Wait- The Maid Makes How Much?!

One of the most common topics brought up amongst nannies is what constitutes adequate pay. I would like to lightly touch on the subject with a story from a previous job.

I have worked for some very wealthy families , all of whom have had cleaning people come to their homes at least once or twice a week. I've never known how much they make, but often regard the lump of bills they're handed with a bit of curiosity. "Are those singles?" I wondered. Is it possible the cleaning people could be making that much more than me? "Must be singles," I would reassure myself as I continued taking care of my employer's children.

Then came the day where it became painfully obvious that some services within this specific home were valued more than others. On that particular morning, my employer was leaving her house in a hurry, before the woman who came to clean was done. She would need me to pay her.

"Can you just grab one of those blank checks in the top drawer and fill it out for me? She gets $100."

"Wait just a minute!" I said. "She has been here less than two and a half hours. That means she's making $40+/hour to clean your toilets?! You can take my $9.50 an hour and shove it!"

Well, I said it in my head, anyway, because my employer was already gone and even if she was still there, let's be honest-I would have smiled and complied, secretly hating my existence. Was I wrong all along? Was my employer's most precious darling her dishless sink? Her perfectly made bed? In what bizarro world does it make sense to pay your childcare worker less than a quarter of what you pay someone to clean up after you? (Which, I might add, was something I regularly had to do as the nanny, so my pay should have been $49.50/hour, really). Not to demean this woman's job in any way; she, too, has to deal with many of the problems that nannies do in their jobs...this is simply to comment on the employer's priorities.

As I wrote the check out for the cleaning lady, I smiled and couldn't help thinking, "Good for you. You convinced these people that having a sparkling bathroom is worth $40/hour." The question, then, is: How do I convince them that their children should be worth as much?

I saw on the calendar that the interior designer was coming the next day. It's impossible that she could get paid more than me for picking the proper vases for the living room. She must only get $8.00 an hour, right?