Parents: If you cancel a pre-arranged babysitting gig, do you still pay your babysitter?

No. It’s never occurred to me to do that.

No, but it would be nice to get paid for doing nothing I guess.

The only time we have a babysitter is during the summer for about 2 days per week, for about 5–6 hours. We cancelled a day last summer at the last moment so we could all go to the beach. We did end up paying the babysitter. We had demanded that she take the schedule seriously and had to be here when we needed her. It was only fair that we do the same.

Sounds like a union gig.

In the building trades unions (in the US), the contracts generally spell out payment terms for “show-up time” of two hours paid at straight time rates for when workers show up (on time) for a scheduled day of work, which is cancelled before the start of work due to unforeseen conditions (normally weather, but it could be anything: failure of scheduled material to show up to be worked on, other contract work not yet ready, owner not ready for work to begin, etc.). That’s paid in the week’s normal paycheck as long as the worker shows up on time, and if he is prevented from working at the opening bell. If he picks up tools at his normal start time and begins any work, then the contracts state that he is due at least a half-day’s wage (again, straight time pay only). (This doesn’t apply if the employer decides at the end of “today”, for example that “we won’t be needing you tomorrow, so don’t come in to work”. Improved weather forecasting is saving employers a fair amount of money in this way now.)

It’s not a bad thing to have terms like this, and I like @hominid‘s attitude about it: If you make a demand on the employee to “show up on time and ready for work”, then it is only right to have conditions on you as the employer, too, to reward that in some way when you cancel. Plus it helps to ensure that the employee won’t decide on his own that “there’s not going to be any work for me today, so I might as well stay at home.” Weather forecasts aren’t 100% reliable!

Back when this question applied to us, it wasn’t the reason for cancellation that mattered. It was the amount of inconvenience forced upon the sitter which determined the amount of compensation. If you set up a session 2 days in advance, but call your sitter 20 minutes later and cancel, it seems to me that you’re justified in feeling little or no obligation. On the other hand, if you cancel 20 minutes before the appointed time, I think you are ethically required to pony up compensation for the disruption to your sitter’s schedule.

When I was hiring sitters (neighborhood teen-aged girls, mostly) I pretty much did the same as @stanleybmanly . If it was a last minute cancellation, I would pay the sitter, if there was enough notice for the sitter to maybe get another job, no. I would try to offer an alternative date, though, because keeping the sitters happy is an important factor, you want them to come back.

Well, it depends on if the person babysits for a living, I think. When I think of “babysitters” I think of teenagers who live at home.

We almost never need babysitters, so I haven’t thought much about it.

For those who say “pay the babysitter when you cancel on her” what would be an amount to pay? $20? 6 hours of work? How would you calculate what’s an amount she should get?

Fortunately for me, other than the full time babysitter I used to use when my daughter was toddler age, I’ve never had to use a babysitter for nights or weekends because my parents have been very helpful. The whole “do you pay or do you not” is not something I’ve ever had to deal with so I’ve never thought about the issue.

@jca: “For those who say “pay the babysitter when you cancel on her” what would be an amount to pay? $20? 6 hours of work? How would you calculate what’s an amount she should get?”

$17/hr x 6 hours = $102.

17$ an hour? Can I babysit at your house @hominid ??? Nobody pays close to that in our neck of the woods. Heck, I’ll be a live-in nanny for you if I can take my kid with me.

@hominid: What I’m asking is how do you determine how many hours she would have been working?

In the area I live in, they get $15 for two kids. Not sure what they get for one. The only reason I know the rate for two is that I have a good friend who has twins, and she mentioned $15 for the twins.

@jca: “What I’m asking is how do you determine how many hours she would have been working?”

We work out the exact schedule of days/hours we need coverage before we hire the babysitter. Then we have her review the schedule prior to accepting the job. We’ve done this for the past 3 summers, and it’s worked out great. When we decided, at the last minute, to ditch work and all head to the beach, it was on a day she had been scheduled to cover 6 hours.

@keobooks – $17/hr is the going rate around here for 2–3 kids. My daughter was 11 last summer, but is very old for her age. We really just needed someone to keep the boys (5 and 8) alive.

@hominid: Oh ok gotcha. You’re talking for a babysitter who does a regular schedule. Yes, I can see that. I used to pay my babysitter the same amount if my daughter was sick or something where we didn’t use her for the day. I was thinking of a job in which a parent asked the babysitter if she were free Saturday night because the parent(s) had to go to dinner, wedding, etc. Then if the parents cancel, would they pay, and if so, how much/how do they determine what would be sufficient?

Thank you for chiming in. I was curious to hear your answers because I’d been discussing this with a friend. We are both tutors, and we both get paid when our students don’t appear, unless the lesson’s been cancelled the day before. Everyone expects to do this, and all the parents have offered without prompting. I consider this fair, because at such short notice (same day), I’d be unable to find another job to do, and I depend on these lessons. I wouldn’t take money if one of the children was sick or in any other “emergencies”.

We’ve been wondering why this seems to be established for tutors, but not with babysitters. Some good points raised here, though!

I don’t think you can compare a professional job with an occasional baby sitter unless she’s an actual daycare provider who makes a living watching kinds.

^ Not sure I understand – you’re saying “tutoring” is a professional’s job, more so than babysitting?

No, I’m saying when I think of “babysitting,” I think of the occasional teenager who might actually be glad the job got cancelled because they really wanted to go out on Saturday night. I wouldn’t pay them, unless there was a compelling reason.

Providing daycare, however, is a profession, as is tutoring. Both of those jobs have a certain income expectation, so they should be paid anyway, even if someone cancels on them.

Often the “occasional teenager” (are they in their thirties the rest of the time?) is saving the money for school, this is their job, and they deserve consideration of same.

I get that some feel the occasional babysitter should possibly get paid if you cancel on her, and the “regular” day care type of babysitter should get paid if you cancel on her. The day care type of babysitter would be easy to calculate, because she works a set amount per day and so you know what you’d be giving her to make that up. However, the “occasional” babysitter, how would you determined what would be an amount you should owe her? Let’s say you’were going to go out on a Saturday night and you may have used her four hours or six hours or maybe eight hours. You might have come home at 10 pm or as late as 2 a.m. How would you figure out what to give her if you cancel on her?

@jca : What I would do, if it was a very last minute cancellation, would be to pay the teenager for two hours. It might not have been as much as an entire evening out would be, but it was done as a goodwill gesture more than anything else.

@canidmajor Yes, I specified I wouldn’t expect to pay a teenage babysitter for a cancelled event “unless there was a compelling reason.”

When, as a teenager, I was baby sitting, I just did so for pocket money that I didn’t really need.

Also, by “occasional teenager,” I mean I occasionally hired a teenager to watch the kids for a few hours. Their father had them every other week end, until he moved away, so most of the time I would schedule events for when he had them. Must you be so snarky all the time?

Must you be so humorless all the time? It was a joke. Lighten up.

I don’t need babysitter services anymore, but in the past I’ve used other professional practice as a model. Many medical offices will bill you for a no-show, or a cancellation within a particular time frame.

If it’s an unavoidable last-minute cancellation I would certainly pay for the expected time. If it’s more than 24 hours out, I would not pay.