who drives babysitter home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here... sorry... I just reread what I wrote and realize it is rather confusing. I think you all made sense of it, but to be clear my daughter is the babysitter and I was assuming that my job as her parent was to get her to her job, but that the family she babysits for would drive her home. We are a 5- 7 minute drive, but not walkable late at night. Thanks for all of your responses... it seems that it is not as clear cut as I thought!!!

If she had a different job, would you expect her employer to drop her home? Babysitters charge about $15 per hour now. I would drive the babysitter home as a courtesy, but I don't view it as my responsibility. You do understand that your daughter isn't doing the family a favor, but is getting paid to do a job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a single parent, I'm not driving the sitter home. Unless I get another sitter for that. And then I would have to get another sitter for that sitter. And an endless recursive drudgery until I collapse.

You might be better off paying a little more for an older sitter with a car. I’m not interested in hanging around in real clothes until 10 pm to go pick up my kid from babysitting, I want to be in pjs at that point.

You can't drive in PJs? I pick my kid up from football games, etc. in pjs al the time. I don't get out of the car. I text that I'm there and to come out.

[Anonymous]

We call an Uber.

[Anonymous]

Sigh. It makes me sad you all think men can't drive the babysitter home. So when I pay for a babysitter, I (female) have to not drink so that I can drive the babysitter home?! DH and I take turns driving her home, but it's like 2 blocks. DH isn't a creep either.

[Anonymous]

I will drive my DD there, but do expect that she will be driven her home unless there is communication otherwise. Those of you who hire sitters should understand that my DD may consider herself "free" to babysit even though I may have other plans. I am not necessarily at your beckon call to come and retrieve your employee when you happen to return home. I also always drove my sitters home when I hired them. If you want a sitter that you don't have to drive home, make sure they understand that or hire one that can drive. And NOTE once HS kids drive, they usually lose interest in babysitting so your best neighborhood sitters are in the 13-15 yrs old and you should plan on driving them. Otherwise, pay more and hire a college aged person or older.

This and other issues provide a great opportunity for young teens to work on their communication skills. I've had to train my DD to ask what families who hire her how late they expect to be out. Sometimes I give her deadline, "my parents won't allow me to babysit past 11:00." She can also ask, "does my mom need to come and get me or will you drive me home"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh. It makes me sad you all think men can't drive the babysitter home. So when I pay for a babysitter, I (female) have to not drink so that I can drive the babysitter home?! DH and I take turns driving her home, but it's like 2 blocks. DH isn't a creep either.

NO. Parents of teens that are very concerned about this will pick up their DDs. If they don't insist on that, either parent can drive home. If you are drinking so much that you take and Uber and aren't driving that night, ask the sitter if she can arrange for her parents to pick her up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We call an Uber.

Who is the WE? I have a 15 yr old and she does not take Uber's alone so you should confirm this is ok before making this arrangement.

[Anonymous]

Wow. This is the paranoid generation.


Rightfully so.

Turn on the news once in awhile


NO. Just because you hear about things does not mean they happen all the time. Just because news is more easily spread, does not mean bad things happen all the time. You do realize your child has a greater chance of getting injured or dying in a car accident, then being assaulted abused Etc by the dad of a kid she just babysat?

You are raising an entire generation of children to be afraid of life. Be aware, yes. Be careful, yes. Be smart, yes. Be paranoid of every member of the opposite sex? Hell no!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teen babysitter who does not drive has been babysitting more. I always get her to her jobs, but expect the family who is babysitting to drive her home. One family always seems to expect me to pick her up at the end of the night. I would understand if they ask on occasion if one parent is out of town and the other comes home and does not want to leave young kids alone late at night, but generally if both parents are there shouldn't one of them drive my daughter home?

I've never even thought to have the parents of the sitter pick their kid up.

I, thremom ALWAYS drive home female teen sitters. We also use male sitters and for that it is whomever has not been drinking. My DH won't even take a closed door meeting with a female one on one at work, so there is no way he will ever put himself alone with a teen girl in a car.

Same.

[Anonymous]

Before my teens drove, we would usually get them to their babysitting gigs and the employer would drive them home. Anything outside of that was pretty unusual and arranged in advance. We had discussions about riding with people who may have been drinking, but honestly, most people in our circles seem to be way ahead of the curve on those issues. Same with the mom driving the babysitter home. People in this day and age aren't clueless.

[Anonymous]

If you want the parents of the sitter to pick them up at 11 then you had better be home on time.

[Anonymous]

When I babysat, the parents always drove me home. There was one family where I much preferred the mom driving me home, because the dad was a fast and reckless driver. I was always thankful to make it home safely.

I always drove our sitters home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want the parents of the sitter to pick them up at 11 then you had better be home on time.

Exactly!!! This is why this is sooo different than any other job.

[Anonymous]

I don't want to deal with driving someone home at night so we only hire sitters with their own cars that are older.

[Anonymous]

The only teen sitters we use are the daughters of DH's childhood friends, who have known DH their whole lives and therefore it is fine for DH to drive them home. Otherwise, I would never let DH drive a teen sitter home.