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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think £25 for babysitting 3 children until 3am on New Years Day is disgustingly stingy.

240 replies

TaggieCampbellBlack · 01/01/2013 16:03

DD and her friend. Both 14.
Parents said they'd be back shortly after midnight. Finally rolled in at 3am.

DD and friend slept over but were expecting them home before 3.

Stingy bastards handed over £25 this morning.

Angry

And also more than a little surprised. That isn't the done thing really is it? Getting in 3 hours late.

OP posts:
pigletmania · 01/01/2013 19:23

Pcish no it's not, it's rubbish fr NYE, it's pretty dame stingy. Are you that woman that op dd babysit for!

IneedAsockamnesty · 01/01/2013 19:23

I live in two areas the going rate for registered child minders in one area is £3.50 an hour for the first child and significant sibling discounts for other children. The other area is about 2.25 an hour for each child with a sibling discount for third and subsequent siblings.

pigletmania · 01/01/2013 19:24

They took the piss, next time your dd has to agree a price beforehand

IneedAsockamnesty · 01/01/2013 19:28

Posted to soon but in both areas I have used a cm for overnighters.

But I compleatly agree that its taking the piss to come back so late without prior agreement.

LovesBeingAtHomeForChristmas · 01/01/2013 19:29

A hard first lesson in business - always agree a price first!

Northernlebkuchen · 01/01/2013 19:29

My 14 yr old very competently babysits. She is an oldest child raised by us to be independant, capable and responsible. Like Mathanxiety we are always in and available if she should need advice.

I agree with the OP £25 is stingy for two babysitters doing 7 hours each!

MsElleTow · 01/01/2013 19:29

DS2(16) just said he would have done it for £25!

Wallison · 01/01/2013 19:30

Gosh, your Dd's babysitting days were full of incidents, weren't they? I wonder that the parents managed to get out of the house at all with all of their pukey incontinent unwell medicated-up children. Hmm

Anyway, it definitely isn't the case that you get what you pay for. Neither of my £3 an hour babysitters has ever fallen asleep on the sofa. I think maybe parents want to lull themselves into a false sense of security by paying more and thinking they're getting more.

HerRoyalNotness · 01/01/2013 19:32

Kudos to you math for preparing your DC so well. We pay our teenager sitter about 25quid for an evening 6.30-10.30ish, if we are closer to midnight we'll up it to 35quid. Also provide snacks and drinks and a pizza if they haven't had dinner yet. We used to have 3 sisters who came together they had to split the money, we now have a sensible 14yo whose parents live quite nearby and I'm pleased to see is taking a first aid course this weekend.

For NYE we would definitely pay more, it's a one off special. Although we don't stay out past midnight as our DC are small. We had a work party a couple of weeks ago and managed to wrangle adult friends of ours to stay overnight with them, I would not have left a teenager in charge in those circumstances.

ravenAK · 01/01/2013 19:33

'It's just not right for this area; if a qualified childminder with say 10 years' experience looking after children gets £3.50 an hour, it stands to reason that a teenager shouldn't be getting £1.50 an hour more than that.'

The comparison with CMing doesn't actually hold water, Wallison.

I used to pay my CM £3.50/hour too. With 3dc, that was £10.50/hour, assuming she didn't have any other mindees that day!

I pay my babysitter c. £6/hour to be responsible for the same 3 dc, so it's actually a much lower hourly rate, reflecting the fact that there's less active childcare involved - but the same level of 'in loco parentis'.

blondefriend · 01/01/2013 19:36

It wasn't an evening's sitting - it was practically the whole night! YANBU but it is one of those lessons that a 14 year old needs to learn - she won't make that mistake again.

On another note - where do you live? She and her friend sound like perfect, very responsible young ladies. I'll pay them £25 for a lot less than that. :)

izzyhasanewchangeling · 01/01/2013 19:36

Gosh, my baby sitter is a family friend, I used to pay her £10 a night at 16, plus a bottle of wine, and I struggled to get her to accept that - she wanted to do it for free.

She is also allowed to have all her friends over, have a pizza - she loved having the free run of the house and saw it as a bonus having a tenner for the night as well.

Nowadays, she does baby sit for free, but DH or I act as a taxi service for her so she can go out with her friends from uni and still get home safely (20 miles in a taxi).

If we had had to pay £25 to go out, we would never have gone, we aim to spend less than that for a whole evening.

AnnaRack · 01/01/2013 19:40

This is wrong on so many levels
Children left in care of 14 yr olds
Parents back 3 hours late
£25 for 2 people for 7 hours work
All wrong

onetwothreefourfive · 01/01/2013 19:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mathanxiety · 01/01/2013 19:48

Gosh, your Dd's babysitting days were full of incidents, weren't they? I wonder that the parents managed to get out of the house at all with all of their pukey incontinent unwell medicated-up children.

The family they have all done the most mopping up for had their 6 children at most 18 months apart. (Actually they have now had a 7th, with a few years of a gap to the next oldest.)
(1) If you have 5 or 6 pukey, leaky children you are going to want to get away from it all frequently and if you can afford it why not?
(2) If you have 5 or 6 children you are not going to have any sort of life for yourself at all if you have to wait until they are all hale and healthy before arranging your nights out. D&V bugs or ear infections were part of normal life for them for years.

I have 5 DCs and don't see normal illness or bathroom accidents as much of a big deal and at this stage the DCs see it all as a day's work too. As long as there are paper towels and rubber gloves, you get on with it.

teenyweenytadpole · 01/01/2013 19:50

It all feels a bit wrong to me too, to be honest - I can't imagine letting 14 year old girls stay over at someone's house when the someone is not personally known to the parents. I also feel that 3am is too late to be coming home when the babysitters are so young - whether they are asleep or not. As for the rate, well, it does sound low to be honest but it all depends on what was agreed beforehand and what the relationship is. If I asked my niece to babysit and provided food, drinks, internet, TV, said bring a friend, I might expect to pay less than if I got a CRB qualified sitter from an agency. However I'm also of the "never going out" camp - too bloody expensive!

Wallison · 01/01/2013 19:51

When my son is sick, I don't go out. If I have plans, I cancel them. I thought most parents thought like this?

mathanxiety · 01/01/2013 19:59

Are you the parent of one child or more than one?

You would not get out when there's an R in the month if you had several small children and waited for them to all be well before finalising plans.

I think children in larger families are more used to being part of a little tribe than those in smaller families; they are still surrounded by lots of familiar faces even when mum and dad are out on a date.

Wallison · 01/01/2013 20:06

Finalising plans is one thing - you just have to take it on trust that your kids will be well. But if they're actually unwell when you're going out, I think that's quite another; children shouldn't be left with babysitters when they're actually puking or shitting all over the place, or if they need medicine. And if you miss out on a night out or on a commitment you've made then that's just the way it goes sometimes; I'd much rather that than have a child who is sick be without their parents. Those parents wouldn't have been able to foist their sick kids onto nursery or childminder so they could go to work, which is far more important than going to the frigging pub.

flow4 · 01/01/2013 20:13

It's not a moral issue imo, it's a socio-economic one. And there's nothing like a thread like this for reminding us what a divided nation we are. Hmm

If you earn £50 or £100 per hour, or more, then of course you will think nothing of paying a sitter 50 quid for the night. But if you earn less than that yourself - or you're a JSA claimant on 50 quid a week - then it is an impossible fortune.

Nancy66 · 01/01/2013 20:17

I wouldn't leave a pair of 14 year olds to babysit either.

My 16 year old niece and her pal babysat for a neighbour earlier this year - the pair of them got legless on a combination of vodka, red wine and brandy! They threw up everywhere.

It cost my sister about £100 to pay for the carpet and sofa covers to be cleaned !

DowagersHump · 01/01/2013 20:23

No they shouldn't Wallison. But given this pair arrived home 3 hours later than they told their sitter, they don't seem to be particularly concerned about other people and their needs really.

I totally agree with mathanxiety's posts.

I think it's a shockingly poor amount of money to pay someone for looking after your children, however old they are. You're paying someone to be there in case the worse happens. If nothing's going to happen, why bother to have anyone there at all?

And I spit on the arguments about 'well I wouldn't be able to go out if it cost [a reasonable sum to pay another human being to look after the most precious people in my life]. Well tough!

I'm a single parent. I haven't been out on NYE since I had a child and I go out about 6 times a year in the evenings. It's not really such a terrible thing. I factor in the cost of childcare like I do when I do anything else. Save up maybe?

BoneyBackJefferson · 01/01/2013 20:30

I think that as they got about 3 hrs free babysitting they are really stingy.

FlipFlopFloss · 01/01/2013 20:34

Max - I may be wrong but I am sure if your children are receiving such items as lap tops etc as well as payment and other "gifts" as payment for babysitting then they may be over their tax free allowance, and may be due to pay tax. I understand there is an allwance for kids much the same as adults but most kids rarely go over the allowance so never pay tax. Your DC sound like they have quite an affluent thing going with their babysitting so perhaps you ought to check it out.

DowagersHump · 01/01/2013 20:40

Flipflop - math (not Max) means that they have used the money they have earned to buy laptops, not that they've been given them :o