Grandmother Says She'll Only Babysit Her Grandchild If Her Daughter Pays Her $12 An Hour

Dec 14, 2021 by apost team

When it comes to raising children, it's safe to say that every parent needs a little help at some point or another. Most parents don't stay home with their kids all day every day and typically require some type of care worker to look after them. This could either be a family member, a friend or a professional babysitting business.

One woman went to Reddit in November 2020 to express some issues she was having with her daughter, and asked Redditors for their advice. Her 29-year-old daughter had a 1-year-old son, and was in the process of getting ready to go back to work full time. The parents of the husband were able to watch the baby for a couple of days out of the week, so the daughter asked her mother if she would be willing to watch her son for the remaining two or three days.

The woman was more than willing to watch her grandchild, but only if she was getting paid $12 an hour. However, her daughter insisted that the price was too high for her, and she reasoned that she could instead pay the woman $10 an hour. This didn't bode well with the woman, as she expected to be paid well for her time, especially since she had her own work to do and would need to cut back on that in order to watch her grandson.

Since then, the woman had remained persistent that she is not a daycare center, and wanted to be compensated for her time and effort in the dollar amount that she believed she deserved.

Their Financial Disagreement

In her Reddit post, the original poster (OP) explained how her daughter works five days a week for about seven or eight hours a day. She needed someone to watch her son for two or three of those days, so she reached out to her mother. 

"Of course I am open to spending time with my grandson, but I explained to her that I would like a payment of $12/hour," OP said. "She understood my need for payment but then lowballed me with requesting $10/hour because she claims that she cannot afford it even with her $22/hour job."

This didn't go over well with OP, and she expressed her frustrations with her daughter. She continued, "I'm not a daycare, I have my own life, I work for myself and I think she should understand that I'd be giving up my time when I work from home, and if I'm going to be giving up that time then I need money to replace that time I'm giving up from my job."

OP explained that she couldn't work and watch her grandchild at the same time, but her daughter reasoned that there were some nice benefits to watching the baby as opposed to spending that time working. "She says that it's only two to three a week since her husband's parents are babysitting on the other two to three remainnig days while she works, and she'd be providing food," OP said. "I love my grandson, but as I stated above, I'm not a daycare."

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Redditors Chime In

Redditors were not happy with OP's attitude and demands and told her that she was being unreasonable. One user commented, "You're the a******. Not for asking to be paid. After all, 24 hours a week is basically a part time job on top of your actual job. You should get paid. No. You're TA for trying to screw your daughter out of two-thirds of her paycheck." 

Another user agreed, saying, "Dude, just say you don't want to babysit. You're asking for over two-thirds of the money she's making pre-tax. Obviously she can't afford that." A third user added, "You wanna charge your daughter more than half of what she makes to watch your grandson? If you don't wanna do it just say no and let her find someone else."

Another Redditor believed that OP had actually asked for more money but edited her post to make her look better. The user said, "YTA mostly for editing your post to say $12 instead of $15 to make it seem like you didn't ask your daughter for over two-thirds of her hourly wage (which I'm guessing is before tax, something you wouldn't have to worry about from cash in hand babysitting). You're well within your right to be paid or say no but on moral grounds, you clearly don't care about her very much if that's the approach you took." The other post has since been deleted.

Even though people deserve to be paid for their time and effort, it was evident that Redditors felt like this woman was asking for way too much money from her daughter, who clearly just needed a helping hand.

Do you agree or disagree with this woman and the amount she wanted to be paid to babysit her grandchild? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your loved ones, too.