WAHM parents - does your sitter take your job seriously?

[Anonymous]

I started working at home full time last fall, and since then our various sitters have all become incredibly unreliable and flighty. Our kids are older - 3 and 5 - and we've had folks looking after them in the afternoons only. The kids are actually really good about not demanding my attention, and I have a basement office out of the way. But we have had a series of sitters (the one we had during the school year and now the one we have for the summer) who call in with no notice, or tell me they're leaving early without asking in advance. These are college-educated professionals (both of them public school employees), not college kids we have doing the job, and we pay them well. They have no other responsibilities except hanging out with the kids-- we don't ask them to do anything around the house or anything else.

Is this just the fate of the work at home parent? Do sitters see you at home and assume you can/should be able to take over child care whenever?

[Anonymous]

It has nothing to do with you working at home. It has to do with the people you're finding. There's a difference between a babysitter and a nanny, but even when I babysat, I never did those things.

You're simply not finding people with a good work ethic. Change up your method of finding people.

[Anonymous]

This is why we started daycare earlier than we'd wanted. The sitter types assumed I could take over care whenever and the nanny types didn't want me home at all. It's a tough situation.

[Anonymous]

If this is part-time work, they most likely are not depending on your salary in order to survive. They may just be making a bit of pocket money.

Also, since you work from home, they probably assume that since you are home, it won't be much of a hardship for you if they leave you high and dry.

No good. During your future interviews, I would stress to them that their presence is vital to you doing your job.

[Anonymous]

Make sure your pay is competitive and look for an older nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this is part-time work, they most likely are not depending on your salary in order to survive. They may just be making a bit of pocket money.

Also, since you work from home, they probably assume that since you are home, it won't be much of a hardship for you if they leave you high and dry.

No good. During your future interviews, I would stress to them that their presence is vital to you doing your job.

I don't know why nannies assume that. Could you explain?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this is part-time work, they most likely are not depending on your salary in order to survive. They may just be making a bit of pocket money.

Also, since you work from home, they probably assume that since you are home, it won't be much of a hardship for you if they leave you high and dry.

No good. During your future interviews, I would stress to them that their presence is vital to you doing your job.

I agree with this. It is really, really hard to find reliable, long-term part time help. I WAH, and since I switched from part time to full time nannies, reliability has gotten much, much better.

There is a reason people are working part time. Sometimes because it's all they can get (so they are likely to leave if they find full time), or because it works for their schedule (best case scenario). Sometimes, though, it's because they have too much going on to commit to a job, but need money, or have never really gotten out of the "school years" mindset where work comes behind family, entertainment, and school.

[nannydebsays]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is part-time work, they most likely are not depending on your salary in order to survive. They may just be making a bit of pocket money.

Also, since you work from home, they probably assume that since you are home, it won't be much of a hardship for you if they leave you high and dry.

No good. During your future interviews, I would stress to them that their presence is vital to you doing your job.

I don't know why nannies assume that. Could you explain?

OP has sitters, not nannies. Her sitters are college-educated professionals (both of them public school employees), and obviously are not making much of their HHI from this babysitting job.

I would guess that most actual nannies don't make these sort of assumptions. I know I don't.