Friday, February 23, 2007
Liz Weisman, Los Angeles senior, may not have expected to give lessons in privacy and decency when she took a job with a baby-sitting service, but she didn’t panic when two young boys she watched asked her to look at their “private parts.”
“I just said, ‘No, I’m not going to look. We don’t show those to strangers,’ ” Weisman said.
But for her efforts with the children she watched, Weisman said she enjoyed plenty of benefits: good money, good experience and good fun.
Weisman, along with seven other University students and a recent graduate, worked through a baby-sitter referral service called Sunflower Sitters, run by DeAnn Windibiziri, Lawrence resident. The business began referring baby-sitters to families in November.
“I think we’re lucky to live in Lawrence and have the resources of KU students,” Windibiziri said.
She said many families preferred college-aged sitters to younger ones. She has advertised in The University Daily Kansan to find sitters.
The Kansan is where Weisman said she found the job. She said the work was perfect for her.
She makes $9 an hour for watching one or two children at a time, and the wage increases for more children. She sets her own schedule — she works about eight to 12 hours per week — with no pressure to work when she doesn’t want to. And she likes the children.
“I love it,” she said. “They keep me young. They’re so entertaining, and they’re just so innocent.”
Libby Cooper, St. Paul, Minn., senior, said schedule flexibility was one reason she began working for Sunflower Sitters. She heard about the service through Weisman, her roommate.
Cooper said she had tried to baby-sit on her own in Lawrence, but she couldn’t find any families to work with.
“I had been looking for other jobs around Lawrence, and there was nothing really available that fit with my schedule or paid something more than minimum wage,” Cooper said.
Cooper said she made more money working through Sunflower Sitters than she could baby-sitting on her own. She said Windibiziri made the job easier because she told her sitters about each child’s interests and matched the children with sitters with similar interests and abilities.
Windibiziri said her service focused on occasional baby-sitting rather than regular or full-time childcare. She charges $35 a year for the referral service, and she takes $10 from parents for every referral she makes. Families pay the hourly wages directly to the sitters.
She said her sitters chose when to work.
“Saying no to me doesn’t mean they won’t get another job,” Windibiziri said.
Windibiziri said she would like to increase her roster of nine sitters to 25 or 30. Although her current sitters are all college-aged women, Windibiziri said she would also hire older people or men if they were qualified.
Sitters must be high school graduates, have experience working with children and be CPR and first-aid certified. Windibiziri said sitter applications and contact information could be found at the service’s Web site, www.sunflowersitters.com.
Weisman said she recommended the job to anyone who enjoyed working with children.
“It’s the ideal job for a college student,” Weisman said.
Kansan staff writer Matt Erickson can be contacted at merickson@kansan.com.
— Edited by Trevan McGee
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