Donna Ladd, style editor of a magazine, was toiling away in the Hearst tower when she received a text from her son’s baby sitter — with the young lady’s $40 sushi order.
Ladd, as usual, called in and purchased her $20-per-hour sitter’s takeout because, as she put it, “I felt huge pressure because I wasn’t paying her as high as she wanted.”
That’s right, $20 per hour, all cash, wasn’t enough for the 25-year-old, who played on her phone while Ladd’s 4 1/2-year-old son, Charlie, slept.
“It was a weird thing,” admits Ladd. “And frankly, when I’m working late, no one is offering me any of these things.”
Despite the sushi, the baby sitter defected to a family that ponied up $25 per hour — and provided car access.
“I couldn’t give her all the things she wanted,” says Ladd, who lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “It sucked. But that’s the high price of living here.”
They think because you’re going out and that you have a three-bedroom apartment and have two kids in private school, that they can ask for whatever they want. I find it absurd.
- Stephanie, an Upper East Side mother of two
Ladd’s not alone in her dismay over the jaw-droppingly high cost of NYC baby sitters.
New York City sitters are the most expensive in the country, according to a new UrbanSitter study. And they’re only getting pricier.
Since last year, the average hourly rate for one city child has jumped from $13.50 to $15.34. Compare that to $11 per hour in Chicago or $10.84 in Denver.
The sad thing is this: $15.34 sounds like an absolute bargain to most New York parents, who have been quoted as high as $30 per hour by sitters barely out of high school.
There’s even a whole slew of high-end caregiver agencies catering to the rich — or desperate. NYC-based art-centric Sitters Studio charges up to $30 per hour, plus a $20 booking fee, for a minimum of four hours; Hamptons Babysitters, whose prices run as high as $33 per hour during a holiday weekend, tacks on a $25 booking fee and enforces a three-hour minimum.
“Baby-sitting has now become a racket,” says Stephanie, an Upper East Side mother of two who asked that her last name not be used.
She was shocked — and offended — when a 20-something in her building recently demanded $20 plus access to Stephanie’s Seamless account, to watch TV with her kids for a single hour.
The sitter argued that her master’s degree warranted the fee.
“It’s audacity,” says Stephanie, who works in the fashion industry. “They think because you’re going out and that you have a three-bedroom apartment and have two kids in private school, that they can ask for whatever they want. I find it absurd,” she says.
“When I was growing up, the kid next door was your baby sitter. And now it has turned into an industry.”
Lyss Stern, mother of three and founder of Divalysscious Moms, a luxury lifestyle company, says city baby sitters are wising up to their worth, demanding everything from Nobu takeout to VIP car services home, on top of their exorbitant rates.
“Parents have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on their baby sitters,” says Stern. “I’ve heard moms taking their baby sitters to Barneys to make them happy and get them a pair of shoes . . . When I was a baby sitter, I didn’t even ask for water.”
Not the case for 31-year-old Missy Davis. When she watches your tots, she expects water — and an $18 ride home (preferably courtesy of car service Arecibo).
Davis moved from Austin to NYC seven months ago.
Upon landing in the Big Apple, she immediately jacked up her hourly rate from $15 to a minimum of $22 (her listed rates on UrbanSitter go as high as $30).
“My friends in Austin were like, ‘No way,’ ” admits Davis. But the Bed-Stuy photo assistant says the cost of living in NYC justified the increase.
Plus, she’s worth it. “I deserve to be paid that because I am actively engaging your kids,” argues Davis, who has made up to $325 for one night of sitting in the city. “I’m like a substitute parent, almost. It’s not just a job.
“I think it’s crazy when people want to pay a baby sitter $7 or $8 per hour to hang out with their most prized possession,” she adds.
Some may argue that paying a 28-year-old sitter $40 per hour is equally insane.
That’s how much a Chelsea couple doled out to Jessica Horowitz to play with their two children . . . while they were home.
“Sometimes I feel guilty almost,” says Horowitz, who lives on the Upper East Side and works full-time as a teacher.
“Say I get there at 7 and the kids go to sleep at 7:30, they’re paying me to watch TV and talk on the phone . . . I’m being paid essentially to just sit,” she says.
“But then again, it’s their choice to have a baby sitter,” adds Horowitz, whose base rate starts at $20 and goes up to $30 if homework help is involved or if there are more than three children (that’s more than three times the $8 minimum wage rate, tax-free).
“Everything in New York is more expensive. The going rates are more expensive. The parents are already paying for private school . . . I think it’s just more competitive here.”
Not all parents are willing to join the billion-dollar baby sitters’ club, however.
Sitters have gotten so outrageously expensive that some parents are simply opting to stay in on weekends to save money — or, in the case of Monica Storch, an Upper East Side mother, alternating nights out with their spouses.
“It really does prevent your ability to go out and have a life with your spouse and partner,” says Storch, who got sick of paying $20 per hour for sitters.
For others, no price is too high for peace of mind — or a few hours of freedom.
“At the end of the day, I like to go out,” says Shannon Russo-Pollack, owner of Dasha NYC.
The Upper East Side mother readily cops to using chichi Hamptons Babysitters when vacationing out east in the summer.
“Whatever I have to pay to break away . . . you just have to bite the bullet. Otherwise, you don’t have a means of going out,” she says.
After all, in NYC, money talks. Even if your kids are too young to.
“It’s the new normal,” Sherri Schubert says of her and her friends’ sky-high baby-sitting bills.
Last year, Schubert, an event manager for Mom Trends, a site that dishes on what’s cool for mothers, broke the bank with a membership to Lucky Lil’ Darlings. The baby-sitting service costs her $300 per year for membership, plus $23 per hour and mandatory cab fare home after 9 p.m.
“I don’t think any of us like it,” says Schubert, a mother of two who lives in Battery Park. “We just do it because we don’t have any other choice.”