I don’t have kids, so this is an honest query. My wedding is in 3 weeks. I sent out invitations 5 weeks ago, so my guests had 8 weeks notice on the event. Several of them have stated that they, or just their spouses, couldn’t make it to the wedding because they couldn’t get child care. The kids in question vary in age from 2 years old to 7.
Is it really that hard to get a sitter, even with that much notice? Or is this some sort of coded response that means something else? If so, what? Fight my ignorance on this. I hope to have kids of my own in a couple of years, and I’m scared to think that it’s actually this hard to find a sitter with 2 months lead time on an event.
They are probably using it as an excuse but childcare demands for parents are incredible at times. They have to be safe and accounted for 24/7 for several years before it gets easier. That may seem academic and obvious but it is brutal in practice. We haven’t used babysitters much since my 5 year old and 11 month old were born but we have an excellent supply. They go to a great daycare with dedicated teachers that know each and they will babysit if we need them too which is a perfect solution. Unfortunately it costs $12 - $15 an hour which can really add up in wedding terms and isn’t feasible for everyone. Childcare needs can make even the most decent and responsible people bail on a commitment if it falls through.
As a poor single mother, I bailed on a lot of weddings that were adults only. Sure, family and friends had every right to have a grown-up evening, but for me that meant the difference between attending and not giving a gift or staying home and sending a card and gift. Even though I’m sure if I’d asked them, they’d have assured me that my presence was the important thing and not the gift, I had too much pride to attend without one.
So, if things are tight for any of these folks, consider that the $50-100 they’d spend on a sitter for the evening might be the deciding factor.
All the people who bowed out, all or in part, were either in town or within an hour’s drive, so, pretty local. Certainly no need for an overnight visit for any of them. In fact, the one friend who is coming from out of town with his kid found a local sitter through a mutual friend, so I guess he really wanted to come. He’s a single dad, too.
The money angle makes sense, I guess. It’s not for me to say if people can afford the $50. I certainly don’t expect a person to spend money they don’t have on this. I probably took the phrase, “Can’t find child care” too literally, as in, they couldn’t get anyone to watch the kids.
To be honest, yes, it can be. We find it quite difficult to find babysitting on weekends, which is when most weddings take place and I assume yours probably does, too. We don’t know that many folks in town and those we do know have jobs and lives that keep them occupied, too. Sometimes we can get someone to come over, but if they have plans, we can’t.
So, scare the hell out of me: do you never go out? Can you not plan for an event with 8 weeks lead time? Or are weddings not something worth planning for? Assuming money isn’t the issue, of course, but scheduling a decent sitter.
We generally don’t go anywhere as a couple without the kids and money is not an issue and we haven’t for 5 years. We do tag-team parenting however so we do go places individually including various trips including weddings. We go out alone maybe once a year but, then again, your mindset changes when you have kids and it hasn’t been that big of a desire. Unless you live close to a responsible relative, going out without the kids can seem more like a stunt than anything else. That is just my experience. Other parents of young children seem to pull it off much more frequently.
I’m thinking it’s more of an isolation thing. Unless you’re in the same town with friends/family with kids the same age, you don’t know anyone who could babysit. I know on more than one occasion when the kidlets were little I had to scramble, because Ivylad and I didn’t socialize. We had kids.
Also, when I was a teenaged babysitter, my going rate was about $2 an hour. Now, babysitting jobs pay better than many entry level fast-food jobs, and an evening out can get pretty pricey.
When I was younger, I started babysitting when I was about 11-12 years old (it was around 1990-1995 that I did most of my sitting, I think I usually got about $3-4 an hour for one kid, a couple bucks more for multiple kids).
I don’t have kids, but from coworkers it seems like many of them prefer using older babysitters. No one seems to want to trust their kids being alone with an 11 year old. They want older sitters (in their late teens or even twenties), which would probably cost more and be harder to find. Either that, or they have relatives watch the kids.
Precisely. We have three small kids, and all of our parents live 2-10 hours away, and are too old to babysit anyway. We just don’t go out without all 3 kids in tow. My husband does have two teenaged daughters, who can watch 1-2 kids for an hour or two, but certainly not all 3. Then that’s $10 per hour per teen, so we’re out $40-60 just for babysitting, so we can go to dinner! There’s one $150 evening, which we can’t really afford.
So we decline most invitations, or my husband goes and I stay home with the kids. It’s really difficult to find responsible, affordable childcare.
Our daughter is 20 months old and we haven’t hired a babysitter for her yet. Our social life has gone downhill drastically but we just can’t bring ourselves to trust anyone but family to look after her.
If we want to attend a function without her, luckily my Mother in law is usually available to look after her. If she’s not, we bail.
Finding a babysitter can be tough and it is expensive. But on the other hand I know parents who have neverNEVER left their kids, even for a few hours, even for a movie, and especially not over night. Sounds crazy to me as I spend most of my time figuring out the next mommy-only trip I can reasonably get away with. And my husband and I would leave our kids for a week tomorrow, if only we could find someone willing to take them on…but I digress.
Some people also may have an issue with kids not being invited to a wedding. Your wedding, your choice of course…but not everyone is coming from that perspective. So they may use “can’t find childcare” as a less contentious way of declining than saying “can’t believe you didn’t invite our kids too!” But hopefully your friends are not that type?
It sounds like a dodge. They don’t even want to try, because with a two month notice they are telling you they can’t get a sitter. People that wanted to attend would have said we want to come, but will have to find a sitter yet. It’s a blow off excuse.
FWIW my cousins from Pittsburgh managed to come out to my brother’s adults-only wedding in Cleveland last month - but they said it was the first time in NINE YEARS they’d been out without the kids (their kids are ages 3 to 9). And they STILL had to jet home early because the kids’ grandma realized she couldn’t take the kids for as long as she’d thought.
On the other hand, one of the groomsmen’s wives had to stay home in Georgia because they weren’t ready to leave their 18-month-old home with anyone just yet, even though all 4 of her grandparents were in town.
We have a 3 yr old and 4 yr old. I have been unable to find anyone who will babysit In My Home. They will take the kids at their house, but I can’t find one who comes to my home. We are earlybirds. Up at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. The kids are in bed early. By 6:00/7:00 most nights, although they are allowed to play in their rooms for a bit before climbing into bed for actual sleep.
Which means that if we want to go out to dinner, and have to take the kids to someone else’s house, it’s a total disruption of their bedtime rituals which is not always cool with toddlers.
I would LOVE to find someone who’s willing to come to our place and just make sure everyone’s safe until we return from a brief outting.
Do we post an ad in the paper and hope to find someone we can trust? We don’t really know anyone around here. How do we go about finding someone? There are web sites, but no ‘hits’ in our area for sitters, and if there is a hit, you have to pay a nice fee to find out if that one hit really is a good one.
Maybe this isn’t your friend’s case, but it is for us. So our answer is, “Yes, it’s really that hard.”
That said, I’ve heard of adults “pooling” for a babysitter when they all want to attend a grownup’s party. They hire someone(s) to watch all the kids while the parents play. Seems like a cool idea.
My kids are seven and eight and we’ve only paid a babysitter twice. Yes, they can be difficult to find. And they can be really expensive - especially for a wedding which can be an all day event. A lot of parents simply don’t trust “babysitters” with their kids - the kids are only watched by relatives and some parents even don’t do that. Some parents wouldn’t mind hiring a sitter, but their kids don’t respond well to a sitter and it isn’t worth the upheaval and worry - walking out the door with a four year old crying and screaming “Mommy, Mommy, don’t leave me” can be hard - and if you call back an hour later and hear crying in the background, it just isn’t worth it.
So “I can’t find a sitter” can mean “we can’t find a sitter” It can mean “we can’t afford a sitter” it can mean “we don’t use sitters” and it can mean “we choose not to find a sitter for this occasion.” It can also mean “we have kids and believe weddings are family events - you invite the family, you get us all. If you want adults only, you don’t get us, we don’t do that.” While its certainly your right and fine ettiquitte to have an adults only wedding, it is also your guests right to choose not to attend because they “can’t find a sitter.”
Yeah, it can really be that hard. We rarely went out without the kids when they were small (now 9 and 12), but it was ok, as my desire to go out dropped dramatically. After both of being at work all day, dropping off the kids and going out wasn’t appealing. Frankly, once my kids were born I wasn’t happy leaving them with preteen/young teens even though I baby sat all the time when I was that age. Older high school/college students are expensive!
The easiest wedding I attended had a room where the bride and groom hired a couple of local sitters and the kids were down the hall in a small banquet room (it was in a hotel). We didn’t have to find a sitter (or pay for one- nice bonus after travelling for the wedding), we were there if there was a problem and the kids had fun doing small crafts, playing games etc.
ETA: Hey- congrats on the wedding!!!
Boggette, that’s crazy. Anytime I have used a babysitter or been a babysitter it’s been understood that it would always be in my home. You would think that would be a prime gig for a teenage girl - all the babysitting pay, but all you have to do is check on some sleeping kids every so often!
Fro the OP, yes it can be that hard. I know in my experience I have almost exclusively used grandparents, but when I did not it was expensive (one 2 y/o and one 6 y/o) for a dinner and a movie and took some wrangling to get one that was available. Plus, the “pool” I pull from is a group of teen girls. I think 8 weeks advance notice might be harder to work with than easier with that set, given that these babysitters typically work on more like a week’s notice and don’t plan that far ahead. So maybe the guests have something in the works but are hedging their bets. If their plans come through you can come in after your wedding and complain about the people that RSVP’d no and showed up anyway!
ETA - Boggette, I got my “babysitting pool” from a friend that is a high school teacher. Otherwise I would have no idea where to start. If you have any friends that teach high school they are excellent resources to find babysitters because you are getting people that your friend would (hopefully) know better than just any kid off the street. Another resource would be something like the Junior League or Jaycettes or some local organization that does babysitting classes/CPR for juniors. Fourteen - seventeen year old girls usually take these courses and obviously want to babysit. Look for the ads for the classes in the paper or a local online resource and then call them to ask if you can post your name with them or if they have a list they compile of their graduates available to work.
I don’t think anybody would expect it easy to find a babysitter. I don’t think with a 8 week notice, that somebody wanting to attend a wedding, would say that they can’t get a sitter. It shows a lack of effort to look for one, or that the reason is something else. One week before the wedding you might send the wedding couple a note telling them you can’t come, because you didn’t find a sitter.
