We have a couple of girls here in our neighborhood who are 12 and 13 that baby sit. One has been through the baby sitting class and is quite good from what I hear. I don’t use her because my DD doesn’t like her. (lol I am afraid that if I ever hired her, it would turn into a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip around here. Remember the ones where Calvin locked the sitter out of the house?) The sitters that I do use are 14 year olds that I have worked with at the community theater. My children both love them to pieces! I think that has to weigh in heavily on which sitter you pick too. I also have a 15 year old boy on my sitter list. Again the kids think he is the bee’s knees. And he is great with them. He will wrestle and rough house, or kick a soccer ball around in the yard, but at the same time I have seen him sit on the floor and tie my son’s shoes. The whole time he was asking if they were too tight, and showing Andy how he was tieing them. (It was just far too cute to sit and watch!)
I started babysitting around age 13 I think….starting with jobs with my sister or a friend. And I have no problems with male babysitters. At my girl’s afterschool program, half the teachers are men, and they do a great job. Last year we had college guys renting the place next door, and these kids were outside everyday – playing street hockey, etc. They would include all the neighborhood kids (most of them preschoolers or grade scholars) in their games. They were wonderful with all the kids. And yes, they were in demand for childcare jobs throughout the neighborhood.
I’ve dealt with this one differently with different of my kids. I think the most important thing is to look for the best childcare situation, the one that you’ll feel best about leaving your child in. Then, all things being equal, there are plusses and minuses on both sides. If the childcare is near your husband’s job, you are spared some of the hassles of getting the kid out the door in the morning — when I first went back to work, it really helped to have my husband getting Pete mostly dressed and in the car – it meant that I only had to get myself out the door, which seemed hard enough. Also, it meant that I got home first and could have a few minutes to relax and get dinner organized before they got home. Later, Pete was at a school where I could take him, and I enjoyed the drive to and from work with him very much — it was our best conversation time. The only real disadvantage of having childcare close to a job and relatively far from home is what happens when you change jobs.
Parents and children in rural areas also face a disadvantage – 83% of rural parishes have no private nursery, 93% no public nursery and 92% no out-of-school childcare. The report says: “Only 10% of employees in the UK now work a standard 40-hour week, but flexible childcare services have not been developed to meet the needs of shift workers who still depend on multiple informal arrangements. With both parents in nearly 70% of couples working, there is a demand for an all-day service for three and four-year-olds, not just part-time nursery education places.
Since 1988, Congress has created four child care programs for low-income families. Two of them subsidize child care for welfare recipients who are trying to become self-sufficient through education, training, and childcare jobs. Two others provide child care subsidies to working poor no welfare families. GAO found that reducing child care costs increases the likelihood that poor, near-poor, and no poor mothers will work. This effect is strongest for the poor and near-poor mothers.
The major regulatory decisions were made to assure States have adequate information upon which to base their child care payments; promote public involvement in the Plan process; strengthen health and safety in child care by requiring children receiving CCDF subsidies to be age-appropriately immunized; require coordination between childcare jobs Lead Agencies and agencies administering TANF, health, education and employment programs; streamline the CCDF application and Plan; and provide clarifications based on experience operating both the CCDBG program and the now-repealed title IV-A programs.
Many states and centers require a four-year degree in education for childcare jobs, or if not in that field, plenty of non-credit coursework and experience in addition. The government requires a Bachelor of Arts degree in ECE, sometimes a Master’s degree, but they’ll accept other degrees as long as you’ve got equivalent training and experience. All places, I think, should require at least two years of experience in a licensed facility, if not more in a supervisory /management role, before an individual is qualified to lead a center as a director.
Range of salary varies a lot. On average, the salary of the childcare jobs is between $18-22K a year, less if it’s a very small facility, more if it’s a very large place, and possibly, depending on the city/state. Directors working for the federal government make between $22-25K a year, again more if there are additional responsibilities or if the center is a high capacity facility. Usually, an assistant director for a government center will start at a GS-5 or 7, depending on the size of the place, while a director may start at a GS-7 or 9. Location may factor in here, too; overseas directors usually make a little more as compensation for moving out of the country.
When Rudy Torres, now 16, first went to Washington high school in South Central Los Angeles, he had dozens of classmates. Now most of them have disappeared. “Some of them joined gangs and got killed, a couple of the girls got pregnant, some just dropped out,” says Rudy, whose father was shot dead when he was aged one and whose mother has two childcare jobs to support the family.
