My husband and I both work from home so you’d think the last thing we would need is child care but the summer is upon us and the easiest time to vacuum or answer email or pack orders is when the kids are happily playing outside. This makes keeping an eye on them a bit difficult so we’ve decided to splurge on a mother’s helper. Three days a week we will be having a young lady (12 years old) come and play with the kids for a few hours just so we can have a bit of time without hearing “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy what you have? What you doing? What you wrong?” for all eternity.
We’ve never had anyone non family watch the kids and I have no idea what to pay this girl and she’s never done this job before so she doesn’t have a going rate. She will not be alone with the kids and her mom is thrilled that she won’t be alone at home either so this is a win/win for the parents involved but I’d like to make it a win/win/win and include the young lady too.
I feel silly calling her that even though she is very sweet but I don’t want to give her name obviously and I’m lame about making up pseudonyms
I’d give her a dollar less than the going rate for a babysitter. Just a wild guess, but it sounds like she won’t be completely alone…she won’t be making potentially big decisions because you guys will be there, right? Yet, she’s got to devote her undivided attention to them. So, I say a buck under standard.
That sounds good except I have no idea what the standard is… I’ve never paid anyone to watch the kids ever and I know things have changed since I was babysitting.
She won’t be completely alone with them/responsible for them and I’m hoping they will be good and play nicely so she can enjoy part of the time with us relaxing or reading a book or something. My kids are 4 and almost 2. For the most part they like running amok but it is nice to have someone notice they are trying to go over the fence and nip that problem in the bud!
Well, my kids are about the same age, and we pay our teenage babysitter about $4/hour (pretty cheap, but good for a 13-yo). You’re essentially offering to train this girl; she’ll be able to ask higher prices because of experience gained with you. I’d say $3/hour is reasonable, more if you’re giving her serious responsibility. It also depends on where you live; the prices I’m giving are considered fine around here, but other areas may have higher rates.
I think anywhere from three to five dollars an hour would be reasonable, depending on the going rates in your area, how good the kid is at her job, how much you can manage to spare, etc.
Just make sure you actually pay the kid–I was a mother’s helper for a whole summer once, and the cheapskate parents gave me–drumroll, please–a forty-dollar gift certificate to Kaufmann’s.
Definitely ask around in your area. When I was babysitting a decade ago, rates varied widely from town to town in suburban NJ - I got $4-5 an hour, but some of my friends a few towns over where there was a shortage of kids willing to babysit got $7-8. I’d second the idea to give a dollar less than the going rate, more because the mother’s helper is young than because you’ll be there. (In my experience, having the parents be around was more stressful than when they went away, because the babysat know the babysitter isn’t the highest authority around.)
When my daughter babysat - in Florida for 2 kids just slightly older than yours - she got $5/hr plus a $5 “tip” for the evening. So I would suggest you pay her $3-4/hr, and if she does an exceptional job during the week, toss in a tip. Everyone like a bonus and she’ll learn that doing a good job can earn rewards beyond the agreed pay. And if she’s kinda “meh” no tip is needed, but she still makes OK spending money.
