to wonder why cleaners getting £7 an hour are poorly paid when babysitters working with sitters agency get £5.90 an hour and thats considered ok?

[ssd]

I mean whats more important, a clean house or safe and happy kids? and don't tell me kids just sleep, I;ve babysat plenty times when they are awake for hours and need plenty entertaining!!

so why are cleaners better paid than babysitters?

[Tangle]

Pass - but our cleaner also babysits. She charges £10/hr for cleaning and £7/hr for babysitting...

[BooBooGlass]

I take it you're with sitters then?
Tbh I don't understand your arguement. I thnk anyone who would leave their child with a stranger from an agency is a bit odd, no matter how much they're being paid.

[ravenAK]

Because the sitters expectation is kids in bed, or at least in pyjamas & on their way?

I'd expect to be sitting down in front of the TV, or doing some marking, if I worked for sitters - that's what our regular lady did.

If it didn't work out like that, no, definitely not a great rate for actual childcare.

[ssd]

working as a babysitter involves looking after and settling the kids before bed, not easy sometimes, certainly I've never been to a job where the kids are in bed already!

booboo, if you don't have to leave your kids with a stranger to babysit then you are very lucky, a lot of parents have no choice

[scottishmummy]

doh, market economics.cleaners command the wage they can get.

i dont pay for babysitting, we have arrangement between friends.

[FattyArbuckel]

Babysitting is mainly watching tv which is a loteasier than cleaning thus lower paid

[MisSalLaneous]

Because I think someone sticking their hands in strangers' toilets deserves to be paid more than someone who will be resting some, if not all, of the evening.

[salizchap]

Er, cleaning is a crappy, physically demanding, horrid job, while babysitting can be fun and by the time the kids are in bed, quite chilled.

[Serendippy]

Would you rather clean or babysit?

(Actually, the answer is obvious otherwise you would be a cleaner and then on better pay)

Agree with supply and demand

[salizchap]

Not to mention tedious, demeaning, demoralising, mind-numbingly dull (cleaning).

OP, have you actually ever worked as a cleaner and a babysitter? And being a mother doesn't count. Doing your own cleaning/childminding has no comparison with having to depend on cleaning as a livelihood, day in day out, cleaning toilets, kitchens, floors...

[ssd]

saliz, yes I've worked as both

I started this thread as I've just been reading a lot of posts on another thread about why paying a cleaner only £7 an hour is a bit mean, and I wondered how then can paying a babysitter less than £6 an hour be justified?

I guess the only answer is supply and demand, that makes sense

[Serendippy]

Finally, someone who comes on AIBU with a real question, looking for a real answer, who weighs up the responses and accepts explanations given!

[staranise]

We use Sitters - our children are always in bed. The sitter (we always use the same one) reads or watches TV.

Our nanny is paid £9 an hour (plus tax, NI, holiday/sick pay etc) because DC is awake and needs feeding etc - that for me is the hardest job because it carries the most responsibility and involves (at times) sole charge of a 2 year old.

[LadyBiscuit]

I pay my cleaner £9 because she works hard. I pay my sitter £6 because she does her prep for school and in the hours and hours I've paid her, has only had to deal with my DS once, which has taken less than an hour.

The other issue is that most people are paying sitters for when they are going out for fun rather than to earn and if I didn't pay £6 I wouldn't be able to afford to go out at all (as it is I do it once a month if that)

[TheFallenMadonna]

A house cleaned by someone else is pretty important to me

I pay a teenage neighbour to babysit. And he does it perfectly well. That's what's messing with your market. Neighbour plays briefly with the children, puts them to bed and then watches our television instead of his own. And charges £15. It's exactly what I and the children are after. Your market is restricted to people with no obliging neighbours/family, or people who only want to leave their child with somebody fully paperworked and are willing to pay a premium for it.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Actually, he asked for £10. We started giving him £15 when he started dealing with the children rather just sitting on the sofa.

[staranise]

I used to use local babysitters before I found sitters - one of the reasons I chose an agency was becasue the local babysitters charge nanny rates eg £9 an hour - it just used to add so much on to the cost of a night out (that was arguably optional, as LadyBiscuit says).

So Sitters get paid less but I bet they get used more frequently. They do also specify that they prefer the children to be in bed: their daytime babysitting costs more, quite rightly.

[sonia77]

I wont work for them anymore for that rate, its not easy going out to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night , rainy icy. Parents roll in late with barely an apology, no tip, no extra rate after midnight, cold houses, you are always up and down checking on the children, its time away from your own family, unsociable hours making you very tired. I got stalked by one of the dads too.

Its not easy and I did repent the local teens getting paid more than me and im late thirties and very experienced. And to be paid jess during the week when you still have to get up for work the next day. Not one family gave a shit about me when I was doing iit heavily pregnant and they roll in hours late at 2am . Makes you feel like shit. Harder than cleaning which I have also done to feed my child.

Just seen now as the cheap option I think around here. I rarely went into a house worth more than a million round here. I think 7 an hour is fair.

[sonia77]

Sorry LESS than a million. -Very tired and incoherent ...

[Sullwah]

I am not sure what the value of someones house has got to do with it

I use sitters a lot and have three regular babysitters who we like very much.

We ask them to come 30 mins before the DTs go to bed - just in case they wake up they will be familiar with the babysitter. We put the DTs to bed and then get ready to go out - so the babysitter is often here for a whole hours before she is in sole charge.

We always round up the rate and round up the the next hour (even if it is only 10 mins into the hour).

We have wifi - so the nanny is often on her laptop / whatching TV / doing coursework.

The DTs have not woken once.

Much much easier than cleaning.

[Rockbird]

I see what you're getting at op, and kind of agree with you. I've done shedloads of babysitting and always thought it was more about what you might have to do than what you do do IYSWIM. Not much responsibility in cleaning (I'm not dissing it).

[majafa]

Im with Mutt
Im a child minder (here we go again, not that old story again, I hear some say/mutter)
I charge £4 per hour, some resent paying that
I dont have any full timers only after schoolers, I once had a parent turn up for interveiw, who argued about the charge (£2 per week)for 2 hrs a day 4 days a week, she told me she and hubbie were Doctors, so not on a minimum wage, then.
Each to their own I guess