The Babysitter

We've used babysitters from time to time to watch our kids. Generally, the sitters we get are good and we would use them again. But that was until recently.

This last week, we had a couple of concerts planned; meaning that we would be out later than if we just went to dinner and a movie. So, we decided to use a sitter that we hadn't before. This girl, we'll call her J, was home for the summer from her freshman year at college. She was looking to make a little money in the summer and we needed someone more mature who could be out later.

To be short, I was disappointed. Sure she was nice enough to the kids, but that was the extent of it. First, she thought that she should be paid nearly double what we pay our 'regular' sitters. I have a hard time paying our sitters what they ask anyway as our kids go to sleep between 7 and 7:30, so most of the time they are asleep while we are gone. So, J wanted a lot more than we pay our sitters. Then we come to find that she just had them watch television until bed time and then read a book. Oh, and did I mention that we had already fed them dinner by the time J got here and laid out all their bed clothes? We paid J to put our kids in front of the TV, and then sit on her butt and eat our food for a couple of hours until we got home.

I have been pleased with most of our sitters. Usually they will play with the kids and some even clean up a little once the kids are down. But this time around I was not impressed. Older and more 'mature' does not equal better.