I spent last year adjusting to life as a work-at-home mom and I realize now that much of the stress was because I was trying to do two jobs simultaneously: parenting my kids to the best of my abilities and meeting all my clients needs at the drop of a hat. My day consequently looked like this:
6:45 a.m. Make breakfast for the kids.
6:50 a.m. Reply to a client email.
6:51 a.m. Get the kids some more orange juice.
6:55 a.m. Begin to prepare an invoice for a client.
6:57 a.m. Clean up the spilled milk currently dripping off the table.
I was doing a whole heck of a lot but I wasn’t really going anywhere. I could have used some babysitting help but was too stubborn to admit it. I am still too stubborn to admit it. If you’ll indulge me today, I’m going to write a whole post full of excuses. I figure if I write them down and really analyze them, I can figure out what my problem is and I can get past it. Let’s see where I went wrong:
1. I don’t really trust anyone with my kids. You hear so much about teachers abusing kids or coaches taking showers with the kids and it all makes you paranoid. I’d like to think I’m a good judge of character and I could stop anything at the first sign of abuse, but to me, that’s too late. I don’t even want the “warning signs” around my kids.
2. I always think to myself, “Do I really need the help?” Of course, the answer is yes (more help than you need is always better than less help than you need). But somehow, some way, I convince myself that my current system is fine, I have a husband, I can manage…and then seven different major events happen on the same day and I find myself cursing the fact that I don’t have someone I can call and say, “Can you stay with the kids from 3-5 on Tuesday?”
3. I don’t really trust anyone around my husband. This one is so sad. Really? Like, am I that insecure that I won’t allow a relatively young woman come in, watch my kids and alleviate some of the load on my shoulders if that means she has to interact with my husband? It’s not that I think my husband is a babysitter magnet and they won’t be able to resist (he is pretty hot, though). It’s just…I’m a woman and as the woman of the house…I don’t know. Let’s come back to this one.
4. I don’t want to spend the money. I’ve searched the profiles on Sittercity or Care.com I don’t know how many times. The ones that I really like (tons of experience and glowing references, proficient in CPR and first aid, nursing or education students) always have the highest rates, which is understandable. They know they are in demand and that’s great. But as a freelancer, the income has its ebbs and flows. Some months I’m making a ton of money, other months it’s tumbleweeds rolling through my bank account. I find it hard to add another expense to the budget.
5. My kids have a lot of…quirks. And needs. And I guess the right babysitter can handle all that, but I guess deep down I like being the only person who knows how to warm up my daughter’s homemade eczema oil and how to rub it into the trouble spots (see also #1). I know my kids are high maintenance (they.need.attention.all.day.long) and I’d hate to have someone lose their patience with them. (Never mind that I do lose mine all the time.)
6. I honestly can’t decide if I want an older or a younger babysitter for my kids. I lean toward an older woman, because in my stereotypical mind she’d be the warm, grandmotherly type (I know my mom ain’t having that). Then I figure a younger childless woman would be cool because she’d have a lot of energy. But then I’d think, “We’re practically the same age. What does she really know about kids?”
My excuses are plentiful as you can see. So let’s talk, mamas. How many of you have a regular babysitter?
I totally get all of your reasons (excuses) for not hiring a babysitter except for #3 because I’m not married. Last year I had a full-time job and then took on a part-time teaching job. I had to make sure my son got picked up from tutorials and the other one from daycare. I.was.TIRED. Do you know I still haven’t gotten a babysitter? I desperately need one for times when I have a meeting after working hours or on those days when I want to have a night on the town. It’s just good to have one on standby for minor emergencies. How do we get past our fears and get the self-help we need?
My issues are partly #1 and #4. #1 I think I’m the BEST person to take care of my son. Which caused me issues when I went out of town and left him and my husband to their own devices. LOL #4 After paying for the babysitter and whatever was planned for the day there won’t be a lot left. I honestly wish I had a group of friends with kids his age so we could babysit for each other.
I have my mom as my babysitter. It has its pros and cons. A pro is I trust my mom completely with my daughter and my daughter is crazy about my mom. A con is that when my mom is sick and can’t handle my daughter i have to call out of work. My daughter used to have a daycare teacher who picked her up from school and dropped her off home in the evenings. I was thinking about trying to find another place like that to make it less of a stress on my mom who now has to pick up my daughter. Although i pay my mom’s fare to go pick up my daughter, I feel guiilty about asking her to pick her up and babysit her until i get home from work. On days when I’d like to go out for a little while, I feel doubly guilty even though my mom says she’s ok about babysitting. So at those times I come home from hanging out early. I’m so grateful to my mom for watching Amani for me.
I think just like anything else in the world, you just have to take the first step and go for it! I was extremely scared and even got offended when someone told me to look for a babysitter online. Find someone to watch my precious baby boy off of the internet?! I was fuming… until I got beyond desperate and decided to check out Sittercity.com. My interview process was NO JOKE! You would have thought I was trying to hire someone to work for the secret service. It had at least 3 different stages to go through before I hired someone!
The rest is pretty much history. Jaedyn and me took to Amy almost instantly, and if she didn’t have a big girl job and live so far away now, I’d do anything to still have her with us on the regular. Though she doesn’t babysit for us anymore, we were still able to maintain that closeness and become good friends. Maybe it was easier for me because I didn’t have an adequate support system and I KNOW something had to give at a certain point.
If finances permitted, I would definitely go back on there. #6 would be my issue though, because although he is high energy and someone young would be able to keep up with him, I would also like someone older, that he could have a grandmotherly bond with on a more regular basis.
It’s worth it though. That $9 bucks an hour (though I paid her $10) went a loooooong way down the road. In my “ad” I stated I didn’t just want any ole infrequent babysitter, I wanted someone who would eventually become like family, and that’s just what I found in Auntie Amy
I’m a freelancer too and I’ve done the math in my head. If I get 5 hours of help each week from a babysitter, I can make more than twice what I’m paying her. So I’m searching…
If we get a babysitter, she would quit the next day. I am too critical and damn perfectionist, no one would be able to keep the job.
I don’t have a regular babysitter but I have entertained the thought of getting one so that I can attend more events.
I didn’t have to hire a sitter for my kids but they are in daycare. The challenge of finding a child care provider whether it’s at a facility or in your.home is a challenge. I am very particular with the way my kids are cared for and had to realize no one would care for them better then I can. In the beginning I would sporadically pop up and see how things were going. Now that my children are getting older, I realize that they have different personalities so I have to make sure their schools are compatible with them. The school they are at now is fantastic & I’m glad they are fitting right in.
I always assume no one can handle my kids. Then, I get frustrated, like, “why are my kids so out of control?” type of frustration, that stems from nothing but my doubt.
When I have occasionally let anyone watch them, I’ve heard nothing but reports on what angels they were.