What does "mother's helper" usually mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mother's helper is for someone young, not yet old enough to babysit. My 9 yr old is a mother's helper two afternoons a week to a neighbor lady.

While at least one of the parents are home she plays with their toddler. Then after nap time DD cleans up the toys, organizes them, folds a basket of laundry, and cuts up snack for when the kid wakes.

That's pretty young for any sort of help. Most of the ones I've seen are babysitting age, but young babysitting age - like 13 to 15 range.

I don't consider 13-15 young to babysit. By 15 a teen can get a retail job.

You would leave your baby or toddler with a 13-15 y/o?!? That is crazy!

[Anonymous]

I've seen a couple of ads looking for a mother's helper who was clearly an adult. I took two different jobs like that...both families had 4 kids close in age. Both times it meant the mother was gone most of the time and it was just a regular nanny job, one where they wanted to pay less than average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mother's helper is for someone young, not yet old enough to babysit. My 9 yr old is a mother's helper two afternoons a week to a neighbor lady.

While at least one of the parents are home she plays with their toddler. Then after nap time DD cleans up the toys, organizes them, folds a basket of laundry, and cuts up snack for when the kid wakes.

That's pretty young for any sort of help. Most of the ones I've seen are babysitting age, but young babysitting age - like 13 to 15 range.

I don't consider 13-15 young to babysit. By 15 a teen can get a retail job.

You would leave your baby or toddler with a 13-15 y/o?!? That is crazy!

hahaha I started babysitting my younger sister (7 yr younger) at 10, and babysitting outside the family at 12. I really don't think it's all that unusual. Most of my friends did the same. How is a 15 yr old going to be experienced without getting experience?

[Anonymous]

Wow, this has got to be one of those "flame the mom/nanny wars" thread hijacks. We've used both nannies and mothers helpers; as a couple of helpful pp's noted, the mother's helper was really there to help me with more than just child-centeric work. We recently employed a mothers helper (she was 22, not 13 for pete's sake) who was a nursing student. She would do pick up and drop off for our school aged kiddos, then help me with shopping, dinner prep for the family, running errands. When the kids were home, she would entertain them with the same level of engagement as our former nannies. I would never ask our nanny to pick up my dry cleaning or fold my husbands laundry--so the difference, for us, was she really was there to help me keep the whole house running, kids included.

[Anonymous]

A mother's helper is the upper elementary/lower middle school age girl (or boy, I suppose) from your neighborhood that LOVES kids so much that you hire her to play with your toddlers so you can get housework done, take a shower, workout in your basement gym.

She (or he) is GREAT with kids and your toddler LOVES her, but shes not quite mature enough yet that you could actually leave the house with your toddler in her care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mother's helper is for someone young, not yet old enough to babysit. My 9 yr old is a mother's helper two afternoons a week to a neighbor lady.

While at least one of the parents are home she plays with their toddler. Then after nap time DD cleans up the toys, organizes them, folds a basket of laundry, and cuts up snack for when the kid wakes.

That's pretty young for any sort of help. Most of the ones I've seen are babysitting age, but young babysitting age - like 13 to 15 range.

I don't consider 13-15 young to babysit. By 15 a teen can get a retail job.

You would leave your baby or toddler with a 13-15 y/o?!? That is crazy!

Being that I started babysitting at 12 month old when I was 12 yrs old, yes, absolutely. I was a GREAT babysitter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mother's helper is for someone young, not yet old enough to babysit. My 9 yr old is a mother's helper two afternoons a week to a neighbor lady.

While at least one of the parents are home she plays with their toddler. Then after nap time DD cleans up the toys, organizes them, folds a basket of laundry, and cuts up snack for when the kid wakes.

That's pretty young for any sort of help. Most of the ones I've seen are babysitting age, but young babysitting age - like 13 to 15 range.

I don't consider 13-15 young to babysit. By 15 a teen can get a retail job.

You would leave your baby or toddler with a 13-15 y/o?!? That is crazy!

hahaha I started babysitting my younger sister (7 yr younger) at 10, and babysitting outside the family at 12. I really don't think it's all that unusual. Most of my friends did the same. How is a 15 yr old going to be experienced without getting experience?

Yeah, and what year was that? I started babysitting at 14 but not for babies and not at night. 10 isn't even legal to stay with a 3 year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mother's helper is for someone young, not yet old enough to babysit. My 9 yr old is a mother's helper two afternoons a week to a neighbor lady.

While at least one of the parents are home she plays with their toddler. Then after nap time DD cleans up the toys, organizes them, folds a basket of laundry, and cuts up snack for when the kid wakes.

That's pretty young for any sort of help. Most of the ones I've seen are babysitting age, but young babysitting age - like 13 to 15 range.

I don't consider 13-15 young to babysit. By 15 a teen can get a retail job.

You would leave your baby or toddler with a 13-15 y/o?!? That is crazy!

Being that I started babysitting at 12 month old when I was 12 yrs old, yes, absolutely. I was a GREAT babysitter.

Too bad the mom wasn't a good mom!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A mother's helper is the upper elementary/lower middle school age girl (or boy, I suppose) from your neighborhood that LOVES kids so much that you hire her to play with your toddlers so you can get housework done, take a shower, workout in your basement gym.

She (or he) is GREAT with kids and your toddler LOVES her, but shes not quite mature enough yet that you could actually leave the house with your toddler in her care.

I-L-L-E-G-A-L.