The right sitter

Stuffing those neatly folded bills into your purse after a long night of baby-sitting used to accompany feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment. After all, back then you worked hard to earn that $3 an hour. Today, a baby sitter might make five times as much.

That has been the case for MU senior Kate Millington, one of many baby sitters in high demand for their high-quality service.

At such a rate, they might even be able to afford that $7 Starbucks latte.

Baby sitters today tend to earn from $8 to $15 an hour, up from the typical rate of $3 an hour in the early ’90s. The increase may be partially due to inflation, but it’s also due to greater parental awareness and caution. Parents on the hunt for qualified, trustworthy sitters are willing to pay top dollar.

Corie Taylor, mother of a 2-year-old girl, uses one baby sitter on a regular basis and pays $8 an hour. That will increase to $10 an hour once her second child is born.

That increase seems to indicate that the number of kids contributes to cost. But baby-sitting cost is based primarily on responsibility, not the number of kids. For example, a family with three 10-year-olds may not pay as much as a family like the Taylors with two children under the age of 3.

Making a match

Before they wrestle over pay, parents must focus on finding a sitter.

Taylor found Emily Mundwiller, 20, through her involvement in Mothers of Preschoolers, an international support network of mothers of preschool-age children. Mundwiller has a 2-year-old sister and can relate to quieting a crabby toddler.

Mundwiller often tells Taylor stories about her sister and describes similarities and differences between the two children.

“I think (Taylor) pays me what she does because she knows I’m responsible. She trusts me,” Mundwiller said.

Taylor’s main concern is her daughter’s safety. If her parents lived in town, she said, finding a trustworthy baby sitter would not be an issue because she’d have them baby-sit. “I know my family background,” Taylor said. “Even if you think you have this wonderful sitter, there may be something beneath the surface you just don’t know about.”

Taylor has made a habit of hiring only sitters she knows. She made the decision after an interview

with a potential sitter who had been referred by a friend.

“The girl lacked a warm, nurturing personality,” Taylor said. “I could tell she wasn’t focused on my daughter at all — I had a bad feeling about her.”

Unlike Taylor, Angie Cochran, mother of three children whose ages range from 22 months to 11 years, asks her extended family to watch her kids when she and her husband are craving an evening out.

“A lot of couples like to live close to family when they start having children, if possible,” Cochran said. “It’s just a matter of convenience, and the trust is there. That’s key.”

Before her family served as her only source of child care, Cochran needed only one bad experience to turn her away from ever hiring sitters. After her first child was born, she interviewed a baby sitter. “My gut told me not to do it — something wasn’t right,” Cochran said. Her feeling was right on; about a year later, the woman was arrested.

Hunt for the right match

Alice Sterling Honig — professor emerita of child development at Syracuse University and frequent contributor to Parent and Child magazine — encourages questions. In-depth interviews and personal observation are necessary for parents to get a sense of the baby sitter as a caring human being. She said parents should remember that doing a little snooping around isn’t rude­­­­ — it is necessary.

“Assessment is key,” Honig said. She suggests staging a dry run to assess a sitter’s energy and interest before employing her.

“Evaluate whether or not they know how to be with little kids,” she said. “Do their eyes light up when they stand in the doorway and see your little ones? Ask how many children they’ve cared for or what kinds of stories they like to read to a toddler,” Honig said.

To evaluate a baby sitter’s ability, “what-would-you-do-if” questions are helpful.

“If she’s never heard of Dr. Seuss and is asking questions like ‘Do you have popcorn and a DVD player?’ you may want to reconsider.”

Intuition about trustworthiness is not measured just by what you discover in an interview.

A one-on-one interview will tell you if a sitter knows her stuff about the Heimlich maneuver or CPR. Knowledge of safety precautions may be important to parents, but many will pay their sitters well solely because they click with the kids. For these parents, a dependable sitter is a trustworthy one and is worth the money.

Kelsie Shearrer, a junior at Rock Bridge High School, is a sought-after baby sitter. She doesn’t baby-sit just for the dough — she enjoys it.

“I like to hang out with the kids,” Shearrer said. “Sometimes they can be a little crazy, but we usually have a lot of fun together.”

Lynn Milyo, one of Shearrer’s employers, said her active involvement with the children combined with her dependability have contributed to their trusting relationship.

“She’s always on time, always follows our instructions — the kids tell us so — and she interacts with them,” Milyo said. “She doesn’t just sit around inside with them all the time watching TV. They have a lot of fun with her.”

Shearrer is satisfied with her usual $7 an hour. She uses her earnings along with wages from her job at Andy’s Frozen Custard for college savings and car insurance, as well as spending money.

Committed to the children

Jeanna Hehl, a senior at MU, gained her clients’ trust by showing them how much she loves to be with their kids. She sits three to four times a week for several families. She earns around $8 an hour watching one child and $10 to $15 an hour for multiple children. Baby-sitting is Hehl’s only source of income.

“As a busy college student with tests and other commitments that can pop up at any time, baby-sitting allows for more flexibility with my schedule than other jobs would,” Hehl said. “Plus I love being with the kids. I feel like I’m making a difference in their lives by building relationships with them.”

Hehl has been offered baby-sitting jobs that pay just above minimum wage. She turned them down. The market allows her to choose her clients. “A job that pays $6 an hour for three kids is not worth my time,” Hehl said. “I mean that’s a lot of responsibility, and I have better offers.”

Many potential sitters get better offers. When someone works as a waitress, for example, tips can really add up. Hehl makes around $200 for 20 hours in one week of baby- sitting, while a waitress who works the same number of hours per week is making about $320— approximately $2.13 an hour plus tips but prior to income tax. Millington, 18, is paid between $6 and $10 an hour. She said she baby-sits because it’s not hard labor. “Plus, I get paid better than many minimum-wage paying jobs,” she said. “And there couldn’t be a more fun job – I mean I’m getting paid to play with kids!”

Making sure kids are happy and have a positive experience is another reason parents are willing to pay their sitters well. “More parents are wanting the absolute best for their kids these days,” Phyllis Jarman said. “Years ago parents didn’t have as deep a desire for their kids to be successful in life as they do now.”

Jarman, 58, founded and owns Building Blocks Child Care on East Lexington Circle. She said parents’ concern for their children’s well-being is the reason.

Honig said that the interaction between baby sitter and child is worth almost any price. She said sitters, in a way, are surrogate parents. They play a significant role in leading by example throughout the first decade of a child’s life.

“A sitter’s child-care talent and sensitivity to a child’s needs is an inherent gift, and it’s worth every penny.”