# How would you handle a babysitter thief? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 8, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968 "2011-03-08T21:50:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/121 "2011-03-09T15:42:04Z")
Just wanted to drop in to say this thread is all kinds of awesome. I’m glad as a non-parent that I’ll never have to deal with the rumored “Mom Code.” Teehee. ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/122 "2011-03-09T15:48:16Z")
So **faithfool** you’re about an hour away, wanna babysit? No? But I haven’t even told you about little Timmy’s 30 food allergies or little Sally’s propensity towards using her outside voice inside… jk ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/123 "2011-03-09T16:43:00Z")
Apparently, the OP is not [the only person](http://www.articlesbase.com/parenting-articles/the-phenomenon-of-babysitter-poaching-690423.html) who thinks this: > [@](#): > > For those of you unfamiliar with babysitter-poaching, I will give you a few examples. This situation basically describes what happens when one family has an amazing babysitter and another family, whether it is a neighbor or a close friend, hire babysitters without permission from the first family. At first glance, this situation may not make sense or seem to be common enough to be labeled a phenomenon; unfortunately, however it happens much more often than one wishes it did. > > The babysitters, of course, are not at fault because they are independent contractors. They do not sign contracts with specific families promising them that they will be available whenever they need them to sit. Therefore, they are allowed to nanny for whoever hires them if they want to work with that family. If one family pays better or they get along better with their children, they are completely in their right to sit more for that family than for yours. > > The most common offence for babysitter-poaching is when one parent sneakily obtains the sitters number without asking your permission. As much as you want to help your friends out, sometimes you cannot give them valuable commodities like your home or your babysitter. If they were really your friends, they would respect your unwillingness to give up your babysitter’s number and continue their own hunt for a great sitter. However, other friends will do whatever they can to obtain your sitter’s number behind your back. > > Once you discover that your wonderful Boston babysitter is not as available as she used to be, you most likely have become a victim of babysitter-poaching. The best lessons you can learn from this article is 1) Do not be a babysitter-poacher! Be respectful of the family who hired her first and ask them if you can hire their sitter. 2) Keep your amazing sitters a secret! Unless this was written by the OP. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/124 "2011-03-09T17:08:57Z")
If it was written by the OP, then presumably his wife would have followed the last six words of the snippet and kept her mouth shut and/or given the name of a less-stellar sitter. Jeez, are teenagers in short supply or something these days? I hate to invoke the phrase, but in this economy are people willing to watch kids for cash that hard to find? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/125 "2011-03-09T17:22:28Z")
Yeah but they didn’t invoke the imaginary ‘Mom Code’, so they get a little credit for that, at least. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/126 "2011-03-09T17:33:13Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > Just wanted to drop in to say this thread is all kinds of awesome. I’m glad as a non-parent that I’ll never have to deal with the rumored “Mom Code.” Teehee. Well, I am a parent and neither do I. Boggles the mind. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/127 "2011-03-09T17:38:23Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > Jeez, are teenagers in short supply or something these days? I hate to invoke the phrase, but in this economy are people willing to watch kids for cash that hard to find? This probably also depends on where you live/what social circles you run, but around here, there are very few cheap teenaged babysitters anymore. It’s college students or older women. Last I checked, $14/hour was the average rate for one child in my city. A second child is additional, generally about half or a bit more of the hourly rate for one, so two kids and you’re looking at $20-25 an hour. It sure ain’t the $2 an hour for three kids I made when I was 15, that’s for sure! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/128 "2011-03-09T17:50:24Z")
> [@BottledBlondJeanie](#): > > Some of you who are expounding on the alleged “mom code” don’t even have kids, how would you know? No, but some of us HAVE been babysitters, and wouldn’t have appreciated someone trying to limit our ability to do business with whomever we chose. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/129 "2011-03-09T17:55:47Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > None of us are missing the point. Most of us just don’t agree with you. Not when the OP claims the point was whether it was wrong for the mother to lie and whether such a lie needs to be addressed. I don’t think the OP was backpedaling, either. I see nothing in the OP asking whether the “mom code” was justified nor whether the babysitter was wrong to accept the work. While both are somewhat interesting topics, the fact that so few people addressed the main topic implies they missed it. It doesn’t even take a whole sentence to address the actual points before going off on the tangent. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/130 "2011-03-09T17:58:18Z")
If you have negotiated an agreement with the sitter, paid or otherwise, that you have first claim on her services, then this Mom Code makes sense. If not, and you are limiting her earning opportunities without her consent, it doesn’t. If the friend got the referral under false pretenses, that’s a separate issue. But you got no kick coming if you find out someone else has booked “your” sitter unless you have made a reservation with her in advance. First come, first served, absent any other agreement. And basic fairness would say that you need to pay the babysitter for turning down other work that was requested first. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/131 "2011-03-09T18:02:23Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > No, but some of us HAVE been babysitters, and wouldn’t have appreciated someone trying to limit our ability to do business with whomever we chose. Good thing the OP never said anything about that. If you want business, then you do your own advertising. Don’t whine about people not advertising the way you want. ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/132 "2011-03-09T18:06:44Z")
Here’s a NY Times blog regarding the phenomenon: [http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/poaching-the-baby-sitter/](http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/poaching-the-baby-sitter/). There’s a ton of articles if you just google “babysitter poaching” and it shows that it’s fairly widespread in some areas. ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/133 "2011-03-09T18:09:18Z")
And I don’t think that there is anyone saying they would take issues with the sitter. I think where poaching is an issue babysitters have all the work they can say grace over. My friend recently bought a Kinect just to make sure her favorite sitter was happy. Whether or not we secretly play dance games on it is no one’s business. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/134 "2011-03-09T18:10:46Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Good thing the OP never said anything about that. If you want business, then you do your own advertising. Don’t whine about people not advertising the way you want. That’s fine, but the point many of us are trying to make isn’t that the babysitter is somehow entitled to free advertising (she isn’t, to be clear) but that the OP used words like “thief” (it’s right there in the thread title!) and thus implied that his wife feels she has some sort of right or claim to another person’s services when no such agreement has been made. ---
**Author:** ![Khendrask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@Khendrask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khendrask)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/135 "2011-03-09T18:17:11Z")
Well, it seems to me if you want to ‘Own’ a babysitter, you should adopt a teenager, and never let them sit for anyone else. I just recently found a great contractor, and have been having him and his crew do a lot of work on my house. I guess I should bad-mouth him all around the area to make sure that nobody else would dare to use him? ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/136 "2011-03-09T18:18:36Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Not when the OP claims the point was whether it was wrong for the mother to lie and whether such a lie needs to be addressed. I don’t think the OP was backpedaling, either. I see nothing in the OP asking whether the “mom code” was justified nor whether the babysitter was wrong to accept the work. > > While both are somewhat interesting topics, the fact that so few people addressed the main topic implies they missed it. It doesn’t even take a whole sentence to address the actual points before going off on the tangent. The main problem is that the woman who requested a one-time recommendation for a babysitter was only the mother of a classmate of the OP’s child. She was definitely _not_ a close friend. Therefore, for the OP & his wife to exhibit their disapproval at the woman’s temerity in daring to hire the babysitter more than once, they would first need to become socially closer to her. Which is obviously undesirable. Was the OP’s wife crystal clear in instructing the interloper that the babysitter could _only_ be used the one time & never called again? Could it be that she was ignorant of the “Mom code” used in more rarefied circles? How, pray tell, _does_ one chastise a social inferior? ---
**Author:** ![BottledBlondJeanie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/0ea827/32.png) [@BottledBlondJeanie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BottledBlondJeanie)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/137 "2011-03-09T18:25:08Z")
> [@Khendrask](#): > > Well, it seems to me if you want to ‘Own’ a babysitter, you should adopt a teenager, and never let them sit for anyone else. > > I just recently found a great contractor, and have been having him and his crew do a lot of work on my house. I guess I should bad-mouth him all around the area to make sure that nobody else would dare to use him? I’m waiting for someone to bring up Nazi’s with this kind of hyperbole. Terrible analogy. One does not hire a contractor every week. It would be a rare occasion that you would need a contractor ASAP so you would be in direct competition with a friend or neighbor. If sitters are in high demand then it’s a sitter’s market. If people are concerned about poaching or “stealing” then clearly it’s a sitter’s market. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/138 "2011-03-09T18:44:32Z")
Well, speaking as a parent, and a former babysitter, this is all going over my head. Surely there is a larger pool of babysitters to hire? My advice is to look at the local university’s education department. You’ll find a bevy of interested potential hires, I’m sure. They may not be in the mix because they’re from out of town, and they may cost a little more… but I doubt there is a shortage of responsible babysitting candidates. I secured my gig (2 years babysitting two boys aged 8 and 10) through a teacher from my high school who got my name from another teacher. Having said all this, I can’t get on board this rant by the OP. Quite frankly, there’s no way of knowing for certain that the “friend” lied. It’s possible, yes, but pretty crappy to state that it’s the only way it could have happened. I think I’d talk to the babysitter if I thought s/he was all that and put them on retainer, or a regular schedule. Personally, we accept the fact that we just aren’t able to get out together all that much, or we take the kids with us. I know that’s not for everyone, nor do I expect others to accept this arrangement, but it does mean we don’t have to do a lot of this kind of stuff… ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/139 "2011-03-09T19:09:22Z")
Aw, dangit, I’m pretty sure we ran **Omar** off this thread. He was commenting pretty frequently there, for a while. I wonder if he told his wife about the comments here … ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968/140 "2011-03-09T19:51:56Z")
Just waiting for something new. When you think there are only so many ways the same people can keep repeating themselves, you guys continue to surprise me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-handle-a-babysitter-thief/573968.md?page=8)