I always see it this way, having a nanny Is what I call an exclusive service. It is like you have a personal chef or driver. It's somebody that comes to your house to offer you an EXCLUSIVE service. That is!

I am nanny, and I can't pretend to have a personal driver driving me everywhere and complain that it is expensive.
When you get nails done at a salon, it costs you, what? $50
It won't cost the same if the person comes to your house to do your nails JUST FOR YOU in the commodity of your home.

Do you want somebody watching your kids only? Do you want them to sleep in their beds? Do you want one-to-one attention for them? You don't want to worry about pick up drop-offs? Do you want to able to monitor them sometimes?
OP, you want exclusivity, and it is expensive.

Anonymous wrote:Childcare is obviously important, essential work, yet many childcare workers are underpaid even as parents struggle to afford it. The real question is why isn't childcare subsidized here as it is in other countries? This would solve a lot of problems for parents, teachers, and employers.

Even in countries with subsidized childcare, the rich have nannies.

Besides, subsidized childcare is mostly institutional.

Anonymous wrote:I pay my nanny what she wants, but why do they make TWICE as much as a preschool teacher who deals with 5 times more kids? Is the nanny overpaid or is the teacher underpaid?

It's the individual service. This always drives up the price. I mean you pay more for your own uber than uber pool, correct?

Childcare is obviously important, essential work, yet many childcare workers are underpaid even as parents struggle to afford it. The real question is why isn't childcare subsidized here as it is in other countries? This would solve a lot of problems for parents, teachers, and employers.

Anonymous wrote:Preschool teachers have jobs that come with union support, health insurance benefits, paid summers off, retirement benefits, and other very nice benefits (e.g., pension eligibility). Nannies sometimes do not have any of those. Also, many preschool teachers have preplanned lessons they can use.

Nannies often get some PTO, such as sick days and vacation, but nowhere near all the holidays and summers preschool teachers have. Additionally, most nanny jobs do not offer retirement and only minimal coverage for health insurance. There is not as much job security with being a nanny as there is with being a preschool teacher. Nannies typically are more flexible in their schedule to accommodate parents needs, which is not the case for preschool teachers (although I'm sure they also put in some extra time as well, but it is not always dictated by parents needs/preferences).

Preschool teachers do not get paid summers ! Lolol

Anonymous wrote:Preschool teachers have jobs that come with union support, health insurance benefits, paid summers off, retirement benefits, and other very nice benefits (e.g., pension eligibility). Nannies sometimes do not have any of those. Also, many preschool teachers have preplanned lessons they can use.

Nannies often get some PTO, such as sick days and vacation, but nowhere near all the holidays and summers preschool teachers have. Additionally, most nanny jobs do not offer retirement and only minimal coverage for health insurance. There is not as much job security with being a nanny as there is with being a preschool teacher. Nannies typically are more flexible in their schedule to accommodate parents needs, which is not the case for preschool teachers (although I'm sure they also put in some extra time as well, but it is not always dictated by parents needs/preferences).

Which preschool teachers are part of the Union? Maybe PK3 and pk 4 public teachers in DCPS? But not your typical preschool.

Preschool teachers have jobs that come with union support, health insurance benefits, paid summers off, retirement benefits, and other very nice benefits (e.g., pension eligibility). Nannies sometimes do not have any of those. Also, many preschool teachers have preplanned lessons they can use.

Nannies often get some PTO, such as sick days and vacation, but nowhere near all the holidays and summers preschool teachers have. Additionally, most nanny jobs do not offer retirement and only minimal coverage for health insurance. There is not as much job security with being a nanny as there is with being a preschool teacher. Nannies typically are more flexible in their schedule to accommodate parents needs, which is not the case for preschool teachers (although I'm sure they also put in some extra time as well, but it is not always dictated by parents needs/preferences).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are looking at it from the child care worker perspective, but the price and the compensation are set from the consumer perspective and the business model.

Product 1: nanny 1:1 care in your home with a developing relationship, plus some home extras. One employer, one employee, no overhead. Most expensive product, all profit to one person.

Product 2: nanny share 1:2-4 care in your home with same extra benefits to at least one of the clients. Two employers splitting the slightly less expensive per person cost; all profit to one person with no overhead.

Product 3: your child is one of many with multiple care givers in a center. Least expensive for client; lots of overhead, most profit to center who pays the employee the lowest possible rate they can get away with; highest profit model to center comes from more clients and fewer workers (which is why it is regulated).

The price is set by the product. In models 1 and 2 all the profit goes to one person with no overhead, while in model 3 it goes to a center that pays overhead and itself before the employees get a cut, which is their salary and benefits. There are more customers paying in (albeit smaller amounts), but more entities being paid from the same profit pot.

With current regulations/ratios and rent in cities like DC or San Francisco, daycare centers actually make razor thin margins. A huge chunk of their operating expenses go to rent and another huge chunk goes to insurance in most cases.

Exactly the point; this is a big part of why the child care workers are paid less than the private in-home nanny.

Anonymous wrote:I pay my nanny what she wants, but why do they make TWICE as much as a preschool teacher who deals with 5 times more kids? Is the nanny overpaid or is the teacher underpaid?

Apples and oranges. Among other reasons, she has to put up with you and, thus, is probably underpaid.

The very highest priced nannies are substitute parents. My friend’s mom was one of the top partners at a top 5 NYC law firm. His dad owned a successful business and later left his mom for his secretary. His nanny was his parent because his parents were always busy and when he went home to NYC he would go to her house to see her first, before he saw his parents. He spent holidays with her family. Her death devastated him.

Nanny fees aren’t nearly high enough for what they do.

Of course preschool teachers and daycare teachers are underpaid and without health insurance in most schools and centers.

But individual care/teaching will always be more expensive than group care/teaching. That’s not a mystery, OP.

I'm not going to opine on whether nanny salaries are "worth it" per se, but I do think DCUM in this (as in many things) is not reflective of other parts of the country as far as market rates. I live in a MCOL city on the west coast and market rate for nannies is about $18-22, with salary on the higher end for college educated and/or "professional" nannies who provide full service (i.e. housework plus child care). We pay our nanny $19/hr; she is a 25 yr old part time college student in ECE. She's responsible for everything relating to my son (meal prep, activities, his laundry) but zero housework (and she does none, unlike some other nannies I've read about here). He loves her and she takes good care of him but I doubt she is of the caliber people on DCUM seem to want. It's fine for us since like a PP, my son is 18 months and I'm not sure we need a nanny with a grad degree at this point, just someone to provide loving, consistent care. I will also say that in our city, nannies are not really considered a "luxury" service - many people I know use them, paying around the market rate I listed or even lower since most people in my city pay off the books (we do not). Also, my son naps for 3 hours of the day out of the 8 hours she is with us - so essentially she's working maybe a 6 hour day, tops, and getting paid for 8 hours of work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with both. The preschool teacher is underpaid. The people who think it's insulting to pay nannies less than $25-30/hr don't realize that most of the middle clasa must then feel constantly insulted every single day.

So? I do think other people, especially women, are underpaid but that doesn’t change my nanny’s rent or cost of food. All people should have a living wage.

Sure all people should have a living wage. But I didn't make more than $30/hr until i was almost 30, my husband still doesn't (even though we also have to pay for rent, food, and childcare!), and so when people act like that is the minimum wage it comes off really clueless. There are a LOT of people in this country who don't make $25-30/hr, and sure, obviously we don't hire nannies, but saying that "important work" should make at least that much is out of touch with the realities of a lot of working people. It comes off as judging people for being cheap or devaluing childcare, when maybe they just can't afford it, which is morally neutral.

You were not making as much as most nannies charge because you were probably not providing an in-demand luxury service.

Anonymous wrote:It's really only this generation of parents who have decided that they, on a middleclass salary, should be able to afford private in-home care, and thus it should be affordable to them. A nanny is a luxury service. It's expensive for a variety of reasons, but the biggest is that it is a luxury service, and good nannies have their choice of wealthy clients. This drives up the rates. I was a college educated, multilingual, hard-working, professional, reliable service provider, and I never had a hard time earning $25/hour. Am I overpaid if that's what my services can command? Are you overpaid just because there are people who want your services but can't afford them?

You should get more than $25 an hour for that level of service.