Should a babysitter get paid when the person she babysits for takes vacation time?

If you’re working, you should be paid for it. Vice versa applies.

There’s 12 days in a week?
My god.

If I understand correctly, you’re saying that the parents of the child you babysit are going on vacation for a week – right? So during that week, you won’t be watching the child… Correct?

If that’s the case and I’m right about what I think you’re saying, no, you shouldn’t be paid if you’re not going to be watching the child for that week. You’re paid for babysitting. If you’re not actually babysitting, why would they pay you?

If this is not the way you want to do business, you should have it all spelled out. If you want advance notice of when you won’t be watching the child, write it out. If no notice, you should get paid. If you want paid while they take a vacation, write it out. In short, you need a contract with all the specifics of what you expect written out and signed by both parties. That way, no one is confused or disappointed or without pay. As it stands right now, you are at their mercy. That is really not fair to you.

Unless you established the policy of being paid even when the family is on vacation when you started babysitting, you cannot insist on being paid when you are not actually babysitting the child.

It is true that established day cares do often have an agreement that requires that parents pay x amount per week whether the child is actually present or not. However, in these cases, generally the fee goes to both cover the unavoidable expenses of running the day care whether your child is there or not, as well as a way to save your child’s “space.” Electric bills come regardless of how many children are being sat, and if your child isn’t there someone else’s child can be.

In your case, because your husbands are friends, because you don’t sit any other children, and because you didn’t have a pre-existing agreement that they would pay even when the child isn’t there, you would be very unwise to insist on payment while the family is on vacation.

The next time you decide to babysit, it would be best to have all the terms and conditions written out and signed by all involved, with copies to both you and the parents.

Thank you chyna. I am not being greedy.  Just frustrated. Then I have friends that sit and they say they get paid whether or not. I am new to this. I guess we do need to sit down and have a chat.

Yes Darwin it doesn’t help that our husbands are best friends. Seems like I get walked over because of it.

If you hit this person up for money for not doing work that never had a specific contract associated with it, you risk damaging the friendship over a relatively small amount of money.
It’s not worth the risk here.
They might be having hard times with money too.

I don;t get it ?? 12 days in a week?

I think you should be paid. The fact that they are going on vacation is not your fault. If the child was at a daycare center, they would be paying whether or not the child was there in order to hold their spot. If you’re a good sport about them changing days around, then especially they should pay you. If you were to take a job and could not sit, they would be in a tough spot.

Workers who are paid hourly or under the table hardly ever get paid for vacations. If they paid you an annual salary, getting paid when they go on vacation would make sense, but you would get paid the same no matter how many hours you worked. Maybe you can talk to them about doing this if you think this would be better for you. Otherwise, all kinds of hourly workers deal with this, whether they work in retail, food, administrative jobs or whatever. In most of these jobs, the only way to get the same schedule every time is to stick around for a long time, so the employer thinks of you first when they make the schedule.

You should have a talk with these people about letting you know their plans farther in advance. If they did that, you’d have a chance to make a budget for stuff like this in advance, and maybe the $75 wouldn’t be such a blow.

If you want your husbands to remain friends I wouldn’t try to change the deal about payment now. However, you might be justified in talking to them about needing to know the schedule in advance.

Of course not. You are not a salaried employee. You work when there is work to be done. If the “employer” doesn’t have a job for you to do, the employer has absolutely no reason to pay you.

btw, legally, you’re not an employee at all. You are, at best, an “independent contractor”.

sounds like baby-sitters need a union, so you can get paid for NOT working.

Actually, if you do any regular babysitting you may find yourself needed to be licensed by the state.

No, sorry. I’ve been a nanny, which was off the books…you don’t get benefits like paid time off when you work like that. Just a small price to pay, in my opinion, for getting paid under the table. It’s only a week.

This is the reason why a written contract UP FRONT is important. It is so much easier to set the ground rules before than it is to try to negotiate them in the middle of the game.

Most part time jobs do not offer any form of vacation. You also are subject to lay-offs and termination and or schedule changes at last minute just like any other job. In the perfect world sure you’d get paid but really, no. Sorry. I feel and understand your frustration however you should just roll with it or find another job.

See this thread for more opinions on your question, @Mygirl1202

You wouldn’t get paid by me. And, I never got paid when any family I worked for took a vacation

@Mygirl1202 – you wrote
3/12 days a week
That made it look somewhat like 12 days a week, I guess; it seems like a leap of faith to me. Anyway, if you put the slash mark thus:
3½ days a week
it might not be accurate, but it might, and there wouldn’t be any accidental 12.

You should establish a cancellation policy. This policy would specify the amount of notice they need to give you—not your husband, but you—if they do not require your regularly scheduled services. If they do not cancel in time, they should pay you some amount (perhaps half). If they do cancel in time, they should not. It should probably be 24 or 48 hours. I think the most trouble you’ll have is that the husband might think it is okay to pass the message through your husband—you need to be clear that you are not your husband and that if they wish to cancel your services, they must speak to you.

read the link @SpatzieLover provided. i had this dilemma and asked the question a few weeks ago. i was asking in reference to the occasional holiday that would keep the baby home with me. i got some interesting answers – most on the side of not paying the babysitter when she does not babysit.