Confessions From a Babysitter

Now that I’m a parent myself, I feel obliged to confess the secrets us babysitters have kept from you, date night after date night. Here are the top 10 things your sitter wishes you knew…

1. We love it if you remind us to “make ourselves at home” and “help ourselves to whatever we want in the fridge.” But truth be told, we are going to do that once you’re gone anyway.

2. Your kid is not the saint you think she is. And he’s not the Tasmanian devil you think he is either. We’ve seen it all!

3. It’s awkward when you have us come early while you’re still home. I get it now. You want the kids to get used to us or you want time to get ready in peace. But it’s weird, even though we’ll say it’s cool.

4. We will follow your bedtime routine and notes to a tee – But remind us of them! Because special as your “Snowflake” is, we babysit for multiple families and it’s hard to remember who needs the purple sippy cup and who needs the turtle nightlight to fall asleep.

5. We notice when you are twenty minutes late, but don’t pay us for the extra time. We also notice when you are twenty minutes late, but pay us for the whole extra hour.

6. We like when you thank us for doing the dishes and tidying up after the kids, even though we consider it part of our unofficial job.

7. Cash. Pay in cash. And don’t ever say, “We’ll get you next time.” It may not be much to you, but that money was our share of the electric and gas bill.

8. Whether your kid is sleeping or not, we charge the same hourly rate. You’re paying for our expertise in case of an emergency and our heart in case of a middle-of-the-night crying fit. We have to be at your house and not our own, regardless of whether your kids are snoozing or not, so why should our pay be negotiable?

9. You canceling on us is almost as stressful as us cancelling on you. Did you know we turned down Coldplay tickets to work? Okay, we didn’t. But we could’ve had cool plans nonetheless.

10. We can tell when you come home tipsy. We know you fight with your spouse. We’ve seen you lose an argument with your toddler. Don’t try to hide any of it because we make no judgements – We save those for your in-laws.