I can respond to this (having been a teenage sitter not so terribly long ago, and underpaying sitters being one of my major peeves).  $5 is *not* unreasonable in many areas for a sitter.  On the subject of MacDonalds, most McD’s don’t pay minimum wage – they pay in the $5 range per hour as well.  Yes, you have to get yourself there – but you get company with other teens and occasional breaks.

Now I don’t really care what the relationship of the two is – it’s irrelevant. When you pay for a sitter, you should know what you are paying for.  When you pay someone less than minimum wage, you are telling them a. that you don’t value their time enough to pay even what is federally mandated and 2.

Now maybe all the sitter is going to do is sit and watch The Lion King - maybe, but maybe not.  Before I was sixteen, in the *many* childcare jobs I had, I had – taken four kids on public transportation to museums, zoos and parks; taken a child to the ER for stitches, performed CPR on a child who had a (previously unknown) anaphylactic reaction, dealt iwht a rapidly rising temperature (normal to 104 in under two hours!), cleaned up vomit repeatedly, stayed overnight with a group of children whose mother never came home. And gone through three changes of clothing while giving three kids (2 -5) their baths.