How do you pay your teenage babysitter?

[Anonymous]

I have a teenage daughter who has recently started babysitting. There is a woman in our neighborhood who has asked her several times to babysit and has always paid her with a check. This is very inconvenient because it means my daughter does not get immediate access to the money she earned and I have to make a trip to a bank (which I can only do on Saturday mornings) to cash it for her.

She is babysitting for this woman again two weeks from now and I told my daughter to ask her to please pay in cash from now on and the woman told her “I don’t carry cash. I can write you a check or Venmo or PayPal.”

Am I wrong to think this woman should just go get some cash sometime between now and December? It may be inconvenient for her but she’s the one who wants to go out, and just like making arrangements for the sitter I think you should arrange how to pay the sitter, I have always paid all my babysitters in cash, even when it meant going out of my way to hit the ATM, having to buy something to break large bills, or rounding up.

Please share your thoughts and experiences! TIA

[Anonymous]

Yeahhhhhhh that woman seems like an asshole. Really? You have until December and you can't get cash?

Also I have never heard of anyone paying a babysitter via check. Venmo, yes. Check? No.

[Anonymous]

So have your daughter be 'busy' every time she's asked to babysit. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

People can be so cheap and stingy with their babysitters. My mom used to have a friend who would often ask my sister to babysit and she would pay my sister like, $1-2 an hour. (This was eight years ago, not the 60s.) Now, this is my sister's fault, because she had every right to say no (My mom TOLD her to say no) and I said she needed to say "My hourly rate is $10. Either pay me $10/hr. or I can't babysit." Still, the fact that anyone thought it was okay, to give a babysitter $2 is gross.

[Anonymous]

Open her a bank account. Most have online banking and you can do a mobile deposit from your phone.

[Anonymous]

Yes you are wrong.

She gets paid for the work she does.

Why would a teen need cash immediately?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes you are wrong.

She gets paid for the work she does.

Why would a teen need cash immediately?

Who gives a shit why she needs it? It's her money, she earned it, the woman needs to pay her in a way that is convenient.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't babysit for someone that selfish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So have your daughter be 'busy' every time she's asked to babysit. Problem solved.

Passive aggressive and not the point of babysitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes you are wrong.

She gets paid for the work she does.

Why would a teen need cash immediately?

Who gives a shit why she needs it? It's her money, she earned it, the woman needs to pay her in a way that is convenient.

Convenient for the person who hires you too. This woman offered 3 ways to pay. There are lots of reasons why people don’t keep large amounts of money on hand in cash too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes you are wrong.

She gets paid for the work she does.

Why would a teen need cash immediately?

Who gives a shit why she needs it? It's her money, she earned it, the woman needs to pay her in a way that is convenient.

DP. She earned it, but there is no requirement to be paid in a way that is "convenient." Unless specific parameters have been agreed to before hand, a check seems a perfectly reasonable way to pay someone. It's not like the person is proposing to pay in a foreign currency or something esoteric. I also don't understand why a check is such an issue. OP, where do you bank? Almost every bank these days has mobile deposits. If I get a check, I simply take a picture of it and can deposit it in just a moment.

[Anonymous]

Really, Mom, you cannot cash the check for your daughter and YOU give her cash now? Just deposit in your account at your convenience! Help your kid out!

[Anonymous]

I mean...I would just get the kid a checking account. But Idk why everyone is attacking Op. The other mom seems like a brat. Really, you can't figure out how to get cash between now and December?

[Anonymous]

I pay via Venmo. I never have cash. I go to a bank a couple of times a year. Can you get her a checking account so she can get paid online? Obviously your daughter can stop babysitting for this woman. But cash is so old fashioned, surely she will need Venmo by the time she gets to college, so why not start it now?

[Anonymous]

Seems like a good lesson for the real world. Most of us don’t get paid immediately for work either. I’m surprised you don’t have mobile deposit - most people do so I’m not sure the woman understands how “inconvenient” this actually is for you.