Abby Connolly
Typically, when grandparents babysit their grandchildren, they don’t charge any fees. However, some grandparents out there want to get paid for watching their grandchildren no matter what.
One man felt extremely disappointed in his mother-in-law, who agreed to watch his son while he and his wife took a trip, then asked them to pay her $500 at the last minute.
He and his wife are in their late 30s. His wife is about to celebrate her 40th birthday, so he wanted to do something extra special and booked them a five-day vacation.
It’ll be just the two of them, which is great since they haven’t had the opportunity to go anywhere alone since their son was born four years ago.
They booked the trip months ago and asked his mother-in-law if she’d watch their son at their house while they were gone. She immediately agreed.
His mother-in-law is in her 60s and doesn’t have an official job. Here and there, she’ll do some work for her son’s real estate business, but other than that, she doesn’t have a big work schedule she has to commit to. Therefore, they figured there’d be no conflict with his mother-in-law.
But then, his wife got a surprising phone call.
“Last weekend, my wife called my mother-in-law to talk to her about our trip and to ask if there’s anything [she] will need [or] want us to stock in the house as far as food or necessities,” he explained.
“During the conversation, [my mother-in-law] said that she will need $100 per day from us. This is the first time she ever brought up wanting to get paid to watch our son. My wife was caught off guard, and just kind of agreed to it.”
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