A journal entry addressing my thoughts on babysitting
Journal Entry of Rebekah Long summer 2004Mr. Pulliam's Writing Class
August 07, 2004 EARLY Saturday morning
The reason for my having said early with such exclamation is that it is now 12:12 am, and therefore almost as early as a person could possibly write.
I was wondering about the injustice done to the average employed babysitter, nanny, child care giver what have you. Considering that when one excepts a position of responsibly of a child one is stating, regardless of ones knowledge of this statement, that oneself is in the position of total authority, and protection of that little person. Therefore if a dreadful occurrence happened, to the child, and you had the option of allowing yourself to watch the child to die or to throw yourself in its place to almost certain separation of soul and body, it would be your duty, your job to lay your life down. These people who have such responsibility are some of the most under paid citizens of America.
Some time I would like to sit down with the parent of the littler person I am babysitting for and ask why some serious questions. Such as: how important is this child to you? What is she/he worth to you? Do you realize that when you leave this house, I am in totally responsibility of this child and I am required to put my life on the line if such circumstances present themselves? Do you also realize that this is your calling, to be a parent and in a since by leaving momentarily you are shifting this job onto me? If ANYTHING happens to your baby while you are gone I am the one to blame, good or bad. Then at the end of the conversation I would deep into their eyes and say: 'don't you think I deserve more then 5 or 6 dollars an hour?'
I do understand that people have their budget and therefore they can't possibly afford to pay a babysitter as much as they might like. Although when you get down to it there is really no price you can put on your baby's life therefore when you pay someone fore watching her, it is really hypocritical. In the best sense of course.
I also understand that there is such as thing as supply and demand. Quite honestly there are a lot people that are supposedly qualified to watch ones children then, therefore we don't charge as much because the more you charge the less business you get, when one is in the babysitting world. I just wanted to share my opinion on this subject and hopefully get people thinking more about this topic which is not often discussed.
posted by Becca @ 12:35 AM
7 Comments:
Yeah, you have to remember supply and demand. It's like an airplane pilot: huge responsibility for hundreds of people, but there are enough pilots that they don't get paid tons of money.
I never thought of it that way. But not everyone can afford paying $30/hour(or whatever the suggested cost) for babysitting! My family would have had to give up a lot of things if they paid that much for babysitting when I was little. Or they wouldn't even have gone out ever; but I can't possibly imagine how stressed out my parents would be without time alone and away from us. So now, as a babysitter myself, I will follow the laws of supply and demand and the needs of my neighbors and stick with $5/hour.
As for the airline pilots thing: Fly with the airline that pays their pilots the MOST! (No disgruntled pilots there) :)
I don't know if my parents ever paid for a babysitter. They almost never went out; when they did, they asked someone from church or an elderly neighbor.
Amen to the pilot thing. Except 747 pilots get around 100,000 a year. Still, they are responsible for a lot more lives than the regional piolts who can expect only half that much at most.
The thing about baby sitting is that their is a ton of competition. If you ask to be paid 5 bucks a hour they Mom/Dad could easily find someone to do it for 3 or 4. Their are just a lot of baby sisters out their so the pay is going to be low and it won't get higher unless all of the baby sister in America got together and formed a union to get higher pay. lol
not a bad idea.
Post a Comment
<< Home