1. Read the directions for the article "Calling All Babysitters" and then the article itself - scroll down
2. Come with 2-3 ideas for companies to invest in tomorrow - just use some of he stock strategies you learned in class.
CALLING ALL BABYSITTERS ASSIGNMENT!
Directions: DO the PREREADING activity first THEN read the article. We will discuss tomorrow!
PRE READING Activity - you will need to answer some of these on a piece of paper and bring in tomorrow.
a. There are a few reasons why there is a babysitter shortage at the time this article was written. See how many you can identify.
b. If you have ever babysit for pay and for someone OTHER than your family - what do you charge? Have you ever raised or lowered your prices? Why, what led you to do this?
c. What do you think will happen when a lot of families want to hire a babysitter, but there is only one babysitter available?
d. What do you think might happen if the situation was reversed?
e. Tell me if you Agree Strongly, Agree, Do Not Agree, or Do Not Agree Strongly with the following sentence: It is okay for a babysitter to raise his/her prices to watch a child if they know several families are in comptition for their services. Whoever pays the most gets the babysitter.
f. As you read the article, see if you can list all the different things people were willing to do to acquire a babysitter.
THE ARTICLE - Calling All Babysitters!
Calling All Babysitters: Shortage Has Parents Trying Every Name --and Trick --in the Book
By Eric L. Wee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 22, 1997
They're in short supply. They're hard to find. And Mark McFadden knows he's got to be fast and ruthless if he's going to snag one. A cocktail party invitation means a race to the phone to book one before his neighbors do. Early November means it's time to lock them in for those Christmas parties. And he's always on the prowl for naive parents who will give up the goods and reveal the ones they use --something he never does. You've got to do whatever it takes, McFadden will tell you, to find and keep that babysitter. "If it's someone really reliable, I'm not going to give their name out to someone else," he said.
The Washington area is struggling with a shortage of teenage baby-sitters, and parents say they just stay home many nights because they can't find one. Among the reasons: A decline in the population of older teenagers has come just as a baby boomlet has-yielded more children who need, watching. And parents say teenagers are busier now with after-school activities. Girls, for example, have more opportunities to play organized sports.
Although it seemed that practically every block had eager child-minding girls in decades past, parents now say they hoard phone numbers of their best sitters and keep them even from their friends. They book sitters sometimes months in advance and practically bribe them with food and other perks. It's a seller's market, with prices hitting $7.50 to $10 an hour in some neighborhoods.
John McFadden, of Alexandria, entices teenagers to look after his 7- and 9-year-old sons by trying to make the job sound like a mini-vacation. He'll tell them that he's got a Blockbuster movie and that all they have to do is watch it with the children. You want to surf the Net? No problem. Still, about 15 times a year, he and his wife come up empty and have to cancel plans. "You've got to make it really attractive for the babysitter," McFadden said. "It's a competition to get them. These kids have a lot of choices."
Busy professionals even have been rearranging work schedules around their sitters' plans. Jean McGillen, the executive director of a group that fixes up apartment buildings for low- and moderate-income people in Arlington, frequently has difficulty finding someone to watch the children so she can attend evening meetings with her board of directors. Her solution: first find out when her sitter is free, then call her board to change the meeting to that night.
Demographic change explains part of the scramble, says Harold Hodgkinson, director of the Center for Demographic Policy in Washington. Low birth numbers in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s mean there are relatively fewer older teenagers. Now, couple that with a large number of children from a recent birth surge and the result is an increased baby-sitting demand and a decreased supply.
In 1980, there were 33 million people younger than 10, while those ages 15 to 19 --prime baby-sitting ages --numbered 21 million. By 1996, the population younger than 10 had climbed to 38 million, while the number of older teenagers had dropped to 18.6 million, according to U.S. Census data.
In addition, parents and others involved with babysitters throughout the area say teenage girls start baby-sitting sooner and quit much earlier than in past generations. High school students now cram in more activities after school and have more job alternatives, meaning there's less time for a teenager to baby-sit.
"More kids do sports, and if you've got a kid involved in soccer with practices two to three times week, that makes them unavailable for baby-sitting," said Steller, who baby-sat all through high school in the 1960s, "When I was in school, girls were not involved in sports. If you have an athletic daughter, you want them to take advantage of the increased opportunities.
All that means the relatively few experienced teenagers who baby-sit are hot commodities. Kerry Ross, 16, of Arlington, says for every Friday and Saturday night, she has 10 to 15 parents pleading with her to come over. If parents want to ensure a spot on her calendar, they need to reserve her three to four weeks in advance, especially for big local events such as back-to-school nights.
“I work on a first-come, first-served basis. I don't double-book,” said the seasoned business operator, who tells parents they can try her on short notice --in case she gets a cancellation. “Regularly rejecting adults can be hard,” she says. “It's very uncomfortable sometimes. You feel downright bad telling them that you are already booked.” Amber Earp, 16, of Woodbridge, gets really busy in the fall and winter. That's when all the military families in her neighborhood start heading out to the Army Ball and other holiday parties. A client once asked her in September to baby-sit on New Year's Eve. And one day after Christmas last year, she did four baby-sitting jobs, a day that started at 7 a.m. and ended at 1 a.m.
The fortunate parents who are able to land a sitter also have been hit with sticker shock. Forget the days when you could find one for 50 cents an hour and expect them to clean the house. Today's teenagers routinely charge $4 to $5 an hour and expect to be fed. In more affluent areas such as Bethesda and Alexandria, some parents are paying $7.50 to $10 an hour and they say it's still hard to get sitter? The reason: They don't really need the money .David Gordon says that in moments of desperation he's -called 15-year-olds who usually charge $6 an hour and offered more. Overall, it has been a very sticky situation.
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