A recent study puts the average cost of raising a child at $20,813 annually. The Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley) was listed as the number one most expensive place to raise a child in the USA. Here they calculate the average annual cost of raising a child to be $35,647. That’s more than the starting salary at the first office job I had in the States (in 2012)!
Plenty is written about the financial costs of raising children. Some articles are about the overall cost of raising children, others focus more specifically on the cost of childcare. The case of childcare costs is complex. Parents need childcare in order to work, but are they earning enough money to cover the cost of childcare? Can it be justified?
I wanted to write more about the emotional rollercoaster of hiring childcare, specifically occasional babysitters. Friends of mine with young kids, and myself, have experienced so many difficulties finding adequate and reliable childcare. Especially for babysitting, when the hours you need are not a full time job.
It’s a huge amount of work to search for and find someone to hire. I always find it so challenging to know who to interview and who not to. It was also hard to judge the applicants. Maybe they’d both have comparable experience and I’d have to base a decision on what my gut said about how they would handle certain situations based on the way they responded. A few times we had two finalists and Steve and I were at odds on who to hire. Both of those times we went with my candidate and ended up regretting it down the line. I thought I was a better judge of character!
A lot of brain power goes into deciding if they’re a good fit for your family. To take care of your child/ren. But, it’s a huge relief to have that sacred time each week when you know you have help. It’s ultimately worth it.
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| A moment of peace with a snack. |
Ghosted
A few months ago, we hired a babysitter to work with us in the evenings a few times a week. We’ll call her Stacy. She would help me with the after school time when the kids are home and I need to make dinner. Once a week she was going to stay late so Steve and I could get away for a date night or to see friends.
When I hired Stacy, we talked through the schedule and agreed on the rate - both in writing and over the phone. She came three times and Max had a lot of fun with her. She was a teacher at a preschool. On the phone I told her we were really hoping to build a relationship with someone and keep it going for at least three months. Stacy said that worked perfectly for her and gave me a verbal commitment to work with us until August.
Her second week with us was about to begin and she texted me that she was confused about the amount I had paid her for the week before. Right away she said “I don’t think this will be a good fit.”
I was out walking with Nico and my heart started pounding. What does she mean, “won’t be a good fit”? We discussed it all and she’d been over 3 times, it had seemed like a good fit so far. She had agreed to three months just days before.
I quickly responded to Stacy. I said that I was sorry there was a misunderstanding about the hourly rate and I offered to renegotiate it. I emphasized how much we valued her time and work. At that point I was thinking I’ll pay her whatever she wants! I just didn’t want to lose her.
I started to panic. I got home and I cried in frustration. I thought we’d locked it in, I thought we had finally solved our childcare issues. I was looking forward to the help and the occasional freedom.
The reason I was panicking is because we’d gone through so much childcare hassle. After losing our au pair we’d hired two other babysitters and they both quit after a week, within 24 hours. One had another family and they changed their schedule so she could no longer work for us on the day we needed her. The other was a college student who had been offered a modeling contract right after he started with us and was moving to LA. We had the worst luck.
I told Steve that I couldn’t go through the hassle of finding a new babysitter again. It takes so much time and mental effort. Posting a job to online notice boards, reading countless applications and having to figure out who is worth a call. Then finally calling people and they all say pretty much the same thing. So who do you hire anyway?! It’s not easy to make that choice. I have to check in with my gut - which seems to have been wrong many times.
Not to mention trying to find someone who can meet our budget. I’ve seen college students babysitting for a side job asking for the same hourly rate as our occasional babysitter who is a kindergarten teacher with years of experience. Some people charge extra for two kids. Some will offer a discount if they’re both asleep.
I think everyone deserves to be paid adequately for their skills and their time. But not all babysitters have the same skills. Our occasional babysitter, I trust 100% to know what to do with Nico and Max if she had to show up in an emergency and I ran out the door. She’s experienced and proactive and would take charge to figure it out. Compared to other babysitters who have been students looking for extra money who can play with a kid fine or watch them while they sleep, but aren’t as skilled with the in-between.
It’s a sensitive subject negotiating pay. We’re always willing to ask for what we need and negotiate with the person on the other end. We tend to hope that if we’re creating a long term commitment with many hours per week when the kids are asleep we can find someone who won’t be charging us $25 per hour to sit in our quiet house.
Back to Stacy… Steve also chimed in to ask her to jump on a phone call that evening so we could address any concerns and discuss the rate. She never responded. She ghosted us.
I was shocked. She was so sweet in person, so great with Max and Nico. We chatted a few times about her work, her life, and her interests. We were becoming friends. Suddenly she was ignoring us and our pleas for her to stay.
I was very disappointed. Very upset.
We tried offering the job to another babysitter who had been interested in the position, but she had found another gig. After that, I didn’t want to try again. I was done.
Tired after a long day.
It’s not just us
After this happened, I really questioned whether it was us. Do people not like our kids? Do they not like us? I mean, of course maybe that can happen after conflicts or difficult situations, but with these babysitters there had been none of that.
After a while, I realized that it’s just work and money. It’s not personal. Having interviewed Stacy and knowing what she wanted, I suspect she was offered another job with a family that had more hours per week and paid more. She had said yes to us because it was the only offer at the time, and she had gone back on her word to work with us for 3 months. She was saving money to go back to school later this year.
I think if it was me, I would have maybe done the same. But I certainly wouldn’t have texted claiming it was just the pay issue and then stopped responding.
My sister in-laws have also had bad luck with their childcare. As stay at home moms, they don’t need a full time nanny. But with two kids, it really helps to have some additional support during the week.
One of them has a weekly babysitter for a few hours who will often not show up, texting at the last minute that she’s sick. As a stay at home mom, these weekly moments are a time for my sister in-law to run some errands baby-free, or, heaven forbid, take a break for herself! It can be so disappointing to be let down repeatedly.
The other sister-in-law had a babysitter who was great and was looking for a full time job. My sister-in-law knew this and helped her with her job search, thinking that when the time came she would get at least two weeks' notice to replace her. Nope. Her babysitter also texted one Sunday evening, “I’m not coming this week, or again, I have a new job.”
I have to be honest, I did that to a job once. I worked at American Eagle one summer when I was staying with my grandparents in South Carolina. I got terribly drunk at a party the night before and in the morning I called in sick for my shift and on the same call said “and actually I’m not coming in again”. I didn’t like the job at all and I had a restaurant gig that I loved instead.
Yes it was a crappy thing to do and I did feel guilty at the time. But, I was 18 and I worked in retail. I wasn’t in my mid-twenties working to provide care for a child.
The person I had to quit on was probably frustrated at being short staffed for that day. But I wasn’t anything special to them. To families, especially to the main caregiver (in my experience and stories here, we’re all moms), the babysitter is such a special life line.
To me a babysitter is a break from having to do it all. I don’t have to cook dinner and play with my 3 year old at the same time. I don’t have to stay in my apartment all week because the kids are asleep. Me and Steve get time away from the house together, either alone or with our friends.
It’s also essential for me to get my work done. As a part-time consultant I can choose my hours. But I can't be a stay at home mom and also do part time work without someone else watching Nico. Because where would those hours come from? My sleep time?
In the end, we put Nico into a small at home daycare that Max first went to when he was a similar age. I had two days per week to get my work done. But it didn’t solve our evenings.
Cute and chaotic.
A common scene at my house around 5pm on a weekday:
We walk in from the school run.
Max immediately requests “Real Gone” (a song from the Cars soundtrack) to be played loud on the speakers so he can zoom around the house like a car on a racetrack. It repeats and repeats…
I’m boiling water for pasta, timing chicken nuggets in the oven, chopping up some kind of vegetable and figuring out what Steve and I will eat.
Nico is wandering around holding a shoe, trying to follow brother but unable to keep up. Most likely I had to change him recently and I don’t bother putting pants back one so he’s just in a diaper.
Max demands that I race with him.
I squeeze in a few laps around the house while taking “pit stops” in the kitchen to work on dinner.
It’s hot in the kitchen so I turn on the window AC.
Somewhere in another room, Nico gets knocked down. Usually able to bounce back up, sometimes needing a hug.
Max gets mad at me for not playing.
I feel bad for our neighbor below, who is so unbelievable understanding and patient with our little monsters.
Nico is in the kitchen, hungry and wanting to be fed immediately. He reaches up to try and get his plate off the counter. The plate that’s covered in hot food fresh out of the oven. I rush over to stop the disaster. I satiate by offering a slice of cucumber.
When it’s time to come to the table, Nico is ready. Max runs away and refuses. Steve walks in the door. Eventually Max joins us. We eat.
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