Where have all the babysitters gone???

It’s hard to get good help…

Why is it nearly impossible to find someone to watch my kids.  They are good kids, they are potty trained, and they are really sweet…well most of the time.

Having school-aged children brings all kinds of fun new things to deal with, but my least favorite is finding someone to babysit my kids.  When kids are babies or toddlers, you find a daycare and they go every day and you may have to miss a day or two for sickness or weather, but you know they are there.  Once kids get into school, there are all of these days off and early releases and breaks that you have to account for, not to mention sick days and eLearning days.  This makes it incredibly hard for parents who work full time.  What are you supposed to do with your kid when they get out at 1:15pm on a random Wednesday?  Or when your kid says they are sick and the school wants you to pick them up even though they aren’t really sick?  I guess the most logical answer is that the parents take turns missing time at work to handle these situations.  But what if the parents cannot take turns or it is a single parent family?

For example, my husband works at a hospital and is in surgery most of the day.  If the school were to call, he would be unable to take that call and thus I would get the call to come get the kiddo.  I am sure most parents have to deal with occurrences with their employer, but in healthcare these days, you cannot really call off of work, or you get written up.  Most healthcare workers don’t have much PTO either because they are having to use it to go home early when there is no work to do.  Sometimes Jim can stay home with a sick kid if he lets them know the night before, but he could never really leave work for a sick kid.  My job is way more flexible, which is good because I can pick up the slack, but I can’t miss work all the time.

I guess the next logical answer would be to use family or friends, but that may not be an available option for parents either.  All of my close friends work full-time as well or live far away and are unable to babysit the kids at the drop of a hat or even on scheduled breaks.  What about family?  My parents are retired and help when they can, but they are doing all kinds of retired people fun and truthfully, they have already raised kids.  The only time I remember my grandparents watching me was when my little brother was born and I spent the night at my grandparents’ house.  They didn’t live super close and it just wasn’t a thing we did.

This leaves us with hiring someone to babysit our kids.  As most parents know, it is hard to find someone you feel comfortable stepping into your role and taking care of your kids.  You want someone you can trust, who is dependable and affordable.  You want someone the kids enjoy that provides a stimulating environment.  But where is this magic person?  Since we lost the only daycare we had ever known when both kids were in school, I began the search for someone to take their place.  It was definitely hard shoes to fill since we loved our first daycare like family.  They loved our kids and were so dependable and trustworthy and super affordable.  Last year, I put an ad in the school’s weekly newsletter looking for a teen or maybe a stay-at-home mom that could watch the kids on breaks.  I got 2 responses.  One was a single mother who worked at a school, so she had most of the breaks off.  We used her last summer for the kids, and it was perfect because her kids were the same ages and sexes as our kids, so they got along awesome.  She also took them places and did lots of fun activities with them to keep them from becoming screen zombies.  The other was a mom of a teen at the local high school that said her daughter could watch the kids too.  I was able to use her a couple of times, but she is in high school and very involved in sports, so she did not have a ton of availability.  Last summer worked out so well that I was excited for the kids to have found a new spot, but we then found out the babysitter and her kids were moving over 45 minutes away, which would not be ideal for babysitting.  So that left us back at square one. 

The first break is Fall break, and I was able to take PTO for that to look after the kids.  We had fun and did a bunch of fall activities with friends.  But I still need someone for winter, spring and summer breaks and the random days off during the year.  I was searching for a teen who would be available for date nights and possibly breaks to watch the kids.  I reached out via social media to my friends and mom’s groups and I guess teen girls don’t babysit anymore.  No one responded to my plea for help.  That is how I made my money back in the day, I was always babysitting.  So, my next thought was the internet.  I went to Care.com to find a babysitter.  You have to pay like $40 monthly to have access to their site and be able to message with the potential prospects.  I posted my “job” and had several responses.  Half of the applicants did not respond to my messages after they applied for the job.  A couple ended up being unavailable for the specific times I needed.  Another few, I honestly did not care for their profiles, and the last applicant went as far as to schedule a zoom with me and cancelled 11 minutes before the meeting.  I want to mention that all of these people state that their rate is $25 an hour and up.  That means if I hire them to watch my kids for the week of Spring Break, it would be $25 hour x 8 hours x 5 days = $1,000 for a week!  And that doesn’t even include my 2^nd kid!  That is a huge sum of money!  How are people affording childcare!  I have looked at some other sites, but I am as equally unimpressed with them as I was with Care.com.  Having said that, I am still paying $40 monthly to find a good sitter.

So as Christmas break approaches, I still need someone to watch my kiddos for 2 weeks and I have no leads.  What’s a mom to do?