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So I'm curious why people assume that SAHMs will provide free childcare? I know a "few" who babysit for extra money, but don't know any who babysit for free. Also, I stopped babysitting when I was in college.
The people doing the assuming are probably working mothers, who may have an image of SAHMs as people who lie around eating bon-bons and watching soap operas all day, while they (the working moms) slave away in Cubicle-ville. Obviously, that's not reality; but some working moms may genuinely be so clueless as to assume that it is.
Seems to me that this is easy to handle. You could give one of two answers:
If you were open to the possibility of earning some extra income on the side, you could say "I may be able to watch your child. My fees would be $X per (day, week, month). Is this something you'd like to discuss?"
If you're not interested in doing this, you could say "I'm sorry, but I've got my hands full with my own kids, so I'm afraid I won't be able to take on any more."
And if someone is asking because they're in a real bind, in a one-off emergency situation, I would hope that you'd be willing to try to accommodate them, if at all possible. And of course, the recipient of your generosity should be offering to reciprocate at some point in the near future, such as offering to watch your kids some evening so you can have a date night or girl's night out or whatever.
When my ex was in the army and I was a sahm my neighbors across the street did the exact same thing , they would show up with their child and the carseat and claim they had an emergency and can you please help? The very last straw was when I went to send their son back home one afternoon and he came back and said that his parents were SLEEPING , my ex was deployed and I was alone for months on end and they tried taking advantage of me , just awful. Looking back , I would have never answered my door .
It happened to me too. I did not spend a lot of time at home because we were always busy with lots of fun activities so I would usually say no and get attitude from them.
There were times when people would expect me to pick up their sick kids from school and babysit them. They would get annoyed if I said no. I did not want sick kids around me or my kid.
I was the "designated" car pool mom for kid's activities. A couple of my daughter's friends insisted I give them rides everywhere because their moms said they were too busy at work (professor, attorney) and I was "not doing anything." I felt bad for the kids, so I did a lot of extra favors for them so they could participate in activities. I did not mind much except when the mother had expectations that I was her kid's chauffeur and their kid informed me of such. Seriously.
I was perfectly fine with my inner circle of friends. It was usually the outer ring people who had unwarranted expectations of me.
I did not look at it as a SAHM vs WM thing. I looked at it as a freeloader type of thing.
I wasn't a SAHM, but when my daughter was young I worked part time within school hours on school days. So I was off during summers, spring break, Christmas break, and some professional days. More than once I had people hint that maybe their child could come over on one or more of those days, to keep my daughter company, of course!
If it was convenient for me, and my daughter was interested in hanging out with the child, then I'd say yes. But if my daughter was in a camp, or we had plans to do something fun together, if I had planned on running errands, or if this was a child my daughter didn't like and didn't want to spend 9 hours with, it was a simple "No, sorry, can't".
I had one acquaintance that had two daughters who got along quite well with my daughter, so most times it wasn't a problem. Then one day she acted quite put out that I said it wasn't possible, and I realized she was using me and was starting to expect me to be available when she wanted. I started saying no to her more often.
I was a SAHM for 10 years or so. No one ever asked me to babysit their kids except for one of my sisters. She only asked because she occasionally needed to take an older child to some all day medical appointments or attend meetings about him. We had an understanding that I would help however I could since the older son was a special needs child that required long medical appointments in another state, various therapies, etc.
I haven't had that problem. I did have one mom with three girls who wouldn't let her kids play in the house. They always came to my house and ate a lot of food and drove me nuts. My husband felt bad for them so I didn't put a stop to it.
I think my biggest expectation as a SAHM is that I want to volunteer all of my free time. No. I don't. If I wanted a job I would go get one so I could get paid. I do volunteer, but selectively limit myself.
I would no more have asked an acquaintance sahm to babysit my children for free than I would have asked a neighbor to mow my lawn for free because he was mowing his lawn anyway!
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