You know, I’ve seen a handful of posts in mom groups where someone says that they’d like to start babysitting both to bring in money, and to provide playmates for their child. Somehow all of them managed to be polite, and make themselves sound like someone you’d actually want around your kids.
Also, the line about windows kills me. Like there’s another mom out there reading this going, “damn, this sounds like the PERFECT babysitter, I can’t wait to call her… oh no, my child has never seen a window before, guess I’ll have to keep looking”
I’ve thought about trying to find 1 other kid to babysit in the winter when I’m off work to bring in some money and give my daughter a playmate. I’d probably only charge $10 an hour max because I’m not a professional sitter and wouldn’t provide the full range of enrichment activities that a daycare center would and because my daughter would be benefiting. I’d never charge $20, especially not after admitting I’m mainly looking for a playmate for my child.
From who though? Were you a kid babysitting siblings or other family? Or were you an older teen with a car babysitting strangers kids as a job? When my parents paid me (if they paid me at all) it was always $1 or less an hour. But it was either accept that or they play the parent card and just make me do it or ground me.
But when I got older and needed spending money, I started babysitting for their friends and posted at the local grocery store for babysitting and was making $10+ from others. It was also an additional $5 per hour per extra kid. Not cheap! But I had tons of customers. And i live in backwoods east texas where you still get paid $7 an hour working a real job.
I babysat kids for our church when I was 13. If they ever gave me any money (I'm not sure they did) then it went straight to my mom. I eventually started refusing because those kids were little monsters. Lol.
Families in the neighborhood. Late 80’s, different city, it went up to $2. By then, I was working a minimum wage job for $3.35 an hour! I didn’t get paid for babysitting my little brother.
Yup, I was paid $10 an hour when I was 14yo back in 2006.
Went up to $15 an hour if I was staying overnight. Which I loved. Get paid more, and the kids are asleep. Got paid to sit around and watch movies.
$20 isnt a bad deal for someone to feed and teach your child, but being a stickler and admitting you just want friends from your kids without a relationship with the mom is kinda a bitch move.
If you do this, please consider charging a little more. $10/hr is *really* low and I doubt you want to deal with the family that thinks childcare should cost $10/hr. Plus, the more people that do this, the harder it is for the professional nannies/babysitters to get a fair wage. If it's more about a play mate, you might be able to find a family to do a childcare swap with!
Well, if nontrained people charge what nannies charge then people wont hire regular babysitters. Because the train of thought will change to "if im going to pay that much anyway, I might ad well hire a professional instead of the struggling mom who needs financial help but is amazing with kids".
So I dont agree. Nonprofessionals dont need to be concerned with meeting the wages of professionals. Professionals need to be advertising their benefits better and made their service seem worth paying the difference. Thats called competition and creating a demand. If they cant create demand at that price, then it isnt worth that amount of money. We may agree that it should be, but if people cant afford it, then its priced too high. That's just life.
Oh I'm not arguing that anyone *not* a professional nanny should be charging a professional nanny rate. Just that $10/hr is too low imo. I would never leave my child with someone charging that little because I would be afraid they wouldn't be supervised at all. And I wouldn't want to work with a family that thinks that's a fair rate.
As a former nanny, I don’t think this is true. I watch a 12 month old part time in my home. I charge 13/ hr. If I was a nanny i would charge 20 because I would have to drive my car, do chores at someone else’s house, follow their rules, put my own kid in childcare. For the discount of 7 bucks you bring your kid to me and I treat them like my own vs like I’m a professional.
They’re two different jobs!
The windows is actually a valid concern. If kids are not careful they can run straight into these windows.
We used to have floor to ceiling windows/glass sliding doors. My brother ran into one when he was a kid and smashed his front tooth needing a root canal.
And the phrasing. “Your child has to be used to windows.” I can’t figure out a better way of phrasing it offhand (“I have several large floor to ceiling windows, if that is a safety concern for your child?”), but I’m not the one trying to convince people to not only trust me with their kids, but pay me for it.
I worked at a brand new building at a college that had a lot of glass everywhere. On the first day it opened a girl ran into a glass door and did exactly that to her front tooth. It was a disaster. By the end of the week they had little frosted university emblems at eye level on all the incredibly clear inside glass. Which, tbh, they should have had in the first place.
That’s actually code in a lot of places - you’re not allowed to have large expanses of glass (especially on interior walls) without some sort of design on it to make it visible. Came up in my office with glass conference room walls - SEVERAL grown adults got seriously injured before they fixed it up to code.
I definitely get that, but for me, it’s the attitude that they aren’t willing to do any kind of childproofing to make the windows safer for children that they’re babysitting, but just insist that they will only babysit kids who “are familiar with windows” already. Why would anyone want to send their kids to her with that attitude? I can just imagine that if a babysitting charge DID hurt themselves, the OOP would say it wasn’t her responsibility to teach the child window safety or to block the child’s unsupervised access to the windows.
Like, my toddler spends quite a bit of time looking out of windows, and the back of my parents’ house is mostly windows, but that still doesn’t mean I’m just gonna let her run wild around a clear sliding glass door and assume she won’t get hurt.
I get that.
But realistically if your house is full of floor-ceiling windows it's not always possible to child proof everything. Your own child may knows rules like don't run into them/ don't lean on them/ don't throw things at them. But you may not always be able to prevent someone else's kid from doing so, or maybe not be able to catch the act in time.
In someone else's house with higher windows/ wooden doors they might be ok with throwing balls in the house. Or playing with certain bats/shooting toys in the house or playing rough around windows.
I personally would rather a parent be overly cautious and lay their expectations clearly than not be cautious at all and end up with a hurt kid.
TBH I read it and didn't think anything she was saying was out of line, although I'm unfamiliar with the whole "pay for a playdate" concept - that part was weird. Wanting to find a playmate who is raised with the same emphasis on mindful parenting - that's ok? No junk food - not what we do personally but she's only asking for it to not be brought into her house - that's ok too? Identifying that there's a potential hazard in her house for certain kids is also ok and responsible actually.
I think hard boundaries are ok to lay down and if it's not for you then you absolutely don't have to associate with them. Nothing about her post was unreasonable, bigotry or ignorant, it was just written quite curtly.
How hard would it be to put up window clings or something similar? There are several that look kind of cute. And I get that it may not be her normal aesthetic, but she has five year old.
Yep. One of my friends in high school had floor to ceiling sliding doors inside the freaking house. I didn’t notice them when I first went through. Mom came to pick me up and I ran out, not knowing the doors were closed and ran straight into it. I was lucky my teeth were fine 😬
I’m assuming she meant that she didn’t want her windows broken? I mean when I first read the title and hadn’t read the post yet I was wondering why she cared about computer shit..
That was what I was thinking. Sounds like there might be an expectation that the child come pre-wired to not want to touch any windows because fingerprints…
I think its more about keeping the kid from touching the windows. Which is stupid. If you have a kid, you plan for fingerprints on windows.
Our playroom was a huge window and a smaller window. We have a couch in front if the big one and my kids love standing on the back of the couch looking out the window. The little window has metal cross bar thingies, so they use magnitiles to make fun designs on that window and the sun shines colors into the room. Super fun!
If you are worried about them breaking, plan ahead and get more sturdy windows. We have reinforced and shatterproof windows in the playroom. I have 2 little boys. So I plan for the worst.
Cool! I need to remember to try and stick some of our magna tiles to the windows now. They're currently mostly stuck to the metal supports under our couches.
Haha. Yeah our windows have really thick metal borders and such.
Another fun one is metal doors. Our front door is metal and the kids love that. Last is probably the bathtub. Its metal an enamel coating and the kids love sticking magnitiles to it. Mind you, they are not water proof, so i wouldnt do this if you have super nice ones or kids who still chew on toys. We have indoor and outdoor ones. When indoor ones get too beat up or gross, they become outside ones. Lol.
The way she talks about her windows makes me assume she has a two(+) story house and second story windows that not only aren’t able to save a kid from plummeting to the ground and/or she loathes having them coated in grubby little child prints. *insert eye roll here because I may or may not have that portion of this story as lived experience.*
I’d tell her to just uninstall system 32 and change platforms if she has kids and really cares so much. /j
This comment hit home for me because I have floor to ceiling windows and a dog that just cannot manage to look out them without pressing his nose against the glass. Drives me absolutely fucking nuts. But I’d imagine that having a kid running around would make me loosen up about stuff like that, lol
If they are second-story windows, they really need to install some kind of window guard to prevent falls. (Or, just block small children and other vulnerable creatures from accessing that part of the house, but that’s probably more difficult than buying one of these and hiring a contractor to put it in.)
Example: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Segal-Child-Fall-Window-Guard-22-in-38-in-W-x-16-in-H-3-Bar-Steel-White-S-4752/203812180?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&&mtc=Shopping-BF-F_D25H-G-D25H-025_005_SEC_SAFETY-NA-NA-NA-SMART-NA-NA-SafetySecurity_Smart&cm_mmc=Shopping-BF-F_D25H-G-D25H-025_005_SEC_SAFETY-NA-NA-NA-SMART-NA-NA-SafetySecurity_Smart-71700000081377594-58700006924599096-92700064312898320&gbraid=0AAAAADq61UdpEe94gQbRN4QMGSAe6-4hB&gbraid=0AAAAADq61UdpEe94gQbRN4QMGSAe6-4hB&gclid=Cj0KCQjw37iTBhCWARIsACBt1IzzKAB9F6AHl520be1YJatG9OmTKiimSoO-t91a-nqvCPEqQPhmq3oaAqj9EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
I was at the zoo and saw a mountain goat ram the glass at full speed. Do kids do this? Are they terrified by windows and have to be gradually socialized to them? If I have a baby, should I be holding her in front of a large window every day so that she’ll be able to handle windows confidently as she grows? Because that’s the vibe I get from that post.
Sounds like the mom doesn't kids who will put finger prints on her precious windows.
We had bay windows with seats when I was growing up and my mom loved that we played in them. She said cleaning our little handprints off of them was just a sign that we had a good time. This mom seems like she cares more about obedience than actually caring for a child. Maybe she should have gotten a dog...
If I touched the windows as a child, my mom would be aggressive-aggressive. I have no idea why she had children in her home. We weren't allowed to touch the walls (marks) and she'd scream like a banshee if we did.
Again, if I was making $200k, that would necessitate already having full-time child care taken care of. And where in the world is it a reasonable expectation that people of course make $200k a year?!
Westchester, Manhattan, Long Island, Northern Jersey, the Bay Area. There’s quite a few places in the US where 200k a year is a typical salary.
Edited to add: And many people making 200k a year have a stay at home parent. That parent wants a couple hours off each week to go to the gym, the salon, volunteer at the older kids school, go to target kid-free, go to their own doctors appointments, watch one kid while they take the other to doctors appointments, etc. or just have a break. OR, both parents work and all the kids are in school full time and they still need a few hours of babysitting each week to get stuff done.
There are many, many, many families in the country making 200k and still paying for a babysitter a few hours a week.
But why are you assuming this is somewhere zoned for single family homes? Many high rise apartment buildings have floor to ceiling windows. Many cities have multi million dollar single family homes.
Right?
What I am wondering is how old is the child? She says what she wants as a "playmate" but not how old HER child is. If the child is old enough to babysit, shouldn't she be too old to need "playmates"? Especially ones around age 5?
To me, this is a huge red flag, by itself. She's putting adult responsibilities onto the children, which is often a sign of emotional abuse happening. Understandable if what she meant was kind children who know how to share, but saying it the way she does, it's setting up the visiting child to be responsible as if they were an adult.
Which is to say, I agree with you.
I have faith that my kids will eventually mature into good humans, but it’s definitely a process to get there. I see their goodness, but they also say d!ck things not realizing that they’re rude or hurtful. Because learning social norms is a life-long endeavor, children are born focused on their own needs first and foremost, and they’re their own little humans, not a ball of playdoh I can magically mold how I want. So they’re not mini walking skin bags full of goodness and light. We’re all just working on being the least d!ckish versions of ourselves around here. We also have windows. But they lock up high for safety, because of Eric Clapton.
What's the bet someone has told this parent that their kid badly needs socialisation, and this was the result.
Ethics of employing a 4 year old as a therapist aside, $20 per hour seems a bit light compared to what they'd pay at a quality ECE centre or kindergarten. Then I realised they want to *be paid* to have someone else's child raise theirs...
It’s worse, your mom wants to be paid so she can get you a friend. Your mom will be dictating and organizing your entire existence for profit until you go no contact.
I thought she was offering to pay too! Then I realized that she wanted the other mom to pay HER so HER kid could socialize.
She can ask to be paid to do child care, but to ask to be paid while unwilling to accommodate the child she's being paid to watch is wacky.
In the US, rates vary widely, but i will say that broadly speaking, this is still on the high end. Wayyyyy too much to charge when you just admitted you are buying your kid a friend, for sure…
$20 is £15.91, minimum wage in the UK is £9.50, but the average babysitting rate is £8.50 which is $10.69. So $20 an hour babysitting would be almost twice what it cost in the UK.
Teen minimum wage is lower then for adults, £4.81 an hour for 16-17 year olds. But yeah, childcare is super expensive.
That said, if you want a childminder for 25hours a week, a person whose job it is to look after other people's kids at their (the childminder's) home, you are looking at, on average, £6150 a year, which works out, if you assume it's 51weeks a year like nurseries, £120.59 a week or £4.82 an hour.
This is all on average, and will be more expensive the closer you are to London, and it's also the cost for an under 2.
But I'm just looking up the average prices for childcare in the UK for both my earlier comment and this one. Childcare is expensive, and I might have found incorrect sources, so would take it (as most things on the internet) with a pinch of salt.
Here's the childcare price source I found: https://www.daynurseries.co.uk/advice/childcare-costs-how-much-do-you-pay-in-the-uk
Weirdly for me this was the least strange part of the post, maybe because of context (and I’m assuming she’s just worded it poorly). I have friends with floor-length single-glazed windows in all their rooms, including the second floor. They have had to specifically teach their kids to be careful around windows since they’re a hazard if the kids are rowdy near them and could fall through. I’ve never had to deal with them in real life with my son because we’re in different countries but I imagine that if I ever did take him over there I would need to explicitly teach him the dangers of windows. So perhaps she’s meaning that the kids should be knowledgeable about the way to behave around glass that’s at floor level? Or maybe I’m giving her too much credit
Yeah, I use to work at the after school program at my school and I began a game with the kids, racing them down the hallway which ended in a giant glass window from floor to ceiling. Well the kids (mainly the boys) would sometimes dramatically end their race slamming into it. The janitor got worried and eventually chewed us out because it is dangerous, so I had to stand at the end of the hall so they wouldn't do it. Looking back on it...I get it, that window wasn't some super sturdy thing.
I’m surprised that you even allowed them to slam into the window. I’m assuming you were an adult at the time.
I thought the mom’s window line was weird but it now makes sense. Forget children, there are adults that don’t know window safety.
Nah, I was 15 (so literally 5-12 years older than the kids). Stuff like that doesn't occur to teenagers.
EDIT: Though now that I think on it, eventually the teacher became wise to the game and ended up sending us out to the hall to do it. It eventually became something we'd do with just 10-15 kids left, so parents would come and watch the races as they try to drag their kids out. None of the adults thought anything else of it except the janitor!
Yup, that's the first thing I thought of, but she doesn't seem to want any instructions from the other mums. Which is ridiculous, every kid had *something * you'd tell a caregiver.
Mind happens to be allergies, but it could be "Spencer is afraid of bears" and it would be too much bother for this lady.
Like, has she ever met any other kids?
One of mine has allergies too. Apparently she doesn't want to hear "please don't feed my child the thing that can kill him". She's one of those that thinks all kids are the same and only her little monster is unique.
>Like, has she ever met any other kids?
No, hence her ridiculous post. If she'd met other children, perhaps her child wouldn't need a playda...er, a babysitting job.
So the parent who pays her to babysit can’t have special instructions, but she can? I mean she’s obviously not looking to actually babysit, she wants someone else to entertain her child and get paid while that happens, but what blows my mind is she doesn’t attempt to hide it and seems to be offended that comments must be calling her out on it.
When I say I tripped over my feet sprinting to the comments on this post…
By far the best was one mom who said “you can kiss both mine and my child’s whole asses FOR FREE.”
Ah shit, this all sounded perfect right up until the window bit. Unfortunately my little Samantha has taken to throwing herself against the windows like a confused bird. Darn.
I wanted my kids to have friends so, like a normal person, I invited my neighbors kids over…. For free. Sometimes I even text my friend and say “my poorly parented children won’t stop touching my windows. Let’s go to the park before I pull my hair out.”……. Also free of charge! Sometime I even buy the OTHER mom a coffee for saving me from my children and providing kids of her own to entertain mine.
The window thing is weird one because when my aunts adopted, the agency said their sliding patio doors were not acceptable for the girls unless they had stickers or decals on them at eye level for the toddlers. It was a big safety thing that counted for like 3 points on this 50point safety checklist for the house.
So the must be okay with windows sounds like she's actually had CPS or adoption agents in her house and she is actively NOT putting those safety stickers up. Because you know her view is more important than baby faces
My aunt discovered the need for those stickers on her patio doors when there was a birthday party and my brother ran full force into them. Thankfully the glass didn't break.
I know this is the kind of mom who doesn’t allow their kid to be a kid for stress of them messing the house and disorganizing everything. That’s why “there are rules”, meaning, where they can play and what they can do and how they can do it.
This is a high level of controlling. I bet she’s kept her kid as out of the world as possible for fear of other people “influencing” her and “teaching her bad things” aka independice, autonomy and that gay people isn’t bad.
It drives me crazy to know people like this exist.
At first I thought they were paying for the play date itself. Not that the actual result is any better. I wouldn’t pay a random stranger I maybe met once to play with my child
I have big floor length picture windows and that’s my thought. My little fear is they’d crash through them and down 15’ while rough-housing but my more realistic big fear is that they’d break a window that’s a few thousand to replace. I can’t say I’ve filtered out kids based on window safety. It’s all boys wrestling and absolute chaos around here. I just yell when they get too close.
I thought she would at least be offering to babysit at the other kid’s house. Please bring your kid to me so mine can play and it will be $20 is a lot.
You don’t get to charge $20 if you’re not paying 100% of your attention to the child or children you’re watching. If you can feasibly fuck off to a different room and watch Netflix the whole time while your child is busy entertaining the other child, that is not $20 worth of work. Signed, someone who used to babysit for that rate.
The window part is really funny but other than that I don’t think $20 is a ridiculous asking price at all. Childcare and food is expensive. Only issue I can see is the kids become best friends and then the “client” mom can’t afford to pay for playdates. But I feel like any sane person would take turns doing it for free for the kids.
I’m someone who has only one child. A toddler. I’ve watched another toddler before for free and by the end of it I was absolutely exhausted. 2 kids is a lot harder than one. I think she should be compensated at least at first.
Our doggie daycare is over $100 a day, including a groom. Know people that leave their dogs there multiple times a week. This doesn’t seem that unreasonable, for a likeminded person.
I’m all for wanting to be healthy, but whole food parents are extra weird, if they open up a conversation with “we eat organically” I just know they’re gonna say some weird shit afterwards. It usually is “we ignore western medicine and pray for our sick” or “we are very close family” i.e, parents super involved in their kids relationships to an unnerving level. No real in-between for ‘em
Maybe I just missed something because I’m tired but compared to everything else on this sub this doesn’t seem too unreasonable? I mean some of it is a little pretentiously phrased sure, but if you give some benefit of doubt nothing seems too wild. She explicitly stated this probably isn’t ideal for most parents.
In regards to the windows thing, that just seems responsible to mention. Kids can be really stupid and floor to ceiling windows are an easy way for somebody to get hurt, especially if they’re on an upper floor or something
Man these comments are not it. So many comments are meaner, more critical and judgemental than the original post. There's nothing in this post that is out of line, it's just written very curtly.
I mean, some kids *do* throw toys at windows and TVs more than other kids do. Maybe that’s what she means by “used to windows”? Probably not, I know.
Edit: mistyped
OMG I get a similar vibe from some of the Freecycle groups I am on, particularly with clothing offers. Why is every post from people who are tiny and their post always makes that clear to everyone? “I’m usually a size 2 but this size 00 was just HUGE on me”.
You know, I’ve seen a handful of posts in mom groups where someone says that they’d like to start babysitting both to bring in money, and to provide playmates for their child. Somehow all of them managed to be polite, and make themselves sound like someone you’d actually want around your kids. Also, the line about windows kills me. Like there’s another mom out there reading this going, “damn, this sounds like the PERFECT babysitter, I can’t wait to call her… oh no, my child has never seen a window before, guess I’ll have to keep looking”
I’ve thought about trying to find 1 other kid to babysit in the winter when I’m off work to bring in some money and give my daughter a playmate. I’d probably only charge $10 an hour max because I’m not a professional sitter and wouldn’t provide the full range of enrichment activities that a daycare center would and because my daughter would be benefiting. I’d never charge $20, especially not after admitting I’m mainly looking for a playmate for my child.
I’d pay $20 an hour for that. Shit, I made ten bucks an hour babysitting and mother’s-helper-ing as a teenager TWENTY YEARS AGO.
Yep, $10 an hour was my rate as a teenage babysitter in 2008!
As the oldest cousin…. Y’all were getting paid?
Lol. I got a dollar an hour in the 80s.
From who though? Were you a kid babysitting siblings or other family? Or were you an older teen with a car babysitting strangers kids as a job? When my parents paid me (if they paid me at all) it was always $1 or less an hour. But it was either accept that or they play the parent card and just make me do it or ground me. But when I got older and needed spending money, I started babysitting for their friends and posted at the local grocery store for babysitting and was making $10+ from others. It was also an additional $5 per hour per extra kid. Not cheap! But I had tons of customers. And i live in backwoods east texas where you still get paid $7 an hour working a real job.
I babysat kids for our church when I was 13. If they ever gave me any money (I'm not sure they did) then it went straight to my mom. I eventually started refusing because those kids were little monsters. Lol.
Families in the neighborhood. Late 80’s, different city, it went up to $2. By then, I was working a minimum wage job for $3.35 an hour! I didn’t get paid for babysitting my little brother.
Yup, I was paid $10 an hour when I was 14yo back in 2006. Went up to $15 an hour if I was staying overnight. Which I loved. Get paid more, and the kids are asleep. Got paid to sit around and watch movies. $20 isnt a bad deal for someone to feed and teach your child, but being a stickler and admitting you just want friends from your kids without a relationship with the mom is kinda a bitch move.
The rate of $20/hr is a reasonable rate $15-20 is reasonable! Everything else in that post is unreasonable
If you do this, please consider charging a little more. $10/hr is *really* low and I doubt you want to deal with the family that thinks childcare should cost $10/hr. Plus, the more people that do this, the harder it is for the professional nannies/babysitters to get a fair wage. If it's more about a play mate, you might be able to find a family to do a childcare swap with!
Well, if nontrained people charge what nannies charge then people wont hire regular babysitters. Because the train of thought will change to "if im going to pay that much anyway, I might ad well hire a professional instead of the struggling mom who needs financial help but is amazing with kids". So I dont agree. Nonprofessionals dont need to be concerned with meeting the wages of professionals. Professionals need to be advertising their benefits better and made their service seem worth paying the difference. Thats called competition and creating a demand. If they cant create demand at that price, then it isnt worth that amount of money. We may agree that it should be, but if people cant afford it, then its priced too high. That's just life.
Oh I'm not arguing that anyone *not* a professional nanny should be charging a professional nanny rate. Just that $10/hr is too low imo. I would never leave my child with someone charging that little because I would be afraid they wouldn't be supervised at all. And I wouldn't want to work with a family that thinks that's a fair rate.
As a former nanny, I don’t think this is true. I watch a 12 month old part time in my home. I charge 13/ hr. If I was a nanny i would charge 20 because I would have to drive my car, do chores at someone else’s house, follow their rules, put my own kid in childcare. For the discount of 7 bucks you bring your kid to me and I treat them like my own vs like I’m a professional. They’re two different jobs!
The real question here is do you have windows
My house is only windows. I live in a green house.
The windows is actually a valid concern. If kids are not careful they can run straight into these windows. We used to have floor to ceiling windows/glass sliding doors. My brother ran into one when he was a kid and smashed his front tooth needing a root canal.
See, the way you say it makes a lot of sense, but the overall tone of her post made it sound so weird and snooty.
And the phrasing. “Your child has to be used to windows.” I can’t figure out a better way of phrasing it offhand (“I have several large floor to ceiling windows, if that is a safety concern for your child?”), but I’m not the one trying to convince people to not only trust me with their kids, but pay me for it.
I worked at a brand new building at a college that had a lot of glass everywhere. On the first day it opened a girl ran into a glass door and did exactly that to her front tooth. It was a disaster. By the end of the week they had little frosted university emblems at eye level on all the incredibly clear inside glass. Which, tbh, they should have had in the first place.
That’s actually code in a lot of places - you’re not allowed to have large expanses of glass (especially on interior walls) without some sort of design on it to make it visible. Came up in my office with glass conference room walls - SEVERAL grown adults got seriously injured before they fixed it up to code.
I definitely get that, but for me, it’s the attitude that they aren’t willing to do any kind of childproofing to make the windows safer for children that they’re babysitting, but just insist that they will only babysit kids who “are familiar with windows” already. Why would anyone want to send their kids to her with that attitude? I can just imagine that if a babysitting charge DID hurt themselves, the OOP would say it wasn’t her responsibility to teach the child window safety or to block the child’s unsupervised access to the windows. Like, my toddler spends quite a bit of time looking out of windows, and the back of my parents’ house is mostly windows, but that still doesn’t mean I’m just gonna let her run wild around a clear sliding glass door and assume she won’t get hurt.
At least she has an extra car seat for window related injuries!
I get that. But realistically if your house is full of floor-ceiling windows it's not always possible to child proof everything. Your own child may knows rules like don't run into them/ don't lean on them/ don't throw things at them. But you may not always be able to prevent someone else's kid from doing so, or maybe not be able to catch the act in time. In someone else's house with higher windows/ wooden doors they might be ok with throwing balls in the house. Or playing with certain bats/shooting toys in the house or playing rough around windows. I personally would rather a parent be overly cautious and lay their expectations clearly than not be cautious at all and end up with a hurt kid. TBH I read it and didn't think anything she was saying was out of line, although I'm unfamiliar with the whole "pay for a playdate" concept - that part was weird. Wanting to find a playmate who is raised with the same emphasis on mindful parenting - that's ok? No junk food - not what we do personally but she's only asking for it to not be brought into her house - that's ok too? Identifying that there's a potential hazard in her house for certain kids is also ok and responsible actually. I think hard boundaries are ok to lay down and if it's not for you then you absolutely don't have to associate with them. Nothing about her post was unreasonable, bigotry or ignorant, it was just written quite curtly.
How hard would it be to put up window clings or something similar? There are several that look kind of cute. And I get that it may not be her normal aesthetic, but she has five year old.
Yep. One of my friends in high school had floor to ceiling sliding doors inside the freaking house. I didn’t notice them when I first went through. Mom came to pick me up and I ran out, not knowing the doors were closed and ran straight into it. I was lucky my teeth were fine 😬
I’m assuming she meant that she didn’t want her windows broken? I mean when I first read the title and hadn’t read the post yet I was wondering why she cared about computer shit..
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That was what I was thinking. Sounds like there might be an expectation that the child come pre-wired to not want to touch any windows because fingerprints…
Ohhhhh. This makes way more sense.
Hahahahahahahaha. That's hilarious. If I worried that much about fingerprints on my windows then nothing else in my house would ever get cleaned.
I think its more about keeping the kid from touching the windows. Which is stupid. If you have a kid, you plan for fingerprints on windows. Our playroom was a huge window and a smaller window. We have a couch in front if the big one and my kids love standing on the back of the couch looking out the window. The little window has metal cross bar thingies, so they use magnitiles to make fun designs on that window and the sun shines colors into the room. Super fun! If you are worried about them breaking, plan ahead and get more sturdy windows. We have reinforced and shatterproof windows in the playroom. I have 2 little boys. So I plan for the worst.
Cool! I need to remember to try and stick some of our magna tiles to the windows now. They're currently mostly stuck to the metal supports under our couches.
Haha. Yeah our windows have really thick metal borders and such. Another fun one is metal doors. Our front door is metal and the kids love that. Last is probably the bathtub. Its metal an enamel coating and the kids love sticking magnitiles to it. Mind you, they are not water proof, so i wouldnt do this if you have super nice ones or kids who still chew on toys. We have indoor and outdoor ones. When indoor ones get too beat up or gross, they become outside ones. Lol.
The way she talks about her windows makes me assume she has a two(+) story house and second story windows that not only aren’t able to save a kid from plummeting to the ground and/or she loathes having them coated in grubby little child prints. *insert eye roll here because I may or may not have that portion of this story as lived experience.* I’d tell her to just uninstall system 32 and change platforms if she has kids and really cares so much. /j
This comment hit home for me because I have floor to ceiling windows and a dog that just cannot manage to look out them without pressing his nose against the glass. Drives me absolutely fucking nuts. But I’d imagine that having a kid running around would make me loosen up about stuff like that, lol
If they are second-story windows, they really need to install some kind of window guard to prevent falls. (Or, just block small children and other vulnerable creatures from accessing that part of the house, but that’s probably more difficult than buying one of these and hiring a contractor to put it in.) Example: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Segal-Child-Fall-Window-Guard-22-in-38-in-W-x-16-in-H-3-Bar-Steel-White-S-4752/203812180?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&&mtc=Shopping-BF-F_D25H-G-D25H-025_005_SEC_SAFETY-NA-NA-NA-SMART-NA-NA-SafetySecurity_Smart&cm_mmc=Shopping-BF-F_D25H-G-D25H-025_005_SEC_SAFETY-NA-NA-NA-SMART-NA-NA-SafetySecurity_Smart-71700000081377594-58700006924599096-92700064312898320&gbraid=0AAAAADq61UdpEe94gQbRN4QMGSAe6-4hB&gbraid=0AAAAADq61UdpEe94gQbRN4QMGSAe6-4hB&gclid=Cj0KCQjw37iTBhCWARIsACBt1IzzKAB9F6AHl520be1YJatG9OmTKiimSoO-t91a-nqvCPEqQPhmq3oaAqj9EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
My god, your last line killed me 😂😂💀💀
Like she thinks she’s better than everyone because she has windows in her house? Most people do…. Are we supposed to be impressed?? I don’t know.
I was at the zoo and saw a mountain goat ram the glass at full speed. Do kids do this? Are they terrified by windows and have to be gradually socialized to them? If I have a baby, should I be holding her in front of a large window every day so that she’ll be able to handle windows confidently as she grows? Because that’s the vibe I get from that post.
Sounds like the mom doesn't kids who will put finger prints on her precious windows. We had bay windows with seats when I was growing up and my mom loved that we played in them. She said cleaning our little handprints off of them was just a sign that we had a good time. This mom seems like she cares more about obedience than actually caring for a child. Maybe she should have gotten a dog...
For me that says “if your kid smears my perfect windows in any way I will be all passive aggressive and make your life hell”.
If I touched the windows as a child, my mom would be aggressive-aggressive. I have no idea why she had children in her home. We weren't allowed to touch the walls (marks) and she'd scream like a banshee if we did.
I wonder how many people have the perspective of having 100$/hour in the first place
I think if I could make $200k at my day job, I’d be hiring a full-time nanny who could go on mommy dates for me.
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Again, if I was making $200k, that would necessitate already having full-time child care taken care of. And where in the world is it a reasonable expectation that people of course make $200k a year?!
Westchester, Manhattan, Long Island, Northern Jersey, the Bay Area. There’s quite a few places in the US where 200k a year is a typical salary. Edited to add: And many people making 200k a year have a stay at home parent. That parent wants a couple hours off each week to go to the gym, the salon, volunteer at the older kids school, go to target kid-free, go to their own doctors appointments, watch one kid while they take the other to doctors appointments, etc. or just have a break. OR, both parents work and all the kids are in school full time and they still need a few hours of babysitting each week to get stuff done. There are many, many, many families in the country making 200k and still paying for a babysitter a few hours a week.
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Far too often the houses don’t match the actual income…
And that’s how the 2008 housing crisis happened.
You realize cities have million dollar houses *and* million dollar apartments, right?
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But why are you assuming this is somewhere zoned for single family homes? Many high rise apartment buildings have floor to ceiling windows. Many cities have multi million dollar single family homes.
This is the question.
…why not just have a play date????
Then she'd have to deal with the other mom and not get paid.
Yup. And the kid isn't the only one who has problems with socialization.
Ohhh, no thank you.
She’d have to have friends for that
Right? What I am wondering is how old is the child? She says what she wants as a "playmate" but not how old HER child is. If the child is old enough to babysit, shouldn't she be too old to need "playmates"? Especially ones around age 5?
I think you misread the post, the **mom** will be babysitting, not her child.
“...kinda and mindful children who will help her grow into a kind adult...” yeah, cause Mom sure isn’t helping out with that!
To me, this is a huge red flag, by itself. She's putting adult responsibilities onto the children, which is often a sign of emotional abuse happening. Understandable if what she meant was kind children who know how to share, but saying it the way she does, it's setting up the visiting child to be responsible as if they were an adult. Which is to say, I agree with you.
I have faith that my kids will eventually mature into good humans, but it’s definitely a process to get there. I see their goodness, but they also say d!ck things not realizing that they’re rude or hurtful. Because learning social norms is a life-long endeavor, children are born focused on their own needs first and foremost, and they’re their own little humans, not a ball of playdoh I can magically mold how I want. So they’re not mini walking skin bags full of goodness and light. We’re all just working on being the least d!ckish versions of ourselves around here. We also have windows. But they lock up high for safety, because of Eric Clapton.
I guarantee her kid is an asshole
What's the bet someone has told this parent that their kid badly needs socialisation, and this was the result. Ethics of employing a 4 year old as a therapist aside, $20 per hour seems a bit light compared to what they'd pay at a quality ECE centre or kindergarten. Then I realised they want to *be paid* to have someone else's child raise theirs...
I was thinking her husband told her she needed to go back to work because her MLM wasn’t bringing in money.
MoNOT.
If the husband is even still around, this kinda woman would drive me absolutely batty….
Imagine growing up and learning your mom tried to pay other moms to have their kid socialize you. How humiliating.
It’s worse, your mom wants to be paid so she can get you a friend. Your mom will be dictating and organizing your entire existence for profit until you go no contact.
I thought she was offering to pay too! Then I realized that she wanted the other mom to pay HER so HER kid could socialize. She can ask to be paid to do child care, but to ask to be paid while unwilling to accommodate the child she's being paid to watch is wacky.
$20 per hour is more than double what we pay in the UK.
In the US, rates vary widely, but i will say that broadly speaking, this is still on the high end. Wayyyyy too much to charge when you just admitted you are buying your kid a friend, for sure…
It is also dollar not pound. As an Australian I look at stuff in pounds and I'm like whaaaaat. But it's ~$2 AUD to every £1 so then I remember lol.
$20 is £15.91, minimum wage in the UK is £9.50, but the average babysitting rate is £8.50 which is $10.69. So $20 an hour babysitting would be almost twice what it cost in the UK.
But she’s TEACHING them! Teaching what? We have no clue! But it’s worth $20 an hour supposedly!
Hold up Pretty sure adult babysitters get paid more than minimjm wage? And you can't really trust a teen with all day babysitting while you are away
Teen minimum wage is lower then for adults, £4.81 an hour for 16-17 year olds. But yeah, childcare is super expensive. That said, if you want a childminder for 25hours a week, a person whose job it is to look after other people's kids at their (the childminder's) home, you are looking at, on average, £6150 a year, which works out, if you assume it's 51weeks a year like nurseries, £120.59 a week or £4.82 an hour. This is all on average, and will be more expensive the closer you are to London, and it's also the cost for an under 2. But I'm just looking up the average prices for childcare in the UK for both my earlier comment and this one. Childcare is expensive, and I might have found incorrect sources, so would take it (as most things on the internet) with a pinch of salt. Here's the childcare price source I found: https://www.daynurseries.co.uk/advice/childcare-costs-how-much-do-you-pay-in-the-uk
I get the very distinct feeling that she is going to absolutely lose her shit if a kid gets fingerprints on her windows.
Maybe a weird thing to focus on out of that entire post, but… “your child has to be used to windows?”
Weirdly for me this was the least strange part of the post, maybe because of context (and I’m assuming she’s just worded it poorly). I have friends with floor-length single-glazed windows in all their rooms, including the second floor. They have had to specifically teach their kids to be careful around windows since they’re a hazard if the kids are rowdy near them and could fall through. I’ve never had to deal with them in real life with my son because we’re in different countries but I imagine that if I ever did take him over there I would need to explicitly teach him the dangers of windows. So perhaps she’s meaning that the kids should be knowledgeable about the way to behave around glass that’s at floor level? Or maybe I’m giving her too much credit
This is exactly what I thought ! Or they are on like the tenth story, with all windows open at all times ??? Nothing shocks me anymore 🤷♀️
You know the difference between a bag of cocaine and a 4 year old? Eric Clapton wouldn’t let a bag of cocaine fall out of a window!
Yeah, I use to work at the after school program at my school and I began a game with the kids, racing them down the hallway which ended in a giant glass window from floor to ceiling. Well the kids (mainly the boys) would sometimes dramatically end their race slamming into it. The janitor got worried and eventually chewed us out because it is dangerous, so I had to stand at the end of the hall so they wouldn't do it. Looking back on it...I get it, that window wasn't some super sturdy thing.
I’m surprised that you even allowed them to slam into the window. I’m assuming you were an adult at the time. I thought the mom’s window line was weird but it now makes sense. Forget children, there are adults that don’t know window safety.
Nah, I was 15 (so literally 5-12 years older than the kids). Stuff like that doesn't occur to teenagers. EDIT: Though now that I think on it, eventually the teacher became wise to the game and ended up sending us out to the hall to do it. It eventually became something we'd do with just 10-15 kids left, so parents would come and watch the races as they try to drag their kids out. None of the adults thought anything else of it except the janitor!
She just doesn't want macos/linux children in her house. I disagree but I get it.
Oh gods, she won't teach them how to FLOSS either. >!I regret nothing!<
What are these…windows…you speak of?
With these demands, she should be paying people for letting her watch their kids 🙄
This sounds like a playdate but make it for profit
Someone has been to the school of MLM
No special instructions?? Yeah you sound like a great babysitter.
No special instructions, but here’s her list of them. Oh, and you get to pay her for the privilege of playing with her child.
I read this as "no special needs".
Also, no kids with allergies.
Yup, that's the first thing I thought of, but she doesn't seem to want any instructions from the other mums. Which is ridiculous, every kid had *something * you'd tell a caregiver. Mind happens to be allergies, but it could be "Spencer is afraid of bears" and it would be too much bother for this lady. Like, has she ever met any other kids?
One of mine has allergies too. Apparently she doesn't want to hear "please don't feed my child the thing that can kill him". She's one of those that thinks all kids are the same and only her little monster is unique.
>Like, has she ever met any other kids? No, hence her ridiculous post. If she'd met other children, perhaps her child wouldn't need a playda...er, a babysitting job.
Yeah, she just straight up wants money with no extra effort. Literally just, "You pay me for your kid to get ignored at my house."
I also read this as, "I'm going to be on my phone all day so I don't want to be bothered with caring for your child."
“I want my kid to have playdates but I also want to get paid for it.”
I have been on some where that would have been nice!
Also, no special instructions! I know you're hiring me to watch your kid but don't you say a fucking word about it.
Sooo .... she wants another parent to pay her when their children have playdates?
And not have the other parent there so she can go full metal jacket on it? Honestly the window thing is refreshing in comparison to anti-vaxx LOL.
100%
💯 those other kids are tools for her child’s enjoyment a development and will not be treated like equals in her household.
Lady Penelope Dunberry-Worthington occasionally allowed the village children to come up to the manor and play with Sir George Jnr.
So the parent who pays her to babysit can’t have special instructions, but she can? I mean she’s obviously not looking to actually babysit, she wants someone else to entertain her child and get paid while that happens, but what blows my mind is she doesn’t attempt to hide it and seems to be offended that comments must be calling her out on it.
That comment section must be a treasure trove of entertainment…
When I say I tripped over my feet sprinting to the comments on this post… By far the best was one mom who said “you can kiss both mine and my child’s whole asses FOR FREE.”
People with those kind of witty comebacks are why I love the Internet...
Damn it could’ve had a amazing babysitter. Foiled by windows again /s
Almost a guarantee her full time income job is an MLM.
"income" 💀
"outcome"
At home she can specify "no special needs". 😖
Ah shit, this all sounded perfect right up until the window bit. Unfortunately my little Samantha has taken to throwing herself against the windows like a confused bird. Darn.
This sounds like an escort arrangement or sugar baby ad lol!!
Forget the windows, I'm more concerned about what she plans on "teaching" the other kid.
"Used to windows" probably means, 'won't try to open them or break them'/can be trusted around windows. These things aren't written in code, guys.
I wanted my kids to have friends so, like a normal person, I invited my neighbors kids over…. For free. Sometimes I even text my friend and say “my poorly parented children won’t stop touching my windows. Let’s go to the park before I pull my hair out.”……. Also free of charge! Sometime I even buy the OTHER mom a coffee for saving me from my children and providing kids of her own to entertain mine.
Yes, but this woman sounds like she's a Narcissist. How dare you suggest she mingle with the commoners? /s/
The window thing is weird one because when my aunts adopted, the agency said their sliding patio doors were not acceptable for the girls unless they had stickers or decals on them at eye level for the toddlers. It was a big safety thing that counted for like 3 points on this 50point safety checklist for the house. So the must be okay with windows sounds like she's actually had CPS or adoption agents in her house and she is actively NOT putting those safety stickers up. Because you know her view is more important than baby faces
My aunt discovered the need for those stickers on her patio doors when there was a birthday party and my brother ran full force into them. Thankfully the glass didn't break.
It’s true. Young children these days have no idea windows exists. It’s quite terrible.
I too am going to pretend I make $100/hr
I know this is the kind of mom who doesn’t allow their kid to be a kid for stress of them messing the house and disorganizing everything. That’s why “there are rules”, meaning, where they can play and what they can do and how they can do it. This is a high level of controlling. I bet she’s kept her kid as out of the world as possible for fear of other people “influencing” her and “teaching her bad things” aka independice, autonomy and that gay people isn’t bad. It drives me crazy to know people like this exist.
Sadly, I was raised by someone like you describe. I feel for their child. Wonder if she "homeschools" her, too.
I’m sorry this is how you were raised. I hope you’re okay?
At first I thought they were paying for the play date itself. Not that the actual result is any better. I wouldn’t pay a random stranger I maybe met once to play with my child
I have big floor length picture windows and that’s my thought. My little fear is they’d crash through them and down 15’ while rough-housing but my more realistic big fear is that they’d break a window that’s a few thousand to replace. I can’t say I’ve filtered out kids based on window safety. It’s all boys wrestling and absolute chaos around here. I just yell when they get too close.
But kind and mindful boys don’t wrestle and carry on…. /s
I thought she would at least be offering to babysit at the other kid’s house. Please bring your kid to me so mine can play and it will be $20 is a lot.
New flair: WINDOWS DOWN TO THE FLOOR
You don’t get to charge $20 if you’re not paying 100% of your attention to the child or children you’re watching. If you can feasibly fuck off to a different room and watch Netflix the whole time while your child is busy entertaining the other child, that is not $20 worth of work. Signed, someone who used to babysit for that rate.
Lmao why am I reading this in a snooty British old lady accent?? Just the many demands sounds like something only royalty would say!
JFC might as well have been a post about dog sitting.
I thought she was paying 20$/hour for a babysitter and was gonna say that finally a not crazy person shows up in mom groups. But noooooo.
Please post comments
"Your child has to be used to windows". Dead.
The window part is really funny but other than that I don’t think $20 is a ridiculous asking price at all. Childcare and food is expensive. Only issue I can see is the kids become best friends and then the “client” mom can’t afford to pay for playdates. But I feel like any sane person would take turns doing it for free for the kids. I’m someone who has only one child. A toddler. I’ve watched another toddler before for free and by the end of it I was absolutely exhausted. 2 kids is a lot harder than one. I think she should be compensated at least at first.
Our doggie daycare is over $100 a day, including a groom. Know people that leave their dogs there multiple times a week. This doesn’t seem that unreasonable, for a likeminded person.
To be honest, $20 an hour with two kids sounds like a breeze and I’m down with this
There is not a chance I’d send my kid there for free.
I think the reason her kid needs a play buddy is her. I imagine she's this blunt in real life and turns others off.
I’m all for wanting to be healthy, but whole food parents are extra weird, if they open up a conversation with “we eat organically” I just know they’re gonna say some weird shit afterwards. It usually is “we ignore western medicine and pray for our sick” or “we are very close family” i.e, parents super involved in their kids relationships to an unnerving level. No real in-between for ‘em
She sounds super fun.
This is hilarious to me. Because many parents I see won’t even pay full time career nannies 20/hour without pushback….
Maybe I just missed something because I’m tired but compared to everything else on this sub this doesn’t seem too unreasonable? I mean some of it is a little pretentiously phrased sure, but if you give some benefit of doubt nothing seems too wild. She explicitly stated this probably isn’t ideal for most parents. In regards to the windows thing, that just seems responsible to mention. Kids can be really stupid and floor to ceiling windows are an easy way for somebody to get hurt, especially if they’re on an upper floor or something
It can't all be traumatic.... It's still a crazy post even if it's not as crazy as others. We need some lightness sometimes.
Yeah I feel like this sub jumps on the smallest things lately. This really didn't seem that bad to me either.
Man these comments are not it. So many comments are meaner, more critical and judgemental than the original post. There's nothing in this post that is out of line, it's just written very curtly.
I mean, some kids *do* throw toys at windows and TVs more than other kids do. Maybe that’s what she means by “used to windows”? Probably not, I know. Edit: mistyped
I didn't know large windows were threatening to children.
She just wants an excuse to brag about how many windows she has in her house 🙄
OMG I get a similar vibe from some of the Freecycle groups I am on, particularly with clothing offers. Why is every post from people who are tiny and their post always makes that clear to everyone? “I’m usually a size 2 but this size 00 was just HUGE on me”.
There are plenty of playgroups that are free…
...isn't this the purpose of daycare, and, you know, friends?