Part II: Hiring a babysitter for my own kids has been such a different experience. First, it's at *least* $15/hour, and I would always go out of my way to make things easy for the babysitter (i.e. absolutely no expectation of doing bathtime, etc.) The expectations just feel so different than when I was babysitting. I would never have lef…
Part II: Hiring a babysitter for my own kids has been such a different experience. First, it's at *least* $15/hour, and I would always go out of my way to make things easy for the babysitter (i.e. absolutely no expectation of doing bathtime, etc.) The expectations just feel so different than when I was babysitting. I would never have left dirty dishes in the sink, or show up empty handed (not a single babysitter I ever hired showed up with arts and crafts activities, or anything like the "kid kits" I *always* took babysitting).
What's been really interesting to me, though, is experiencing hiring babysitters in another country. My family moved to the Netherlands last year and the babysitting experience here is so much more like it was when I was babysitting in the 90s! You can easily hire a neighborhood teen, they bike or walk over to your house, and paying 6-8 euro is the norm, even 4-6 euro if it was a really young teen or a "mother's helper" situation. (A fellow American here even had their neighbors tell them to stop paying higher rates for babysitters because they were driving the prices up!) To be clear, this is for casual, occasional babysitting with teens. If you hired a nanny and/or someone for longer, steadier hours and/or with an education degree you would expect to pay more. Still, it's made hiring babysitters SUCH a different experience for us. We can actually afford to go out sometimes now and it seems like the teens are just happy to be able to make some money, like I was as a teen (that is to say: I don't feel like we're exploiting them by underpaying -- 8 euro/hour is more than a teen would make at other jobs). Plus it's been great for our kids to get the language exposure of having a local babysitter. All in all, it's really very refreshing!
Part II: Hiring a babysitter for my own kids has been such a different experience. First, it's at *least* $15/hour, and I would always go out of my way to make things easy for the babysitter (i.e. absolutely no expectation of doing bathtime, etc.) The expectations just feel so different than when I was babysitting. I would never have left dirty dishes in the sink, or show up empty handed (not a single babysitter I ever hired showed up with arts and crafts activities, or anything like the "kid kits" I *always* took babysitting).
What's been really interesting to me, though, is experiencing hiring babysitters in another country. My family moved to the Netherlands last year and the babysitting experience here is so much more like it was when I was babysitting in the 90s! You can easily hire a neighborhood teen, they bike or walk over to your house, and paying 6-8 euro is the norm, even 4-6 euro if it was a really young teen or a "mother's helper" situation. (A fellow American here even had their neighbors tell them to stop paying higher rates for babysitters because they were driving the prices up!) To be clear, this is for casual, occasional babysitting with teens. If you hired a nanny and/or someone for longer, steadier hours and/or with an education degree you would expect to pay more. Still, it's made hiring babysitters SUCH a different experience for us. We can actually afford to go out sometimes now and it seems like the teens are just happy to be able to make some money, like I was as a teen (that is to say: I don't feel like we're exploiting them by underpaying -- 8 euro/hour is more than a teen would make at other jobs). Plus it's been great for our kids to get the language exposure of having a local babysitter. All in all, it's really very refreshing!
I looked it up (to make sure I wasn't spreading misinformation about teen wages*). In the NL these are the minimum wages for teens:
19 years €7.96
18 years €6.64
17 years €5.24
16 years €4.58
15 years €3.98
So, if you're 14 or 15, getting €8/hour IS a pretty good gig.
(source: https://www.government.nl/topics/minimum-wage/minimum-wage-amounts-as-of-2024) *[why yes, I *am* an academic reference librarian, why do you ask? ;) ]