I am blessed to live in a neighborhood with a plethora of teenaged girls who want to babysit. When it was only 4 kids to watch, they all pretty much told me $5 an hour. That’s a really good deal for 4 kids! Of course, if it was much more than that, I wouldn’t be able to hire them very often, since the bank account has been known to run dry.

One girl charged $6.50 an hour, but she washed, dried and put away all the dishes, too. Definitely worth paying extra money to come home at 10 pm to sleeping children and a clean kitchen. Most of the girls haven’t figured out that putting the dishes in the dishwasher and the toys on the shelf will almost always guarantee repeat business.

Now that I often leave all 5 kids, I pay at least $6 an hour. Pete can be a handful. He still wants mommy and has the toddler-stamina to be miserable for hours on end.

The girl I’m having watch the kids on Saturdays for dog school is the oldest of 5. I chose her mainly because her 3 younger siblings are close in age to my kids and the youngest is only months older than Pete. She’s pretty experienced at distracting fussy babies. And she knows that moms don’t like messy houses. When the kids found out who was coming they said, “No! Not her! She makes us clean!” Hehe.

Because there are so many potential babysitters, I feel badly for any new girls who are trying to move in on the market. On Friday, about 530 pm, our doorbell rang. A middle school girl from down the street was selling stuff from a catalog as a fundraiser for school (I guess the government handout just isn’t enough). As I was browsing the catalog of scented candles and wrapping paper, she looked around at my kids.

“Five kids, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a lot of kids.”

“Yeah.” (I suppose.)

“Do you ever need a, uh…”

“Babysitter?”

“Yeah!”

“Sometimes. How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Have you ever babysat a bunch of kids before?”

“I babysat three at one time.”

“Mmmmm…” (If you can do 3, you can do 5 – at least my 5 who are usually well behaved for babysitters, except for Pete.)

“Once I babysat a 2 month old. But he slept the whole time. I was lovin’ that.”

“Yeah. I’d be lovin’ that too! (I don’t happen to have any sleepy 2 month olds who need watching, though.) Hmm…how ’bout I write your number down and I’ll maybe call you sometime? What’s your number?”

“Uh, I don’t know…”

“Did you just move in?”

“Uh, about 2 months ago…I can bring it over later?”

“Ok. How much would you charge?”

“$5 per hour…well, that would be for 2 kids. I’d have to charge $2 per kid.” (Well, now, $2 x 5 = $10 per hour. Hmmm...)

“Mmmm…well, here’s the money for the wrapping paper.”

“Thanks. Do you guys homeschool?”

“Yes, we do.” (Do I have a scarlet H on my shirt or something?)

“Is it math time?” (This briefly puzzles me, since by Friday evenings all of the school stuff is totally cleaned up – woo hoo – TGIF – party time!!! And then I realize that my kids are playing with pattern blocks which had only arrived via UPS an hour before.)

“No. They just do this for fun.”

“Oh. I’ll bring my number over later.”

“Buh-bye.”

If I ever pay a 13 year old nearly twice the minimum wage to watch my kids, I swear I will withhold all the necessary taxes, social security, etc that I can as a private employer. Jeesh. These kids are so clueless. The babysitting supply is high. Prices should be pretty low. And you can make more money under the table, so to speak, as a babysitter, than you could flipping burgers at Mickey D’s. But don’t push it by expecting more than the fair market value.

For now, I’ll stick with Miss Oldest-Of-Five-Who-Makes-My-Kids-Clean. She still owes her mom $40 for the Palm Pilot she needed for high school. At least her mom made her pay for it.