Sometimes parents have to let their kids try out ridiculous ideas. This one sounds kind of fun. |
Anonymous
If that was my kid I would have been concerned that she didn't seem to have age appropriate friends or behavior. Nobody wants to play with the kid bossing them around telling them they're doing it wrong. |
Anonymous
| This is very funny. I assume it’s a spoof post? “Preschool graduate” is over the top. OP, is the listserv anonymous? Can you please reply to the mom and ask for a copy of the 5 year old’s CV and last preschool progress report? |
Anonymous
| My daughter used to go door to door selling painted rocks and drawings she had made to the neighbors, she made a lot of money that way. At age 5 or 6. A few years later she sold bracelets she had woven. I had nothing to do with any of it. |
Anonymous
My kid is like this too but there are still schemes I say no to and this would be one of them. Playing with younger kids on the playground is part of being a good neighbor just like helping our elderly neighbors we don’t charge for that. I would instead say they could set up a lemonade stand there. |
Anonymous
I know an 11 year old like this. He's always trying to come up with ways to make money. He has a good little business of taking his neighbor's trash cans to the curb for pickup. Recently he also bought a bunch of Prime drinks that were hard to find and was reselling to the kids at school for a tidy profit. He's always trying to find new ways to make money. He doesn't need the money, that' just how his mind works. |
Anonymous
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Who cares? This would honestly be more useful to me than art, lemonade, cookies or other stuff I have bought from kids to be supportive. My toddler loves older kids.
If it’s not for you just don’t sign up! |
Anonymous
Lemonade stands are unlicensed, untaxed and undercut legitimate businesses. Let’s not get carried away critiquing the “businesses” here. |
Anonymous
| As the parent of a nearly 4 year old who has pragmatic speech issues, I would absolutely love to “hire” her - a verbal, perhaps slightly bossy child, is exactly the playmate I would like to have over for my only child. But she probably doesn’t live in my neighborhood. |
Anonymous
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When I was a first grader, I told my mom I could teach kindergarten because I knew everything that was taught to kindergarteners.
When my dd was 2, she asked me to teach her how to drive the car. I might pay her $5 as a favor to her, if I thought my kids would enjoy her company, but it’s a little problematic; is her mom going to be there to watch her if I need to leave the playground early because one of my kids got hurt or needs to use the bathroom? |
Anonymous
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Letting your kid go around begging ("selling" junk) is a good way to make the neighborhood dislike you.
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