Fuck you, Dawson Leery.
New today on HRDC: cook with Aramark (wouldn't that be sad... spending 5 years at university only to end up working in the cafeteria?); driver salesperson (read: traveling salesman); cable television technician (cool, then I could make people wait around from 8am to 5pm only to show up at 6:30 and leave one of those little notes on their door that says "sorry we missed you, please call Rogers to schedule another installation appointment"); sales associate (at that kiosk in the mall that sells nothing but ink cartrages); babysitter. That last one really gets me because it only pays $7 an hour, and not because I would apply for it if the pay was better, I can't stand kids. Anyway, the job is in Forest Hills, so the parents are obviously not hurting for cash. It amazes me the way in which people devalue child care in terms of financial compensation. Taking care of kids is one of the hardest jobs I can think of; shouldn't it be worth more than $0.90 above minimum wage? What the hell is wrong with people.
posted by Mary at 2:14 p.m.
3 Comments:
I'd love for childcare workers to be paid more for what they do. I mean, my kid is often with these people for more waking hours in the day than I am. Unfortunately I'm a single parent and the $400 a month I have to pay out each month for daycare is a real financial burden. If it weren't for childcare subsidies, most single-income families would be just as well, or better off on welfare (say $800/month) than working in a call center (let's say $1200/month - $400/child/month = $800/month).
I can't seem to find any amyt's blog to respond to this so I suppose I'll do it here: I realize how difficult it can be to pay for child care, particularly for single parents. For this reason, I think Canada needs a nation-wide publicly-funded child care program. However, I think you missed the point of my post. What I was getting at was that because the job was a babysitting position in a private home in Forest Hills (easily one of the poshest neighbourhoods in town), it seems to me that the reason the parents are only paying $7/hr probably isn't because that's all they can afford. To me it suggests that they feel like they don't have to pay any more than that, because, hey, any idiot can look after a two-year-old for a few hours a week, right? How much money we are willing to pay someone to do a job says a great deal about how we value the kind of work they do. In this situation -- as it is more often than not in the case of child care as labour -- it apparently is not valued much at all.
Ah OK, I see your arguement. Just for the record $7/hour is pretty sweet for babysitting, unless it's multiple children or something. I think the going rate for babysitting right now is $3-$5/hour, all cash and under-the-table though.
http://www.delicat.ca/main.shtml - hope it works, had some server troubles recently
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