What to pay?

Childcare Babysitters
1

Please help me to settle an argument.....

This past weekend I arranged for a sitter to come to my home and watch my kids and my brother's kids. The sitter is a friend of the family and drove 2 hours to get here. My kids are 6 and 20 months and my brother has 23 month old twins. Our sitter watched the kids for 12 hours on Saturday. When it came time to pay her, my brother and his girlfriend FREAKED out! (This is the first time that they have had to PAY a sitter). I suggested that we each give her $100. That comes out to $3.00 an hour, per child, and $50.00 for gas. I thought that we were getting away rather cheaply! I don't at all feel like my suggestion was too high, if anything, I think we got a deal!!!!

What would you have paid the sitter?

2

I guess I would freak out too if someone told me to hand over 100 dollars for babysitting if I was not expecting to hand over that amount of money. 12 hours is a long time for a babysitter to watch 4 young children and driving 2 hours is a big deal I understand that. But if they were not expecting to have to pay that amount before hand (you discussed this and set up a price before the children were left with anyone) then I can imagine they would have freaked.. For many people cannot just come up with 100 dollars just like that without a little forewarning. I am sure they would have arranged something cheaper if they would have known ahead of time.