So I have these three children, and they're pretty young, which means when my husband and I go out for the evening, we need to hire a babysitter. With one exception (a really nice boy who was extremely tall and who used to babysit my oldest son, which was basically the cutest thing ever), all of our babysitters have been teenage girls. And let me tell you, they are the most patient, loving, generous girls you could ever hope to meet. I know this to be a fact because never once have we returned home to find all of our children tied to their beds with no babysitter in a sight and a note tacked to the front door that reads, "You have GOT to be kidding. I am SOOOO out of here," which is what always almost happens when I am alone with my three children.

My point is not how...challenging it is to be with my little angels. It is that our babysitters are miracle workers. They are evidence (to me) of god on Earth. But despite the fact that every single one of our babysitters is worth her weight in gold, whenever a girl comes to watch our children for the first time, she and I have the strangest conversation you can imagine. It goes something like this:

Me: (slipping on my coat) We never talked about what you charge.
Babysitter: (shrugging, smiling awkwardly) Oh, you can pay me, you know, whatever.

Now, I don't think these girls really mean I can pay them "whatever." Like, if I came home four hours later and handed over a quarter and said, "Thanks so much," I think they might complain. Or maybe their moms would. Or maybe they'd just never babysit for my children again.

But here's what I'm wondering: Why won't they set a fee?

These girls are performing a service. They are doing a job. (A really, really, really hard job). They deserve to get paid a fair wage for doing this job. But they don't feel comfortable demanding it.

Because I am a teacher (and therefore forever in search of "teaching moments"), I used to respond (when the girls told me I could pay them "whatever"), by saying, "Can you tell me what you were expecting to be paid?" But after a few awkward exchanges thus begun, I realized I wasn't exploiting a teaching moment so much as I was completely embarrassing the poor girl, and that she would prefer to change a million of my children's dirty diapers than to talk about money with me. Now I just pay the babysitter what I think is a generous amount and hope she's not counting her money on the way home and rolling her eyes at how cheap I am.

So I'm wondering, all you babysitters out there. How do you handle talking about money with your employers? No need to tell me what you charge, but I'd love to know how you settled on the amount, and if it was you, your employer, or some combination of the two who made the decision.

xoxo
Melissa