Pay for nanny who brings own child to work

[Anonymous]

We are thinking of hiring a nanny who would be bringing her 4-year old to work with her. If she didn't have a child with her, we would have paid around $15/hr plus taxes and sick days, vacation, etc. If anyone has experience in this situation, please let me know what a reasonable decrease in hourly rate would be. We still want to compensate her fairly, but want to be fair to ourselves as well since we will have someone else's child in our home all day, and taking up some of our nanny's time.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Minimum wage if she accepts that nonsense. I wouldn't so it's best to ask her.

[Anonymous]

How about offering $12 an hour? Does that seem reasonable to you? You said you want to be fair to her and minimum wage is far from fair. I think the lowest you should go is $10 an hour. Is this a full time position? What expectations do you have from said nanny besides childcare? If you are expecting her to do light cleaning (laundry, dishes, meal prep, etc) I would probably offer at least $12 per hour. What do you think is fair OP?

[Anonymous]

Treat it like a nannyshare... $1-3 less

[Anonymous]

40 hours a week and light cleaning. We are in the burbs, and she lives a few houses down from us. Your thoughts are helpful, thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:40 hours a week and light cleaning. We are in the burbs, and she lives a few houses down from us. Your thoughts are helpful, thanks!

OP, it's refreshing to hear from a reasonable MB. I think $12 would be great as I said in my post above. If you are able to pay more, $13 would be the maximum that I think is fair for a nanny bringing her own child to work. I wish you the best.

[Anonymous]

Agree with $12-13 an hour. Shouldn't affect her other benefits (PTO etc)

[Anonymous]

Typical share rates in the DC market are $9-10 per hour per family where each family puts one child in the share. If you only have one child, I would offer $10.

[Anonymous]

Why are people afraid to ask the person? When we needed to hire a housekeeper, I simply decided what it was worth to me and what we could afford. We got literally over 200 calls because the rate was above average.

[Anonymous]

$12 is more than reasonable. She isn't paying for child care and her child is in your home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Typical share rates in the DC market are $9-10 per hour per family where each family puts one child in the share. If you only have one child, I would offer $10.

As we've discussed before, this isn't a true share. The employer's child will come first, in a share the needs of the children are balanced. $12/hr should be your minimum offer, OP, unless you want to run it like a true nanny share (but really, you don't).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Typical share rates in the DC market are $9-10 per hour per family where each family puts one child in the share. If you only have one child, I would offer $10.

As we've discussed before, this isn't a true share. The employer's child will come first, in a share the needs of the children are balanced. $12/hr should be your minimum offer, OP, unless you want to run it like a true nanny share (but really, you don't).

This sounds good in theory, but in reality, it is hard for one child's needs not to conflict with the other child's needs and require balancing, especially if there is an age difference. Is it fair to expect that the nanny's 4 year old will never get to participate in activities or playdates that are age appropriate for her, though perhaps not for OP's child? If the nanny's child is sick, does she still get dragged out of the house to OP's child's music class or playground trip, or do both kids get stuck at home that day. If the nanny's child has a doctor's appointment, isn't OP's child going to also spend the afternoon at the doctor's office, hoping not to pick up a virus in the waiting room. If anything, it's worse than a share from OP's perspective, because the nanny/mom is going to do things for her own child that a nanny share nanny might say no to because she's running a share (e.g., taking her child shoe shopping, caring for a child with chicken pox rather than sending her home to a parent, etc.).

[Anonymous]

If 00:57's horrors had any basis in reality, no loving parent would have a second child. Everyone knows that the benefits of a second child far out weigh the negatives.
-Signed by the parent of an only child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If 00:57's horrors had any basis in reality, no loving parent would have a second child. Everyone knows that the benefits of a second child far out weigh the negatives.
-Signed by the parent of an only child

First of all, every parent who has a second child acknowledges that the second child gets less attention early on than the first did. The benefits of having a sibling may outweigh this, but I'm not so sure that the benefits of spending a couple of years in a nanny share do, especially if the paying parents' child is younger than about 2.5 or 3, which is about when kids first start to be capable of really forming relationships with other kids. Before that, their developmental needs are best met by one-on-one adult attention. The real benefit of siblings kicks in later.

Second, no one is saying that shares are inherently bad, but there is an established market rate for share nannies and that rate reflects the fact that the nanny's attention is divided among two families. In this case, one of those two families happens to be the nannies own family. There are lots of ways for parents with one child to make sure that child has socialization time; the issue here is whether parents should pay a nanny more to bring her own child than she would get paid to work with two children, neither of whom is her own.

Third, the OP here wants some light housekeeping. Share nannies typically do less of this than non-share nannies, because, again, the share nanny's time is divided among two kids, one of whom is probably past the age of napping much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are thinking of hiring a nanny who would be bringing her 4-year old to work with her. If she didn't have a child with her, we would have paid around $15/hr plus taxes and sick days, vacation, etc. If anyone has experience in this situation, please let me know what a reasonable decrease in hourly rate would be. We still want to compensate her fairly, but want to be fair to ourselves as well since we will have someone else's child in our home all day, and taking up some of our nanny's time.

Thanks.

Op, how old is your child?