Money & Work
Babysitting Goes to College
With child care now paying more than the typical bottom-rung retail job, university students are chasing gigs once left to high-schoolers.
les353@nyu.edu
Babysitting isn’t just for the 16-year-old girl down the street anymore. In between or after classes, college students around the country say they are making big, often untaxed, bucks watching kids.
“What better job than to get paid and hang out at home in the company of others?” said Catherine Muldoon, 21, a senior at New York University.
Child care work is plentiful, a situation the U.S. Department of Labor links to the rise in the number of working parents. There were more than 550,000 child care workers in the United States as of May 2005, one third of them self-employed, the Labor Department said (though not all babysitting is included in these figures).
Pay for child care, at $8.74 per hour on average, has now topped pay for a cashier in a retail establishment, at $8.02, according to the Labor Department. Babysitters interviewed for this article said they earned substantially more –between $10 and $20 an hour –and in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and California they are paid the most. Some even receive bonuses on their birthdays and holidays, or for early-morning sitting.
Babysitters appreciate the chance to do homework while their charges are taking naps, or in bed for the night, and the availability of free food in the refrigerator.
Typically, the students found their jobs easily—through a career service program, friend, sorority or professor.
“It’s better money than working at the mall, and the hours are more flexible,” said Camille Grote, a senior at the University of Richmond in Virginia, who has been paid $50 for two and half hours of babysitting. “If you don’t feel like doing it because you have a test the next day, you don’t have to, and if you were working at the mall, you would.”
But students often must play hard to make child and parents happy.
Grote plans projects for the eight-year-old-girl she babysits, while her mother works as a professor and her father an architect. They will bake and decorate cookies, take the dog on walks in the park, get their nails done or go to the pool.
“Taking care of children is a lot of work,” said Jill De Groot, 24, a senior at North Central University in Minneapolis. “Many people take it for granted, and think we are overpaid. But if you think about it, children are the most precious things to parents. Caring for children is a huge responsibility.”
Other students have it easier. Adam Raymond, a senior at NYU, plays video games with a 12-year-old-boy for $10 an hour whenever the mother needs him.
“I’m essentially a paid friend,” he said.
Raymond babysits for pocket money. But others use it to help fund their education. De Groot took a year off and babysat full-time to save money for school, and now sits 20 hours a week to support herself. Fiorella Canedo, 22, a senior at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, also babysits 20 hours a week, with the same purpose.
For college students who want a career in childcare, as De Groot does, babysitting can build a resume.
Joe Keeley, 26, president of the Minneapolis-based College Nannies & Tutors, was a college babysitter, and after graduation turned babysitting into a franchising business. There are now operations in Minnesota, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. His success has been well-recognized: Keely was a BusinessWeek “Young Entrepreneur,” and Black Enterprise magazine named his firm one of the 30 hottest franchises of 2006. In 2001, the company worked with 12 nannies; today it has over 500, Keeley said.
Parents pay about $16 an hour, with $10.75 to $12 going to the nanny. Nannies, aged 18-23, can work for one family, or be on a call list for multiple families.
Canedo babysits Hailey Serrano, 12, while mother Linda Serrano, 45, designs and sells maternity clothes. Canedo is like a big sister or a role model for Hailey, and Serrano likes that she has more driving experience than a high school student.
“I trust her to be with Hailey while I am away, and that is nice,” said Serrano. “I wouldn’t leave my child overnight with someone from high school. I would be concerned about them making responsible decisions.”
Babysitters do more than watch TV and raid the fridge. Here, Los Angeles college student Fiorella Canedo (right) is taking her charge Hailey, 12, to a Mariah Carey concert.
Photo by Linda Serrano