Stay at home mom here with *two* graduate degrees

Working was fun and I liked the money, but as my DH made more and more I realized i wanted to raise my kids much like I was raised - by my mom, at home, with amazing summers.

LOL my NextDoor page is always offering some shitty pay for a nightmare job (weeding a large yard) and saying it would be the perfect job for a high school student. I always took this to mean they are super cheap and are trying to avoid paying normal rates for things like landscaping.

Someone recently did it for moving help on a weekday and said it was ideal for a high school student. Um...they are at school. Get a mover and stop being cheap and weird.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always heard these jobs were unicorns in dc because no one wanted them. But we live in a major metro area in the south now, and tons of people hire hs and college kids for these jobs. $15 give or take, for 2-3 hours a day after school. My neighbor has kids in a private school that runs from k-12, and every year she finds a hs jr or sr with a car who is able to take her middle schoolers home, hang out while they do homework and even take them to activities as needed. And my friend only works m-w, so she finds someone who only wants this three days a week. So the kid makes like $150 for three easy days of work a week. Why wouldn’t a 17 year old want this easy gig? And why wouldn’t my friend rather specify this posting than having to pay more for a professional nanny who won’t want the job anyway? People in dcum are bonkers sometimes.

Most 17 year olds in the DC area are busy after school with sports, clubs, volunteer work etc.
There are also some districts in the area (I know Loudoun county schools, specifically) where the elementary kids get out a couple hours before the high school kids.

Yea I think you live in a bubble. Lots of teens or college kids can make after school work. When we lived in dc five years ago, we used to post this type of “perfect for a college kid” job on care and used to get tons of responses. We were hiring for a sitter to work every Saturday night from 7-11 and we paid $15 an hour. We always got great kids from American and Gw mostly, who were super bright responsible kids who I think loved the gig. They would go out immediately afterwards - 11pm. We stay in touch with several of them.

What after school sports clubs meet at 7pm on a Saturday night?

Marching band competitions often go well past 7 pm on Saturday nights.

Anonymous wrote:My mom would post advertisements for babysitters at GW/Catholic/American when I was a kid (pre-internet). Are you suggesting she should have just posted on telephone poles throughout the city and hoped for the best? Same concept.

Not at Howard, UDC, or Georgetown? Seems like some possible bias at play here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always heard these jobs were unicorns in dc because no one wanted them. But we live in a major metro area in the south now, and tons of people hire hs and college kids for these jobs. $15 give or take, for 2-3 hours a day after school. My neighbor has kids in a private school that runs from k-12, and every year she finds a hs jr or sr with a car who is able to take her middle schoolers home, hang out while they do homework and even take them to activities as needed. And my friend only works m-w, so she finds someone who only wants this three days a week. So the kid makes like $150 for three easy days of work a week. Why wouldn’t a 17 year old want this easy gig? And why wouldn’t my friend rather specify this posting than having to pay more for a professional nanny who won’t want the job anyway? People in dcum are bonkers sometimes.

Most 17 year olds in the DC area are busy after school with sports, clubs, volunteer work etc.
There are also some districts in the area (I know Loudoun county schools, specifically) where the elementary kids get out a couple hours before the high school kids.

Yea I think you live in a bubble. Lots of teens or college kids can make after school work. When we lived in dc five years ago, we used to post this type of “perfect for a college kid” job on care and used to get tons of responses. We were hiring for a sitter to work every Saturday night from 7-11 and we paid $15 an hour. We always got great kids from American and Gw mostly, who were super bright responsible kids who I think loved the gig. They would go out immediately afterwards - 11pm. We stay in touch with several of them.

What after school sports clubs meet at 7pm on a Saturday night?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On our community FB page I’m frequently seeing people post looking for a part time nanny or date night sitter and then announcing it would be a perfect fit for a college student or a teacher looking for extra money on weekends or perhaps a local stay at home mom looking to make some extra money. It always rubs me the wrong way, as if they’re blatantly stating “I want an UMC type of white woman to babysit”. Is it just me? Like why not just state the job you’re offering without adding that you think it would be a great fit for an educated young woman who lives in your neighborhood. And by “great fit” meaning, “this is who I want”.

Plenty of college students and teachers are minorities, from working class backgrounds, and/or men. I think the fact that you see this as a dogwhistle for an UMC white woman says a lot about the stereotypes you are harboring, OP. You may want to reflect on that for a bit.

+1, this thread is full of posters who have apparently never met a black college student or a SAHM without a graduate degree, which says a lot more about them than the state of the market for PT childcare.

Anonymous wrote:On our community FB page I’m frequently seeing people post looking for a part time nanny or date night sitter and then announcing it would be a perfect fit for a college student or a teacher looking for extra money on weekends or perhaps a local stay at home mom looking to make some extra money. It always rubs me the wrong way, as if they’re blatantly stating “I want an UMC type of white woman to babysit”. Is it just me? Like why not just state the job you’re offering without adding that you think it would be a great fit for an educated young woman who lives in your neighborhood. And by “great fit” meaning, “this is who I want”.

Plenty of college students and teachers are minorities, from working class backgrounds, and/or men. I think the fact that you see this as a dogwhistle for an UMC white woman says a lot about the stereotypes you are harboring, OP. You may want to reflect on that for a bit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always heard these jobs were unicorns in dc because no one wanted them. But we live in a major metro area in the south now, and tons of people hire hs and college kids for these jobs. $15 give or take, for 2-3 hours a day after school. My neighbor has kids in a private school that runs from k-12, and every year she finds a hs jr or sr with a car who is able to take her middle schoolers home, hang out while they do homework and even take them to activities as needed. And my friend only works m-w, so she finds someone who only wants this three days a week. So the kid makes like $150 for three easy days of work a week. Why wouldn’t a 17 year old want this easy gig? And why wouldn’t my friend rather specify this posting than having to pay more for a professional nanny who won’t want the job anyway? People in dcum are bonkers sometimes.

Most 17 year olds in the DC area are busy after school with sports, clubs, volunteer work etc.
There are also some districts in the area (I know Loudoun county schools, specifically) where the elementary kids get out a couple hours before the high school kids.

DP. We are in Loudoun and I can vouch for the fact that this is a huge roadblock for us here. My DD gets out of school at 3PM, but the high schoolers don’t get home until 4:30 or later. We can’t hire a high schooler for any kind of afternoon help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re saving everyone time. And of course they can choose someone educated to babysit their kids rather than someone who speaks poorly or can hardly read or write.

I get that… maybe it’s just the phrasing of “this is a great fit for anyone besides a career nanny because I don’t want that!” just sounds so entitled. Like, don’t tell me what job is a great fit for me. Post the job and hope that I apply. And filter out the replies you don’t want because they aren’t young white college students.

Why would a career nanny want a part-time job? Those are the hardest to fill and I think you're actually going to get the least qualified people. I would take our full-time nannies over the part-time sitters we've had any day of the week, but if you don't pay them full-time, they'll find another job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always heard these jobs were unicorns in dc because no one wanted them. But we live in a major metro area in the south now, and tons of people hire hs and college kids for these jobs. $15 give or take, for 2-3 hours a day after school. My neighbor has kids in a private school that runs from k-12, and every year she finds a hs jr or sr with a car who is able to take her middle schoolers home, hang out while they do homework and even take them to activities as needed. And my friend only works m-w, so she finds someone who only wants this three days a week. So the kid makes like $150 for three easy days of work a week. Why wouldn’t a 17 year old want this easy gig? And why wouldn’t my friend rather specify this posting than having to pay more for a professional nanny who won’t want the job anyway? People in dcum are bonkers sometimes.

Most 17 year olds in the DC area are busy after school with sports, clubs, volunteer work etc.
There are also some districts in the area (I know Loudoun county schools, specifically) where the elementary kids get out a couple hours before the high school kids.

Yea I think you live in a bubble. Lots of teens or college kids can make after school work. When we lived in dc five years ago, we used to post this type of “perfect for a college kid” job on care and used to get tons of responses. We were hiring for a sitter to work every Saturday night from 7-11 and we paid $15 an hour. We always got great kids from American and Gw mostly, who were super bright responsible kids who I think loved the gig. They would go out immediately afterwards - 11pm. We stay in touch with several of them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always heard these jobs were unicorns in dc because no one wanted them. But we live in a major metro area in the south now, and tons of people hire hs and college kids for these jobs. $15 give or take, for 2-3 hours a day after school. My neighbor has kids in a private school that runs from k-12, and every year she finds a hs jr or sr with a car who is able to take her middle schoolers home, hang out while they do homework and even take them to activities as needed. And my friend only works m-w, so she finds someone who only wants this three days a week. So the kid makes like $150 for three easy days of work a week. Why wouldn’t a 17 year old want this easy gig? And why wouldn’t my friend rather specify this posting than having to pay more for a professional nanny who won’t want the job anyway? People in dcum are bonkers sometimes.

Most 17 year olds in the DC area are busy after school with sports, clubs, volunteer work etc.
There are also some districts in the area (I know Loudoun county schools, specifically) where the elementary kids get out a couple hours before the high school kids.

I think you are basing this on a narrow experience in one area. I live on the Hill and there are definitely high school and college students around who do this kind of work. Also see people on the listserve offering that their younger child (12-14) is available to be a “mother’s helper” fir a few hours in the afternoon, where they watch and play with little kids while the parents are in the house. We’ve never done it because we have FT childcare, but it makes perfect sense for people who WFH and need to cover that gap between when school gets out and when they finish work.

We have also hired college age sitters for occasional babysitting lots of times. We have two who we hire in the summer when they are home (for one this was her last summer since she’s graduating and will be getting a job). And another one who is a student at Catholic and rents an apartment from friends of ours. We like that we had a built in reference. We pay these sitters 18-22 (start at 18 when we first hire and they are freshmen/sophomores, then bump up pay as they gain experience). I don’t get the impression this is a bad gig for them.

Also know some SAHMs who became PT nanny shares— they were already home with their own kids, so they’d provide 10-20 hours on in home care to a family looking for PT childcare for a similar age child. It’s a win for everyone — PT care can be hard to come by otherwise, having a playmate fir your kid can alleviate concerns about peer exposure for a SAHM, and since it’s all in the neighborhood it’s really convenient.

Anonymous wrote:I always heard these jobs were unicorns in dc because no one wanted them. But we live in a major metro area in the south now, and tons of people hire hs and college kids for these jobs. $15 give or take, for 2-3 hours a day after school. My neighbor has kids in a private school that runs from k-12, and every year she finds a hs jr or sr with a car who is able to take her middle schoolers home, hang out while they do homework and even take them to activities as needed. And my friend only works m-w, so she finds someone who only wants this three days a week. So the kid makes like $150 for three easy days of work a week. Why wouldn’t a 17 year old want this easy gig? And why wouldn’t my friend rather specify this posting than having to pay more for a professional nanny who won’t want the job anyway? People in dcum are bonkers sometimes.

Most 17 year olds in the DC area are busy after school with sports, clubs, volunteer work etc.
There are also some districts in the area (I know Loudoun county schools, specifically) where the elementary kids get out a couple hours before the high school kids.

I always heard these jobs were unicorns in dc because no one wanted them. But we live in a major metro area in the south now, and tons of people hire hs and college kids for these jobs. $15 give or take, for 2-3 hours a day after school. My neighbor has kids in a private school that runs from k-12, and every year she finds a hs jr or sr with a car who is able to take her middle schoolers home, hang out while they do homework and even take them to activities as needed. And my friend only works m-w, so she finds someone who only wants this three days a week. So the kid makes like $150 for three easy days of work a week. Why wouldn’t a 17 year old want this easy gig? And why wouldn’t my friend rather specify this posting than having to pay more for a professional nanny who won’t want the job anyway? People in dcum are bonkers sometimes.

OP - what's your problem? I can hire whoever I want and yes, I want someone reliable from our neighborhood, hopefully someone educated with experience and not someone looking for a full-time gig. It is not about race or being upper class. Not everything is about that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought this was code for "the hours are few and the pay is low and my kids may be assh--les."

Are you reading some of these responses? Everyone thinks their kids are a dream to watch. So easy that it's not even "real labor."

Np, my babysitting gig really isn't real labor. I put my kids to sleep before the sitter arrives. I had a similar gig when I was in high school and it was great. DH wishes he had a gig like that instead of his minimum wage jobs. I pay $15 and never have trouble finding anyone.