Mom needs a babysitter for 10 hours, then says sitters shouldn’t get minimum wage per child and $40 to $50 is fair: ‘It’s so backwards in the U.S.’
She states local sitters charge $30 to $50 a day and that over a dozen providers have no room for her baby.
A mother who needs care for her baby on workdays says the sitters she lines up keep falling through, and she argues the going rate is set too high. According to the Daily Dot, her Reddit post states that no parent should be billed over $1,000 a month to keep a child safe while they earn a living.
She writes that she values babysitters and understands the job “deserves good pay.” Her objection is to the pricing, since “each individual child shouldn’t cost a parent minimum wage.” She suggests $40 to $50 a day per child, spread across four or five children, as fair for a sitter working from home.
She states her family needs care from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., which she calls standard since parents work eight hours or more and commute. Some sitters told her the schedule did not match what they wanted. She adds that the couple can afford a child but have weighed trimming retirement contributions and moving to a high deductible health plan. Her husband regularly works beyond 40 hours a week.
She puts local rates at $30 to $50 a day
In an edit, she states in-home sitters near her charge $30 to $50 a day, while curriculum-based day cares top out around $80 to $90. She says her area has a lower cost of living and affordable sitters fill up fast. In her view, day cares charge too much while paying staff too little, though she would choose care by fit before price. “It’s so backwards in the U.S.,” she wrote, and she likened parents to “mini corporations.”
Her own search, she states, began with a trusted sitter whose own move ran into setbacks. A work restructuring then raised her office days from two to four a week. An in-home day care overwhelmed the baby, and a temporary sitter took another job after a week.
She writes that a new sitter switched to part time days before starting, and over a dozen recommended providers are not taking infants. Relatives and family friends are covering for now. All details come from her account in the post and could not be verified independently. By her figures, a sitter with four or five children for a 10-hour day would take in $160 to $250, or $16 to $25 an hour. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a median wage of $16.82 an hour for childcare workers, or $34,980 a year.
Asking relatives for child care does not always work out, as when a man refused to babysit. Splitting child care between parents has drawn debate before, as with a mom defending her husband. Child Care Aware of America puts the national average price of child care at $13,184 a year, which works out to about $1,099 a month.
The group states the price takes about 10% of median income for two-parent households and 33% for single-parent households.
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