To think young babysitters should be paid in cash?

[Confrontayshunme]

We are going out for dinner with friends, and a friend's DD (15) is going to babysit our school aged children for a few hours. I pointed out that I needed to get some cash to pay her, and my DH said "That's okay, I'll just do a bank transfer." I told him that probably quite a few young teens may not have a bank account. Then he said "Well it is good work experience for her to get me her parents' details and follow up with me if it doesn't work." As a teenager, I relished having cash that was all my own, and a few times, I had odd parents who were tricky to get paid or their cheques didn't work, so I always asked for cash.

I told him I thought it might be difficult for a 15yo girl to confront and negotiate with a big 40yo man for payment, so we should do cash so she feels comfortable and doesn't have to worry about it. He then said that it was sexist to think that, as he had was comfortable doing that when he was a (6'3" 17yo) boy. Am I the only person who feels like the dynamic is all wrong (though I acknowledge that is a separate issue to the cash vs bank transfer)?

YABU - teens today should be fine being paid by bank transfer and discussing money with unrelated adults

YANBU - most teen girl babysitters would like cash as it is easy

Well it is good work experience for her to get me her parents' details and follow up with me if it doesn't work
Really 🙄

Posted too soon, but the follow up
with me, I'd have just laughed at.
Why did you even ask him, could you not have just taken cash out without his approval?

In any event entirely unfair to pay into a parent's account. You don't know their finances and if they are overdrawn they may not actually be able to pass it on to the babysitter!

@TheSmallAssassin
England. When I opened his account when he was 11 he had a debit card from the start but Internet banking wasn't mentioned as an option. Overseas his account he had from primary school age was linked to mine.

Teens of today don’t really use cash and use bank transfers to pay each other back for things. Mine hated having cash because it was just a pain for them. Even paying a buss fare is done with card or phone these days

@Sheeeeeysh

Just get the money out for her.

Does he make everything this complicated?

What a gobshite.

Of course she should be paid in cash.

YANBU.

i think you are both making assumtions on zero basis. If she is old enough to sit your kids, she is old enough to be asked how she wants to be paid.

You are way over thinking this. If you trust her enough to look after your kids, surely you can text/call her to ask what method of payment she wants. Purely for that YABU.

Not withstanding that no teenager wants a transfer, they all want CASH.

If you'd read the thread you'd see that actually many teens want a transfer, not cash. Cash is rapidly becoming outdated I think with pay-by-phone etc being more common.

I'd ask her what she wanted but my grandchildren (aged between 17 and 10) all have bank accounts. If I give them any money I do it by bank transfer.

Your husband sounds exhausting just get cash out and give her it ! Why the big deal

Mine are forever giving me cash to transfer into their accounts - they much prefer to see the money on line and spend it on line.

In fact they laugh at ‘old’ (their dad) who refuses to transfer them the money!

Ask her.

My teens prefer money in the bank. On birthdays and Xmas, if family and friends give them cash, they put it in the bank or we keep the cash and transfer them the amount into their banks. They use Apple Pay for everything and rarely carry cash.

You mean you're not paying in bitcoin?

Your partner is just being a lazy sod.

Well it is good work experience for her to get me her parents' details and follow up with me if it doesn't work

Would he like to be given extra unnecessary jobs in order to get his pay? Also, as PP said, you don't know if the parent's account is overdrawn with them struggling. Also, if they are struggling, they may refuse/guilt the child into letting them keep it for food or whatever, because 'they need it more'. They could just be downright abusive and steal it from her anyway. Best case scenario: they do have solvent accounts and are kind people, they have to go to a cash point to get the money out for her. Otherwise, she has to ask them when she wants to access it - fine if you're 7, but not at 15.

Also, why is his first instinct that it 'might not work'? If it does turn out not to work, that puts the girl (and possibly also her parents) in an extremely awkward position.

Finally, the idea of a 'cashless society' means that people are increasingly choosing to use less/no cash and that many purchases (such as online) cannot be made using cash. It most certainly does not mean that people preferring to still use cash when appropriate are doing something wrong or being obstinate. Cash isn't like smoking, where you're technically still allowed to use it but it's widely considered a dirty habit and universally frowned on.

Lots of small owner-run businesses greatly prefer it - everything all goes through the books for tax purposes, but you don't end up being charged by the bank to pay in, and then later charged again to withdraw, the equivalent of your wages.

My dd has a bank account at 11 and pays with her contactless card at most places. But I still think she would like the money given to her so that she knew she had been paid there and then. Your dh is being lazy and also weirdly trying to exert power over a girl who is looking after your kids for you. He sounds really weird.

@TheSmallAssassin
Were other 11 year olds offered internet banking in 2017 or earlier then? Fairly certain DS could only use phone banking. Seems he can get it now though!

I can understand a lot of teenagers preferring digital payments, seeing cash as old-fashioned, but not the apparent 'fear' or hatred of cash. I think it shows a lack of maturity to simply outright refuse to engage with a still-normal form of making transactions, just because it isn't your preferred one. I'd equate it with using 'street' or text language regularly with their friends (absolutely fine), but then also claiming not to understand or tolerate standard English when given a form to fill in.

As for the young woman above who claimed not to know how to use a cash machine, has she never seen her parents (or others) using them? Not necessarily staring at the personal info on the screen, but observing the great simplicity in using them? Has she never walked past one, noticed that it has a screen and considered that, just maybe, it might display simple instructions on it - like every other computer-based application? I'll bet she was happy to 'learn' how to make her very first online purchase, which is not as simple to do as to withdraw cash.

All the teens I know old enough to babysit have go bank accounts. Everything is cashless where I live so they’re pretty used to it.

@Confrontayshunme, YABU.

My teens and all their friends hate cash. If they get any they ask their parents to take it and do a bank transfer. They all have accounts by 11 or 12 and use cards only.

You should ask your babysitter her preference but 9 out of 10 times it will be a transfer.

Both my teens would be ok with it, but ask her.

Whenever my teen kids, 13 & 16 get cash they want to give it to me and ask me to transfer it to their account. They use their phones to pay for everything the same as us.
Just ask what she'd prefer.

No idea why you and your DH have discussed this, you've gone to the trouble of typing out a thread about it and yet, no-one's simply asked the girl.

As an aside, I don't think I know a single teenager that doesn't have a bank account on their phone.