Stepdad Wants His Teenage Stepdaughter To Watch His 2 Young Kids Full Time For Only $125 A Week — 'It's 9 And A Half Hours A Day'
It’s unfair for parents to take advantage of their eldest kids.
pixelshot / Canva Pro Teenagers are often forced to babysit for their younger siblings for either a cheap rate or nothing at all, despite the extreme mental, emotional, and psychological toll the job takes on them.
Babysitting kids is a significantly intense workload, as kids can be difficult to manage, and many parents take advantage of their older teens to do the job.
One teenager took to Reddit asking for advice after realizing the severely underpaid job she agreed to.
In the r/babysitting forum, she explained that she’s 19, and she lives with her 40-year-old mom and stepdad. Her stepdad asked if she would be able to take care of his two kids, who are 7 and 9 years old, for 9 and a half hours a day for two weeks during the summer.
“I love them, but they are not calm kids,” she wrote candidly. “They constantly bicker, refuse to listen, and run off when outside (we live in the city, so this is dangerous and exhausting).”
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Her stepdad additionally requested she plan activities for them and that they maintain a screen time limit of 1-2 hours a day.
“I accepted since he said he would pay me $250 for each week, which would make a total of $500,” she explained. “Since I never had a job, I was excited to do this.”
However, when she confirmed the price with him, she discovered that he would only be paying her $250 total, at only $125 per week. Translation: that's working seven days a week for about 66 and a half hours, making under $2 an hour, a drastically underpriced wage for the amount of work she’d be required to do.
She was understandably disappointed, and she contemplated canceling their agreement entirely, as no sane babysitter would ever agree to do a job for such little pay.
Reddit users argued her stepdad is ‘lowballing’ her and she should either demand more money or refuse to help.
Several Reddit users were shocked by the stepdad’s misleading and insufficient rate, regardless of the teen’s age, as many babysitters usually are teenagers and still get paid decent wages.
It’s quite common for parents to place parenting responsibilities on their older kids without offering equitable compensation. In fact, many parents expect their oldest kids to look after their younger siblings without paying them at all, claiming it’s their responsibility as the eldest, and Reddit users raised awareness of this largely unfair issue.
“That’s an insanely low amount,” one person commented in the thread. “I would say you misunderstood about the amount and back out. He is trying to lowball you on purpose because you’re young and won’t say anything. That’s like making $2.50 an hour if you are only working 5 days a week.”
“I pay my 16-year-old neighbor $15 an hour for one well-behaved kid, and that’s cheap,” a parent pointed out.
“I have 2 kiddos, special needs, they need closer supervision, but nothing crazy extra,” another parent shared. “I pay $15 per hour per child.”
Regardless of the teen’s familial relationship with her stepsiblings, it does not validate her stepdad’s audacious decision to take advantage of her labor by paying her significantly less than the workload that will be required.
The teen should most definitely recognize her worth and request more money.
She was smart to resort to Reddit where others could offer their perspective on the matter, as her parents are evidently trying to manipulate her into believing she’ll be paid a respectable amount because of her lack of work experience.
In reality, if she refused to help, they would either have to offer her more or hire a babysitter for an even higher price, so she has the advantage here.
At the end of the day, babysitting is babysitting, whether it’s for your siblings or someone else’s kids. If anything, it can be more challenging to gain control over your own siblings as they rarely take their older siblings seriously, whereas other kids might be more manageable under an outside individual’s influence.
Parents should always consider a reasonable hourly rate for each of their kids when hiring babysitters, regardless of whether they’re family or not.
Francesca Duarte is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team based in Orlando, FL. She covers lifestyle, human-interest, adventure, and spirituality topics.