For many parents, finding a babysitter can be a real challenge. Not only can trusting someone else to watch your kiddos while you’re not at home be extremely nerve-wracking, but also paying for child care can also be costly. One mom on TikTok has sparked a debate about how much parents should pay teen babysitters.
In her video, Alissa Haroush, a mom of three, explained why she thinks teen babysitters are expecting a “ridiculous” amount of money for their labor.
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She explained that her teen daughter just landed her first babysitting job.
One day, Alissa’s daughter told her that she was going to start babysitting for the first time. What she said next caught Alissa by surprise. Alissa’s teen daughter said, “I think I’m gonna charge $20.”
To Alissa, this hourly rate seemed ‘outrageous’ for several reasons.
“I said, ‘Wait, let’s break this down for a second,'” Alissa explained in her video. “You’re not even legal to work. You don’t have a college degree. You don’t even have a high school degree.”
Additionally, Alissa’s daughter doesn’t have a driver’s license, which means the parents of the child she’s babysitting have to pick her up first. The mom also noted that her daughter has no prior babysitting experience and no CPR certificate.
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‘It’s unskilled labor,’ the mom declared.
@alefbetofficial What the rate of babysitters charging today is outrageous!! I am so guilty and this is crazy!! What are you paying? 😱 #smallbusinessowner #babysittertiktok #handmodel #momof3 ♬ if you ask me to – charli d'amelio
Alissa’s teen daughter explained that she planned on charging $20 simply because it’s the going rate. Later in the video, Alissa blamed parents for teenagers’ entitlement and said she is also “so guilty.” “What are we doing to our kids?” she asked. “Please help. And parents: $20 for babysitting?”
Some people disagreed with the mom.
Several people had an issue with the mom calling babysitting “unskilled labor.”
“I’m sorry you don’t value the people who KEEP YOUR CHILDREN ALIVE,” one person wrote.
Responding to another commenter who called out the mom’s use of the term “unskilled labor,” Alissa seemed to suggest that she was simply talking about teen babysitters. She wrote, “a 15 year old is skilled labor?”
One person didn’t see anything wrong with the way parents are raising their kids. “We are showing them to value themselves & not be used by other adults,” the commenter wrote.
The average rate for babysitters varies by state.
In 2024, the national average was $23.61 per hour for babysitters watching one kid, according to UrbanSitter. On a popular Reddit thread, Redditors also discussed the going rate for teen babysitters.
“I saw some people posting that they should be getting paid $30+ an hour for two kids – which I could see in a utopia, but here that’s more than most jobs pay period,” the original poster wrote.
Opinions on the topic varied, but many parents said they paid their babysitters $15 to $30 per hour. “I’d pay $25-30 for 2 kids,” one person wrote. “We plan on basically $100 in babysitting at least for a nice date night.”
