A friend/neighbor treated my teenage daughter like a slave when she babysat for them
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Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
| I had a friend who had her babysitters do paperwork for a charity she was on. This did not make her popular among the babysitter set except that her kids were unusually easy and went to bed when asked and she paid a slight premium over the usual going rate It was not really enough to compensate for the work but enough that she could still get sitters. |
Anonymous
This. Your word choice was absolutely horrible OP. |
Anonymous
I would have some fun with it. Call your friend and say, "Lauren was telling me about the things in your fridge she was throwing out. I can't believe you don't shop at Whole Foods all the time! She said you had hardly any brand name foods and that it seems like you don't offer the kids enough fruit. Stick with organic, it's more expensive than what you seem to buy but it will be worth it. Oh and are you doing one of those cleanse programs? She noticed a lot of those ingredients. Tell me how it goes!" 
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Anonymous
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Our daughter has high school sitters all the time for twin six year olds, and they never ask them to do more than something directly with the girls. At this age, they meet them at the bus stop, give them a snack, play - read or do crafts with them in the afternoon. On the weekends they might see they eat their dinner, but do not prepare it and/or give them a bath - one at a time. $10-12 an hour is a reasonable rate today for an experienced high school sitter. The difference is that they also have an adult former child care teacher two afternoons a week who meets the girls at the bus, and she does crafts, cooks dinner and baths and is paid $20 per hour because she has the experience to handle it all safely. She also speaks to them only in Spanish to keep up that language skill. There is an obvious difference in expectations and pay. I can remember 35 years ago when I had someone coming for our middle daughter while I went out on errands to our home - a college grad student and it was baseline of $1.50 an hour. Now I am paying $12-15 for a college student to do activities with our oldest daughter who has a disability and does not drive. The girls really enjoy seeing our community and going out with her with the activities/eating out covered. Our daughter enjoys doing what typical college kids like to do and I like to give her that opportunity. She is able to stay on her own during the day or if we go out at night so we are fortunate on that score. It is more fun than caring for a couple of younger kids. |
Anonymous
You are very underpaid. |
Anonymous
| Hoorible. Your neighbor is a bitch. I mean that seriously. That is inappropriate |
Anonymous
| Our nanny receives much more than 12/hr. to babysit, do the kids' laundry, and some VERY light housekeeping. It's hard enough to find a teen willing to babysit who lives nearby - no one who actually wanted to use the sitter again would expect her to do laundry and clean out the fridge. Either the neighbor is at the beginning of a very steep learning curve or the DD exaggerated what was actually asked of her. Did one of the kids spill something in the fridge/on himself as the parents were heading out the door and they asked her to deal with it? If not, it's pretty clear that the DD should decline future babysitting jobs with this neighbor. If the neighbor asks why she's not interested the DD can tell her that she is focusing on babysitting jobs only - not housekeeping. |
Anonymous
| Test the free market OP. What does the mall pay these days? Or waitressing? GL. |
Anonymous
Yes it was enough. Evidence, the sitters still were willing. |
Anonymous
+1 I wish she had hired my DD who believes that anything in the fridge for more than two hours is spoiled. Your neighbor would have come home to an empty fridge. |
Anonymous
+1 If I was $12 to a 15 yr old, I'd probably ask her to do some extra stuff too (prob not cleaning the fridge). We pay our 15 yr old sitter more like $8/hr. We've only paid $12 for an adult sitter for babies/toddlers. If she wants $12/hr, I like the PP suggestion of providing a price list -- just sitting is $8/hr but $X for various additional work |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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As others suggested, if asked to babysit again, I'd have you or your daughter ask if there will be expectations for other duties outside of watching the kids (e.g., cleaning) just to make sure it is clear what is being asked. Your daughter could say "I love babysitting for Child X, and I am saving for college and don't mind picking up extra tasks like laundry after Child X goes to sleep. If you are looking for a babysitter and household helper, I can do both. My rate will be $15 per hour if so."
However, I think $12 is a kickass amount of money per hour for a kid to make, whether they are watching children or doing laundry after a kid goes to bed. I would see this as a potential upside - your daughter will have a better work ethic and learn more about working hard to make money if she is doing laundry for $12 an hour after the children go to sleep than sitting on her butt and watching TV for $12 an hour. She isn't being treated poorly, but she can speak up if she thinks she deserves more money. And then she will either have a babysitting/household help gig for some extra cash or may not be asked back by the family -- either way, there is a good lesson for her here. |
Anonymous
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Steps for OP:
1. Apologize for the use of "like a slave." The biggest offense in all of this is your insensitive hyperbole. 2. Talk to your daughter about how she wants to handle this. 3. Let her. STAY OUT OF IT. |