to find £6 per hour expensive for a 17 year old babysitter?

[evansmummy]

It's been a long time since i employed a babysitter and I was shocked when she told me this is what she charges! My childminder charges this, there are meals thrown in and she actually looks after my ds, whereas a babysitter would just have to sit!

Am I out of touch?

£6 an hour for a 17 yr old babysitter is ridiculously expensive.

age makes a difference if they got a proper job so I'd pay a sitter according to that.

Kid in bed, Piece of piss

£3.53 for workers under 18. And I take it this is cash in hand.

My nephew got £3.53 an hour for working quite hard in a shop

pointy dog - very true

as i said £6 isnt a bad rate to pay for a babysitter, obv area depending

but it is for a 17yr

i know qualifed with 10years exp 30 yr old nannies who babysit for £6

so why should a 17yr get £6 to sit on her bum and watch tv, where if she worked at mcdonalds she would get less then £4 and have to work for it

though of course,some bs jobs you do earn your money if child is awake,upset or ill

yes, I am assuming this is one of those sit about, eat biscuits and watch telly sort of sits while childrne sleep.

Thanks for these. Yes, she would be literally sitting as ds will be in bed by the time she gets here. And it's nice to hear someone say, at last, that those of us on a lower income are allowed to balk at having £30 added on to an evening out. That's a lot of money ofr us, actually.

And obviously, sayithowitis, I would ask someone else if I didn't want to pay the 6 quid. That isn't what my op was about though. I was just expressing my surprise about the price of babysitting. And it's a bit rude of you to assume that the extra money would be spent on the evening out. The evening would cost the same regardless.

Man, have I been misunderstood on this thread!

This is exactly it, teenagers who work hard in shops, or delivering papers get paid a low wage, but those sitting down watching telly or reading a book get paid double. That doesn't compute in my mind!

Somebody might have already said this so forgive me if I'm repeating the bleeding obvious.

You want to pay as little as possible for someone who will be ensuring the safety of the most precious things in your life?

Hmm, priorities?

no, not as little as possible. The going rate.

Exactly Tattifer!

I don't think it's just you though - lots of people on this thread have basically said that if you hire a teenager you should pay them the minimum amount possible. Which seems unfair to say the least. So what if it is spending money or rent money - I can't imagine any other employer reasonably saying that because you don't need the money you won't get paid so much (although that has been the basis of underpaying women for many years).

We paid our babysitter £5 an hour from the age of 17 to the age of 21, during which time she qualified as a nursery nurse. IMO she was no better a babysitter just because she was older and trained. The going rate in our area was £5 an hour, so that's what we paid. If we hadn't thought she was capable, then we wouldn't have used her - pay wouldn't have been an issue.

Comparing a babysitter to a fast food worker seems specious to me. Yes babysitting is mostly money for old rope, but children do wake up, and essentially you employ a babysitter for those times (as well as for the much less likely emergencies). It is an expensive addition to a night out, but I am afraid it is just one of the costs of having children.

Oh and how much you get paid is rarely related to how hard you work - otherwise manual labourers would get paid more than office workers, and it is mostly the other way around. I would also expect most people to have higher standards when employing a babysitter than a paperboy or burger flipper. After all the babysitter is going to be a)in your house unsupervised (so you need them to be totally trustworthy) and b) caring for your child (so you need them to be kind, good with children, and totally reliable).

Nothing wrong with saying ouch about the cost of course!

MaryHuff how old are the nursery nurses that you use to babysit? Do you pay for them to get home/give a lift or do they drive?

Message withdrawn

Cat - what is odd about the general inference of if you want someone who is going to do a good job, then you pay for it? Pay peanuts, get monkeys is the expression and it's not one I've just made up!

I'm bloody lucky in that my parents look after my girls so money is not part of the equation - I can default to leaving them with someone I trust and they love. But if I couldn't do that I would have to have some other yardstick - as in if they're good, they probably come with a price tag. Not always true but arguing about a ound or two two either way seems to infer that the price is more important than the quality of babysitter.

Not odd at all.

Gosh - when I used to babysit, the kids were never asleep. I had to amuse, get tea quite often, make sure they had their baths, get them into bed on time, get them back into bed, revise for A-Levels, get them back into bed... It was utterly knackering! Lovely kids, though, and I wish we were still in touch.

I think £50 is reasonable - she in effect is your nanny for the day. It is a huge responsibility especially at her age.