Mom of 2 offers to babysit her friend's kids full time, only to have her friend tell her she needs to cut down her paycheck to half: 'I would have never agreed to this'

Author image for Giuliana Tiscioni
Giuliana Tiscioni • Writer
Sep 16, 2026 1:00 PM EDT

Being a babysitter full-time is a full-time job like any other, and it should be paid accordingly. Childcare is already hard enough and dismissed enough. We don't need more people diminishing the amount of work it takes to be in charge of small children. 

Two friends got into an awkward situation about this. One of them offered to take care of her friend's 2 children, similar in age to her own kids, all under 5 years old, while their mother worked. She got paid $100 per day, being the part-time job that it was. The friend switched jobs and needed her to take care of her children full-time, but instead of maintaining that rate, she wanted to cut it in half because she couldn't afford it. Double the work for half the salary. Under any other circumstances, that would be one heck of a lawsuit and something HR can't allow. But since this wasn't in a corporate environment, there's not much that could be done. The friend insisted that she couldn't pay her the usual rate, that she was getting back on her feet, and that she had bills to pay. Newsflash, your friend, who willingly babysits your two toddlers, also has two children of her own and bills to pay. The friend was trying to get her to accept less than minimum wage for a full-time job that is also extremely demanding. 

The thing here is, anyone can get through a rough patch and needs help to get back on their feet. But there's a difference between needing help and taking advantage of your friends' time and resources. Just because her friend doesn't have an office job doesn't mean that she doesn't work. Childcare and motherhood are full-time occupations, and society looks down upon them as they are. She's basically telling her friend that her time and work are less valuable than hers, that her work is not worth being paid, and the worst part is that they're both mothers. Society will never change if the work of mothers keeps being diminished. She may have financial issues as we all do, but if she can't afford to pay her friend a respectable salary, she should consider other options. 

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  • I agreed to watch my friend’s kids full time and now I’m realizing I’ve overextended myself

    Hi! Please bear with me as I've realized how long this is going to be based on what I have written in my drafts. I'm trying to get some outside perspective because this involves a friend. I want to make sure I'm being fair to her without also undervaluing my own time. I
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  • recently started watching her kids full time, ages 3 and 1, in addition to caring for my own, who are 4 and 1. The problem is, as the title suggests, I'm realizing that I've overextended myself
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  • Cheezburger Image 10664134144
    via Kateryna Hliznitsova For Unsplash+

    The friend coming in to babysit her friends' children. 

    Not actual story subjects.

  • and that I've severely underestimated what committing to that much childcare would actually mean. I genuinely thought I could make it work. I adore her kids and I find this work incredibly rewarding. This
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  • is also why I am second guessing my own feelings of not being appreciated enough by my friend and not being paid fairly for my time and effort. Let's get into this.
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  • She was paying me $100/day originally to watch her kids every once in a while. Then, when news came about that she needed to transition to full time work and needed me to watch her kids full time as well, we had a conversation
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  • about potentially lowering the flat rate if she ended up taking a job outside her usual field, because she might be making less money. The understanding at the time was that we'd revisit the rate once she actually had a job and we knew what
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  • the schedule/logistics looked like. We never actually finalized a new rate. No one followed up and I mistakenly assumed the original $100/day was still what we were working with, especially since she ended up getting a job in her usual field.
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  • www.ELJDxpp.pozzARS 100 STATES TES OF AMERICA Dec LDD SHYFIOG BRACTIO DOB SEHAWLS ORNE 87787 NCHED STATES JY LL 34795266P 100 83 D CALLIED STEER OF 100 2043 00
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    Salary.

    Representative only.

  • We got into another conversation maybe weeks after I've already gotten into watching her kids full time. It turns out there was a huge misunderstanding and she thought I agreed to a $50/day
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  • arrangement that I truly don't remember agreeing to. I would have never agreed to this, as I felt like $100 a day alone was already stretching myself thin. So now we're having to reconstruct what we actually discussed. She told me she
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  • thought we agreed on a $500/biweekly setup. I'm here saying $500 a week because when you break it down by the hour (6:30am-5:30pm so 11 hours/day on average) that's $9/hour for 2 kids.
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  • Way below our state's minimum wage. Minimum wage here is $12.77/hr, but again, I wasn't sure what would be fair and reasonable between the both of us as I am just a friend doing her a favor.
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  • This entire ordeal has made me realize how slippery this whole thing can become when you're mixing friendship + money. She keeps telling me about all of the bills she has to pay and how her entire paycheck basically goes to me. I
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  • understand that she is under a lot of financial pressure and I don't want to make her situation harder. But that's not fair to me to frame it in such a way that the burden is on me to bridge that gap for her. It's just such a difficult spot to be
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  • in. I felt I was already pushing my own limits as far as I could to help. I've even told her not to worry if she can't pay me immediately because I trust her and know she just started working full time again. I wanted to give her the flexibility
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  • to get back on her feet first. I wasn't keeping track of whether she was paying me on time/l never pressed her for payment, so it wasn't until we had that conversation that I discovered she
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  • thought the arrangement was $500/biweekly. Considering all of this, I'm feeling quite burnt out and resentful. I just don't feel appreciated enough. But I think my ultimate question here is, am I being reasonable? What is a fair rate to you in this case?
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  • I am still wondering where she got the impression that I agreed to $50/day. I know for certain she just wouldn't make that up. I trust her, and I know she trusts me. It's odd how this all came about.
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  • Cheezburger Image 10664136192
    via Nini FromParis For Unsplash+

    The two women talking about the fixed rate and payments. 

    Picture does not depict real parties.

  • And do you think I'm right to step back from the full time arrangement altogether, even though I initially said I could do it? I feel so defeated because I offered to help and truly thought I could make it work. I'm realizing that I was wrong about what I could realistically
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  • take on. The pay misunderstanding made it all worse. I would absolutely be willing to continue watching her kids full time until she finds a new daycare provider. I'm not going to just abandon her all of a sudden. I'm still here. And I'd still be happy to babysit occasionally on a "just
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  • ask" basis, a random Saturday, an occasional weekday, etc. In the end, I told her we could do $8/hr as a compromise. And that this is retroactive. So the previous weeks where I was counting on
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  • $500 a week, has turned into $400 as a flat rate. And moving forward, I need to keep track of the actual hours to make sure $8/hr is being implemented.
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