So I'm perusing the AU Jobs board, horrified that sitters expect $17 an hour
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Anonymous
| The market will bear what the market will bear. You can't blame the babysitters for asking if that is what people are paying. |
Anonymous
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This is OP back again. To be clear, I'm looking for a 1x a month babysitter for a school-aged child who teaches me how to program the TV and can heat up a simple meal for himself.
I'm sure it's a very riveting policy debate, this question of how much we ought to pay full-time nannies who care for our young infants 50 hrs a week, and how strong their English skills are. But it's irrelevant! I have a confession, which is that I work a part-time night/weekend job to have extra $ for silly things. THe job was competitive to get and it requires moderate office skills. Usually, a parent or grandparent happily, willingly watches our child when I'm at that job. Once or twice a month, I need a babysitter to watch the kid when his dad or grandma isn't available. It confounds me off that I'm expected to pay a 19 yr old $20 an hour to watch my kid while I go make $16 an hour. Having been a teen and college babysitter myself, and now doing this part-time job I have, I can confidently say which one requires much more skill and mental dexterity. |
Anonymous
Apparently some people will pay this, but plenty of us won't. The market isn't really supporting these prices. |
Anonymous
| OP, advertise what you're willing to pay. You'll have no shortage of responses from eager students. |
Anonymous
| $17 is high for an occasional college aged babysitter. $12-15 seems to be more standard. |
Anonymous
OP, there are going to inevitably be people who babysit on here trying to make it sound like $17 or $20 is NBD. It's one thing for an experienced nanny to make that who has kids all day, it's another thing for someone who babysits now and then to make that per hour with 1 kid. Years ago when we were looking to hire a sitter we even looked on sittercity. It was crazy what fees peoplewere asking. They can ask whatever they want. It doesn't mean they will get it. Many of those people were on sittercity forever hoping someone would bite. We ended up finding someone amazing who was reasoably priced and as I said in another post we gave tips, etc. |
Anonymous
OP, I have no idea why you seem to be taking this as some sort of personal affront. If you are not willing to pay that much, post the job at a lesser rate. The rate that college babysitters are seeking has nothing to do with what you make or the relative value of their skills vs. yours. It has to do with what they think the market will bear. If the rate that they are asking for is too high, they won't get responses to their ads, and they will either accept a job at a lower rate or decide that they don't want to babysit. |
Anonymous
| I pay Georgetown students $12/13 hour. I posted the job at that rate and had lots of responses... |
Anonymous
| My kid is 13, CPR trained, and makes $15 an hour. |
Anonymous
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20910 here (downtown SS). I have a sitter who is a freshman at UMD and she asked for $10 for one kid and $12 for two. I pay her the $12/hour and then round up. She was thrilled when we paid her the first time and saw we'd rounded up. This is for two preschoolers- feeding them, putting them to bed and then sitting on the couch for two hours. My neighbor pays her sitter the same. We have lots of families on the street with nannies. I know what two of them make - both for two preschoolers - one makes $14/hour, then other $15.
There is zero chance that paying any more than $15/hour for an occasional sitter is necessary. |
Anonymous
Remain confounded (sounds like it might be a natural state for you). Yes, some sitters require and MAKE $17 an hour.They just aren't making it working for YOU. A bunch of folks wouldn't be advertising those rates if they were completely unrealistic. However, you can certainly hire a sitter for less, much less if your standards are low. Let me let you in on a little secret-people work to make a living, not to make life more convenient for you. |
Anonymous
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Look-- I'm not OP, but I've found that the amount AU students request is not at all connected to their childcare experience or education.
In fact, it seems like it must have more to do with whether or not they have previously fallen into lucky situations working for families earning money on a for-profit order of magnitude themselves who don't mind padding their sitters' pay because it's all small change to them. A few of these students have merely benefited from lawyer/lobbyist largesse in the past and are asking. Many more very nice girls with entirely equivalent qualifications will swarm OP's inbox with eager responses when she posts offering a more modest rate. I work with undergraduates and have come to believe that many of them are inclined to overestimate their value to employers and potential employers. They're going to face a sobering wake-up call very soon if present economic circumstances continue! |
Anonymous
Exactly. And others hear about it, and figure it can't hurt to ask. Also, many of these students have parents who are perfectly willing to give them spending money, so most of them don't really "need" the extra money. |
Anonymous
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I'd be willing to bet that if any college student is posting $17/hr, she (or he) is just choosing the amount of money they would like to give up their Saturday night.
I doubt they have many takers at that rate, but it doesn't hurt for them to ask. The AU job board is not at all an indication of what the market will bear. |
Anonymous
Interesting. My kid is 12, CPR trained, and I hire a sitter for him. Can't imagine who in their right mind is hiring a 13 yr old to watch their kids. CPR training means next to nothing--I've been CPR trained for 35 yrs, and done it exactly 0 times. Roughly average number of times people are called upon to actually perform if they're not medical professionals. Most young children aren't having heart attacks, which tends to be the leading cause of requiring CPR. |