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[quote=Anonymous]There is a family I babysit for about 10 hours, 2-3 days a week. It's been two years now and all has been great. The parents are very nice and I talk to the mom about subjects beyond child care. I have given them gifts for birthdays, anniversary, Christmas, etc and they have given me gifts as well. My sister also sits for them. When my grandmother passed away, I broke down and the mom was a good ear to talk to. When one of the kids went to the hospital, I was there for them to do anything they needed. I am adding this info to try to explain that I felt like we had a great, respectful relationship beyond strictly employer/employee.

I was asked about two weeks ago to do an overnighter for the youngest while parents took the older kids with them out of town. It was to be from 6am this morning to tomorrow, Sunday 2:30p.m. I have done overnighters previously for them, but usually evening to the next late morning with all four kids and we agreed upon $150, which they would add $25 extra to every time as a tip. My rate for one kid is 12/hr, but because it was an overnighter, when the mom asked me to let her know what rate works for me, I broke it down to 10 an hour for 22.5 hours and 50 for the sleeping hours, so $275. She said that was totally fine.

I get a text tonight asking what the amount was again so she could have it ready and I tell her. 10 min later she sends me a text saying they thought they would be back by 2:30 but it will now be around 6 p.m. And it would be better to just bring the baby because they could get another hotel room for less than what it would cost for me to do the overnighter. I was honestly shocked. They are not the type of rude parents that cancel whenever they want to without regard. The mom knows how I feel about getting canceled on as I have mentioned it to her regarding other parents. I always thought they knew how important I took my job as a sitter. I had two other opportunities to provide care but of course declined as i thought i would 100% be doing the overnighter. I responded with a simple 'ok' ( yes, passive aggressive) and she texts back asking if I was mad at her and she is sorry if she messed up my weekend somehow - which she did as obviously I can't go back in time and accept the other babysitting gigs- but that if the amount would have been under 300, it would have been doable. I was so pissed that I didn't text back until a couple hours later and said if she would have asked me to work with her on the rate before deciding to cancel I would have come up with a lower rate that would have appeased us both because I respected her. She responds that she didn't know that the time would be later until tonight or she would have let me know before and that 275 was fine, but with the added hours, another 50 on top was too much (actually 35 as I went down to 10 an hour). She also says that she hopes I know her well enough to know that she would never mess up other babysitting jobs for me - which she did- and that she values me as a sitter and would never have canceled unless needed too and she appreciates me very much.

I am so upset that she canceled on me over an additional $35 dollars. I feel like for the amount of hours, $310 was perfectly reasonable and i did lower the hourly rate but  I would have done the overnighter for $275 with the additional 3.5 hours truth be told because it was worth it to me, and I felt like she was not just any parent in which only babysitting/money was exchanged.

I feel almost betrayed in a way because never ever would I have thought that this family would have canceled like that and over money. How do I stop feeling so damn bitter now? I feel like it's not the same anymore with this family because of this.[/quote]

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