- Kayla Sweeney is a 32-year-old mom to three children ages 12, 7, and 4 in Michigan.
- She has been trying to find a babysitter to sit with her kids for a few hours after school.
- The price of a babysitter is the price she gets paid to work.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kayla Sweeney. It has been edited for length and clarity.
As a teenager in the 90s, I might have gotten paid $20 for babysitting kids for the whole day. I remember thinking it was awesome to get paid at all for eating pizza and watching TV with kids.
When I look for a babysitter now, I can’t find anyone who charges less than $20 an hour. For Saturdays, most have asked for between $200 and $250 for the day.
I looked to have someone sit with my kids from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and for a full day on Saturdays while I work, but they want to charge me more than my own hourly rate working as a hairdresser in South Lyon, Michigan.
I have to ask the kids’ grandmother for help
I’m not asking for a nanny for whom childcare would be a career. A nanny would essentially cook, clean, feed, and implement a routine with the kids. For those responsibilities, I can see the reasons for the expense.
All I want is someone to make sure my children don’t kill each other. They could sit on my couch and just watch the kids.
Since I can’t find any teenagers charging less than $20 an hour, I’ve had to depend on my ex-partner’s mother to collect the kids after school and take them back to her house.
I work weekdays and Saturdays. My current partner had to request that his hours be changed so he can have the kids every other Saturday.
When he can’t take them, they have to go once again to my ex’s mother. She’s our only option. I couldn’t work otherwise.
When she has them for me, I have to drive 40 minutes from the salon to hers. I don’t even get out of the car or speak to her — she just sends the children out to me. We then have a 40-minute drive home, arriving back at about 8:15 p.m. and rushing to get them ready for bed.
My partner and I don’t get date nights
The price of hiring a babysitter also means I don’t get out with my current partner except on special birthdays. None of our family lives close enough to have the kids for us to sneak away for dinner, just the two of us.
When I wrote about this on Threads, a lot of people commented that if I were worried about my kids’ safety, paying for someone trained and capable was worth every penny. I get this concern, but I can’t afford the prices they are charging. My entire paycheck would go to babysitting.
If someone could charge minimum wage or even up to $10 an hour, I’d give them work to watch my kids right away. It’s what they would be paid for working at a fast food joint; it’s a lot less work, and it’s all I can afford.
The hours I spend cutting hair, I also spend having endless conversations with clients. So many of them have told me they, too, struggle to either find affordable babysitters or day care centers. Some have started working from home to avoid childcare costs. Some couples have decided that one parent would work and the other stay at home, which usually means one parent rarely sees their kids and the other is exhausted and wishes they could get some time away from the kids.
It isn’t just me, and it isn’t just that some of us are “too poor” to access babysitters and day care.
