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rayskit10
member
Would you hire a nanny that only wanted $7/hr?
rayskit10
member
I really feel that childcare is kind of one of those you-get-what-you-pay-for things. Clearly, their are reasonable options to be found and costing more doesn't always mean a person or facility is better, but I would think that someone in charge of the most precious thing in my world should not be bargain basement.
WDYT? Has anyone ever worked with someone who was excellent and the lowest end of the payscale?
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Re: Would you hire a nanny that only wanted $7/hr?
I asked the teacher I really like at MDO if she sits.. She said yes.. asked her what she charges and I was suprised how low.. I think she just doesn't know what the "going rate" is.. I will use her, but I will pay her a little more. I see it as a win win situation..
A good friend hired a sitter that is older with a degree in Child Developement. When she went to pay her for the night the lady gave her 1/2 her money back and told her that she paid her too much... She loves kids and isn't doing it for the $$.. Needless to say she's on the top of their list...
this is what I was just telling handsome. child care is expensive and we should be looking at the experience level and what learning styles each teacher has - not cost.
he is so wrapped up in cost it's begining to get to me. the other night after driving home from walmart and seeing a dad BEAT his two kids for playing in the isles - i started bawling. i can't see why child care has to be so inexpensive to him - why do we have to go with the lowest price? shouldn't we go with the best choice?
needless to say he had a handful when i got home - a crying pregnant wife. not fun for him. it was hard to explain why I was so sad.
I just did the math for our daycare (when we actually need one) and essentially they are about $5-6 an hour so for $7 an hour and undivided attention I would say that is fine.
but it's not the going rate for the more experienced ones. a nanny is different than a day care system that has a specific teaching style - like montessori.
just my opinion.
a sitter is different, though. like the MDO teacher does that for her normal job and supplements with sitting. i mean a nanny or full time care provider...
If the nanny was ideal in every other way, I would be okay with the salary of $7/hr. That being said, the nannies that we preferred were not on the lower end of the pay scale.
One said that she would take whatever we paid her, she just needed a job since she had been out of work for over 6 months....ummm....next!
So Tasty, So Yummy
I hate the argument that you shouldn't worry about saving money with childcare. ?Obviously you shouldn't sacrifice quality to save a buck but to me low cost does not always equal bad care. ?Maybe I'm just defensive of my lower cost daycare provider. ?
?I am absolutely thrilled with the level of care Orion receives during the day. ?I believe we were truly lucky to have found our daycare provider. ?I think her hourly rate works out to about $4 an hour and that includes breakfast, lunch, and snacks she provides. ?Granted it's a little different from a nanny as her attention is divided among 4 kids right now but that is still really cheap. ?I don't think any provider should be automatically ruled out due to low price.?
If someone undervalues herself/himself, it could be a bargain. I see good work ethics and bad work ethics all along the pay scale.
I think it is in your favor to pay a fair wage. Otherwise, you could introduce stress and frustrations into your primary care providers life. That could be harmful to your offspring.
At the lower end especially, you should think about the stress of the struggle before being cheap in your childcare.
Even a little bit can make a huge difference, we noticed, when we explored less expensive options recently (and with his tuition the next most expensive is still steep). We found nothing grossly wrong with alternative daycares, but we did see some of the things we're paying for.
For example, even the next tier staffs differently. DH's teachers do not change the diapers or clean up barf or accidents or potty train or pepare lunches; there is a second set of staff, called housekeepers, who do those thing. So, the teachers are there to interact with his group all day. That significantly impacts the oversight they receive.
Just something we never thought about until we started looking at what we were paying for a little more closely.
When Eloise's last MDO shut down with less than a week's notice, the teachers offered to keep some of the kids at one of their houses - they said they'd charge what the day rate was for the MDO - $30. They were just thinking about it from a different perspective and charging what the school would have charged. I actually ended up paying the teacher more because I didn't want her to make less than minimum wage for the 2 weeks they kept Eloise.
If your nanny has been working at a daycare and making minimum wage for watching 4+ kids, getting a small raise to watch only one or two probably sounds good.
If your gut tells you that this is a good person, I would hire them and probably offer them $8/hr with a promise to discuss a raise in a few months or after #2 arrives.