I hate babysitting so much.
So once a week for about three months now my parents have made me watch 8 kids by myself for 3 hours. My parents have small group (a small Christian group of church members that go over stories of the Bible and converse about the stories they read that night, sort of like a Christian book group.)
There is 3 families in this group. Each family has 3 kids, including myself as one of the kids. When in small group they need peace and quiet time for their group so they can't have thile kids around. There are three toddlers, two 7-year olds, one 9-year old, and two 11-year olds. So as a way to save money they have me babysit them. My job is to keep them quiet, calm, and entertained for three hours in the upstairs toy room. You'd think being in the toy room would make this easy. Nope. After every night I come home practically in a panic attack from dealing with 8 kids, most of the time full of energy, who refuse to listen to me. I'm not allowed to punish them (take away toys, sit in the corner, ect). Which means all I can do is try to keep them quiet and hope they listen to me (they rarely do.)
I've done the math. Most babysitters charge where I live charge an average of $15 per CHILD per hour. However for this estimate, let's say $15 per FAMILY per hour.
$15 x 3 families is $45 a night. $45 x 4 nights a month is $135. 3 months is 12 nights. $135 x 12 nights is $1,620.
If I was an average babysitter who was actually allowed to set a pay amount, I would have earned well over $1,500. Any guess on how much I've actually gotten payed? $60. This entire time I've babysat I've been payed $60. And you want to know what else? The first two months I've babysat I wasn't payed a penny. It took me begging my mom for some type of compensation for this to get payed at all.
I'm not allowed to quit, so I'm essentially stuck with this.