Babysitter vs Nanny: What’s the Difference and Why Both Matter featuring Genna Hackley Owner of Babysitters of Boulder

Danny – Enginehire
Hey Genna, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast. How are you doing?

Genna Hackley
I’m doing really well. My dad is visiting this month, so we’re doing different fun things.

Danny – Enginehire
That’s exciting, what are you doing with your dad? That’s fun.

Genna Hackley
Going on walks, to museums, different places for dinner. We went to a movie theater last night, which I haven’t been to in a long time. It’s finding things around the city. You know how when you live somewhere, but then you don’t really explore things until someone comes to visit you.

Danny – Enginehire
Yeah, absolutely. For museum-wise, I love museums. What’s a good one I should go to?

Genna Hackley
Me too. Well, we’re in Richmond, Virginia right now and the museum that we went to was the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. And it’s free to the public. There are paid exhibits, but you can’t believe when you go in these museums, and think a number of art museums are that way, that they can be free and you can just wander around in there learning.

getting so close to something someone made, whether that’s Picasso or anyone else that you admire, and you can look right there at their brushstrokes.

Danny – Enginehire
Yeah, it’s amazing. I love that. Well, could you share a little bit about your background in the childcare industry?

Genna Hackley
Well, currently I own babysitters at Boulder and nannies at Boulder in serving Boulder, Denver, and Fort Collins, Colorado. And I came to those by way of starting to babysit when I was very young, around 10, with a lot of people my age, and nannying throughout college and even beyond college after I finished my degree.

eventually led me to forming this agency because I wanted to work for myself and I’d imagined owning a business. I thought I would do it much later. But the opportunity presented itself because I got laid off from different work and I was feeling like I wanted to have something that someone wouldn’t take away from me, that if I were to succeed or fail, it would be based on my decisions.

And I had so much experience working in child care as a babysitter and as a nanny. And my nephew was born around that time and I wanted to be able to spend a lot of time with him and build a schedule around that. So I did a lot of tent nanny work as well before starting the agency. So real gradually over time, that all came together.

Danny – Enginehire
That’s amazing. with you building, starting off with the babysitters of Boulder and then adding in nannies of Boulder, I suppose what have you seen in actually even needing to make both of them? Like they’re not the same. I think a lot of people think they look at it and they just go childcare and put it under that umbrella and they don’t think about it much more than that. Why did you even need to build both?

Genna Hackley
Yeah. Or you’ll hear terms like consistent sitter or long-term sitter or I need a nanny for tomorrow. So people don’t understand all the terminology like child care workers who work in homes do. And your question was, why is there a need to differentiate?

I would like people to know and educate people on is that a babysitter is a person who comes typically on an occasional or an as-needed basis and they don’t necessarily have a long-term commitment or a written agreement with your family. 

This could be something like you’re looking for a babysitter for date nights, you need someone who is going to be available, they think, through the summer, and that might turn out to be the case or it might not, depending on…

and then a nanny is someone with a longer term agreement on a set schedule with your family. And they’re usually coming for a year or more, although we also place temporary contracts for people who need three months of care, six months of care. They have a written contract, employment benefits, they become your employee, and have different agreements with you about the schedule and the goals of the work.

Danny – Enginehire
When, as a parent, when would we think…

Danny – Enginehire
I would imagine knowing that you need some of the, you’re an employer now, that that is, be a giant hump for people to get over. When do I really need to think about like, can I just hire this babysitter every day? Versus going like, I need an actual nanny. Like what is the difference? They were like, what should I be thinking about? To be like, that’s not a good idea or that is a good idea. I don’t know. What should I be thinking about?

Genna Hackley
Well, some things can vary state by state and then there are some federal requirements. And I don’t work for the Labor Department or the federal department making wage laws, so I want to be clear on that. 

But what I do point parents to is resources from the state and the federal government that explain to them when you reach a certain threshold of money, of how much you paid a person for work in your home, they may be categorized as your employer.

And if they’re coming for an extended period of time, like more than 20 weeks, for example, in Colorado, we have some sick leave and family leave laws that they’re typically willing to qualify for. And if they’re working with your family as part of their primary livelihood, there’s a difference between occasional babysitting and someone who doesn’t necessarily use that as their main source of income and someone whose main income

is working with an in-home childcare provider. So what an important benefit of working with a good agency should be is that they’ll direct you as the parent towards some of those resources that you’ll need to know.

Because people may not want to be in violation of those things that they don’t know. And now with all of the information that’s available on the internet and articles that have come out about this, especially since 2020 when people realized they needed pay stubs, they needed unemployment, they needed sick leave. 

I’ve seen a lot of improvements of people realizing that they are going to be an employer or Nanny’s realizing I do need a written contract for several important reasons.

Danny – Enginehire
I really appreciate that. First of you don’t work for the Department of Labor. Good to know. But then you know all of this is really amazing. basically at a certain point, you might be the employer anyways in the government’s eyes, whether you thought that or not. just is what it is.

Genna Hackley
Yes. It’s better to inform yourself because not knowing the ignorance of the law is not a reason to do it and having something in a contract stating your nanny is self-employed or something like that. If it doesn’t work in keeping with the laws of the cups federally or on state level, that you may not be able to enforce that. 

So you can’t necessarily say, well, the parent told me I was self-employed or the nanny told me they wanted to be self-employed.

Danny – Enginehire
As like a nanny or a sitter, what should I be thinking about as the difference or just like, what does that kind of landscape look like?

Genna Hackley
Well, what I have seen, undeniably, it’s babysitters and nannies are interconnected as important parts of the childcare service. And not only towards supporting families and children, but towards supporting each other who advocates for the caregivers and separating us.

Or, putting one above the other or using the title of one to degrade the other does nothing for the childcare industry. That I know for sure. And babysitters are not always what people think. They’re not necessarily unskilled teenagers or people doing this on the side instead of working at McDonald’s or a retail store.

We have on our team babysitters who have five years of experience or more and most have much more than that. They might be retired teachers, they might have worked in daycares or have skills from volunteering with children or parenting. They always need to join us to also have in-home care experience and they can combine that with other types of childcare experience that they have.

And we support a lot of nannies who are doing things like going out on PTO or they’re sick or they’re going on their professional development day. They need someone to come in and cover for them. And that’s not always going to be the parent taking the day off or grandparents or a friend coming in, especially in Boulder, Colorado. A lot of people move there and they don’t have that.

system to cover when their child care provider is out. So we come in to provide babysitters who have a great deal of experience to come in and assist with family dynamics very quickly, adapt to different parenting styles, respond to needs that children have that might be advanced needs, even respond to emergencies. We had a terrible fire.

The Marshall fire in Boulder a few years ago that burned 1000 homes and we had babysitters out working that day. had to evacuate children and they had to make that decision in a matter of minutes. We’ve also had babysitters who responded to children’s having allergic reactions, fevers, seizures. So when you think of babysitting. 

I see a lot on social media, which I know is one of the worst places to get a comprehensive opinion. You’ll see this idea of babysitters as this basic person who’s making chicken nuggets and putting on a movie and that could not be further from what a lot of babysitters are doing to support families and children and that they take a lot of pride in their work.

Danny – Enginehire
I love that you peeled back the onion and so many layers right there. Sitters are also equally a profession. Nanny is not above the other. I love that you laid it out so clearly of when they absolutely need each other as well to be part of that entire experience of childcare. I also, yeah.

Genna Hackley
It’s an onion.

But when we cover for nannies or out on PTO, for example, that person has a schedule and a routine with the children and they have duties, like maybe they’re doing laundry for children once a week. So the babysitter is going to come in during that week of

wants to have some of that information so that the nanny doesn’t come back on Monday to the sheets weren’t changed, the kids laundry wasn’t changed, this wasn’t done, that wasn’t done. The babysitter can come in and support that nanny if they have the information and they have the experience, which is what we do at my agency, in which I want to see for a lot more babysitters that kind of training.

Danny – Enginehire
I’m really just taken back by how much babysitter does. Should we even be calling them babysitters then at this point? I consider more appropriate?

Genna Hackley

I hate that word and I think so many people do. I don’t even like the word nanny. I don’t think any of it describes really what we do. It’s just a common word that people know or when people are searching Google, AI, they’re saying babysitter near me. 

But the terms I use when I’m speaking with parents would be entry level child care provider experience, specialized child care provider, child care professional, staff member. And the title of nanny, it is

wrong or it’s not the wrong description but the nanny is also a child care professional and the babysitter can also be a child care professional depending on their experience.

Danny – Enginehire
Those are like mic drop information right there. I love that because you really are taking away. You’re taking away those like titles, meanings and like putting in place what actually is important of like, this person is newer at this, but that person could be a nanny, that person’s not necessarily a sitter. This person is really experienced. 

That person could be a sitter that’s been there for a long time has so much knowledge in this. And they’re just a complete professional.

Danny – Enginehire
I really love that. And I also think it is, I think that that, I think I like that so much because it really does break down that imagination or that what Hollywood has brought to the table and what a sitter is. It’s, and what a nanny is, is it’s not a girl in her twenties that is, her trust fund has been taken away and she needs to get a job and child care is easy so she’s gonna go do that. 

That’s like a really hard thing for people to really actually imagine. I think when they’re starting this search, they kind of have that idea in their head and then you start presenting them with caregivers or they start looking at your website of who you’ve worked with.

Genna Hackley
Wow. Yes. There are a lot of different people who do childcare and that’s something important to me with my agency is letting people know through our website, through our policies that we work with a variety of different caregivers, people from different backgrounds, people from different genders. 

And I also want to see babysitting become available to different types of people. Like you said, it’s often introduced to young girls. I know it was for me. Like I said, I started at 10.

And it initially can be a better way to earn money, more than you might earn at a retail job or food service job. But then you reach this plateau somewhere in your 20s where people reach the top of what they think child care is worth paying for. And I’ve noticed that that plateau in a lot of parents’ minds happens, whether it’s a babysitter or a nanny. There’s a number that they don’t want to pay more.

And so to professionalize nannying and babysitting, we don’t want to put one above the other. What I do is raise the wage for what an experienced babysitter earns and what skill sets they should have. And that benefits to nannies because if the wage for a babysitter, an occasional person is this, then the wage for more experienced person committed to the long-term with your family is going to be this.

So in that way babysitters and nannies, it’s not one above the other. I saw the other day online this hat that was being sold that had the word babysitter crossed out and then nanny was below it. It’s like, that is not it. Like you will not professionalize a field by tearing down part of the foundation of that field.

Almost every nanny can speak to having been a babysitter at some point or started there or realized that’s where their child care interest was. So that’s a foundational part of where people start. So if we’re trying to say something negative or less about it, it’s not going to get us where we want to go in the nanny industry, never.

Danny – Enginehire
Yeah, that hat should have been like the cross-out part then it should have said like, childcare experience level 10. Like, I really like that. Like you shouldn’t call yourself a sitter or a nanny either. It’s not helpful in when you’re getting a job. 

If even if it’s for a date night, you should consider yourself like an experienced childcare provider at a certain level. And that will just rearrange what the family thinks and what they should be compensating you versus if they thought of you as a sinner.

Genna Hackley
And whatever your experience level is, you can still come with professionalism. Professionalism isn’t based on the title that you have, your work ethic, your punctuality, your commitment to learning about children’s care, your commitment to understanding a family’s expectations and needs and adapting to their family dynamics. A person can do that regardless of their title and babysitters do that constantly.

Hundreds of bookings in the month and thousands across the year. So every family that comes to us, meaning babysitters, they’re going into that new family’s home and their responsibility is to quickly understand what that family needs. It’s a hard job.

Danny – Enginehire
Yeah, I can’t believe really as we’re peeling back this onion or parfait, because people love parfaits if you get that joke from Shrek from a long time ago, that-

Genna Hackley
Or onion rings at least, they like onion rings.
Or you also have to want to be an employer.

Danny – Enginehire
Yeah, but who wants that? That sounds horrible.

Genna Hackley
Well, when people don’t value the work of a nanny, they don’t value the work of a babysitter and they don’t not value a sitter but value a nanny. People aren’t confused in those scenarios about credentials and titles. They don’t value child care work or understand it. And saying you’re a nanny and not a babysitter doesn’t mean anything. 

Having a hat that crosses out the word babysitter and puts on nanny, doesn’t do anything. And I understand why nannies want differentiation, a lot of nannies have advanced degrees. They’re tired of being compared to teenage babysitters with all of the work that they put into developing their craft. They’ve probably had some bad experiences with untrained sitters. 

But none of the ways we talk about babysitters versus nannies is going to fix any of that because we’re all part of the same system of care for children and families. And it reminds me a little bit of that online dispute between child wives and working moms when all moms are working moms and dividing those groups to be against each other does nothing for them. 

It does nothing to progress what women need at home and in the workplace. And I see similarities between babysitters and nannies who are both essential in-home care workers, trying to pull apart the two or to say one is better than the other does nothing. And I know there are nannies out there who are not saying I’m better than a babysitter. 

They’re trying to I’m different. But I think a lot of the outcomes of trying to say you’re different end up looking down on sitters. Like they’re just making macaroni. They’re just watching movies when so many sitters are not about that at all.

Danny – Enginehire
Yeah, if we, suppose, I don’t know a better word for it, comparing sitters and nannies or putting, pitting them against each other in a way as like a comparison, I suppose, what do you think would really change or what would the childcare landscape look like if we truly believe these are complimentary roles?

Genna Hackley
Well, for one thing, more sitter training and mentorship. know a lot of people who started babysitting. We have so many stories of learning things the hard way, or being taken advantage of, and mistakes we made. 

And training for young people programs, even summer camps, to start introducing this as a professional option and something that starting to put into young people’s minds, this is a place where can have professionalism and this is something that…

rather than something that’s just sort of something my neighbor asked if I could do and I might get $10 and things out of the pantry like some… Even when you’re 16 and they’re down the street, gotta understand that emergencies can happen, behavioral things can happen.

There’s babysitter camps, there’s CPR, Red Cross training for babysitters, but expanding on that.

More transparent rate structures and more, it’s been a very state by state because of the cost of living, but having more structure in the area that you work, if you have an agency, of the rates that you use for entry level babysitting.

And explaining to what that range is about. There’s a lot that agencies can do to lift up the profession, not saying, well, n’s aren’t babysitters, saying babysitters are this and do this and these are skills that they have.

Services and skills. Having these internal hierarchies is not going to fix systemic issues when the reality is that child care work has been undervalued and very gendered since its inception. It wasn’t paid at all when it was performed by slave people in the US, people of color. So coming from that, we’ve come a long way, but there’s a long way still to go of explaining.

Danny – Enginehire
It was really great when you mentioned and I’m highlighting it that it doesn’t go unnoticed that sitters have to make those split second decisions often and you can’t undervalue that when you’re hiring someone to come into your home or watch your children, but that’s really what you’re looking for. 

But you might not realize that when you are just thinking about it at first, you’re, I know that, you know, you’re looking at the, is there a child down the street that is into playing with your child and maybe that you could get them to do it for a few dollars while you go out some evening is, is not really what you’re looking for. 

Even if you trust that child very much and they could be very great at that. I’m not saying that they’re not great at what they do, but it’s that,

It’s just that professionalism that you’re saying that your people do bring to the table. And that is just being undervalued because we don’t think about that. When we’re thinking of childcare, we’ve all we’ve put all of it really low down nanny and sitters. 

I know that when we really are evaluating it, we don’t think of it as careers and really something that someone can do for a long time, or that could just be their career and profession. We don’t give them all of that credit.

Genna Hackley
Thinking of it as an entry-level opportunity. know something that bothers me so terribly and a lot of agency owners do for babysitting is to see, in particular young girls, because it’s primarily young girls who come into babysitting. They’re so vulnerable and impressionable and they’re being told, like, oh, this is a job that you can do for $10 and do some food and in the pantry and you’ve got pizza and…

fun but it starts giving you this impression that this is what childcare is worth. This is what we think of the… providing safety and stability for children and you can babysit for long enough. could find you an emergency, it could happen to you the first time you babysit, you don’t know. 

But it does start to communicate to girls, this is the value of childcare labor and it can… start to internalize that and then I see adult women passing that on to the young girls who are their babysitters. 

I’ve encouraged the girls to think of this as a profession where they should communicate fairly and they should be treated appropriately with boundaries. that’s a really…

Danny – Enginehire
Genna, I appreciate so much everything you’re sharing with us. I feel like you’ve probably had to have these conversations one-on-one with families when they reach out to you to hire someone.

Genna Hackley
I mean we need to write a book to get stories out there from the sitters. know there’s a babysitter’s fund, but that’s not really about the reality of being a babysitter.

Danny – Enginehire
Yeah. Is there anything that you want to leave our listeners with before we wrap up? And I ask you, where can people learn more about you, babysitters of Boulder and nannies of Boulder? What should we, what should they know?

Genna Hackley
Babysitters and nannies do have important differences, and wine is not more or less a part of the care ecosystem. And key to our success is caring for each other and all of the collaboration and mentorship that could occur in these two sets of child care workers. I’ve learned also about what it’s like working in a daycare, what it’s like to work as an op care, what it’s place in our care, even though I’ve never been one. 

I want to know more about what child care workers in general are experiencing.

How I care for those people and then people can try to understand burnout, that giving too much of themselves to the job won’t combat that by separating each other into categories or not understanding each other. think babysitters may not necessarily understand all that nannies do and how to best support them when the nanny’s out on PTO, like I told you, when the babysitter comes in. 

And nannies may not understand everything that great babysitters are doing and the respect that they deserve and how babysitters can help them by raising the wage floor.

by being the first into that. Send through a lot of families about the professionalism that’s required for child care and the respect that…

Danny – Enginehire
I can’t wait for your TED Talk on this. I’ve learned so much. Yeah, what? Are you gonna write one? You should write one.

Genna Hackley

I’ve written, I’ve write it often in my mind. So yeah, eventually somehow, someway. so many people could. I’ve been a sitter and a nanny. They’re both great. They’re both super differently challenging. And I’ve enjoyed both. I don’t take offense to either title, but I understand the differences in…

Danny – Enginehire
Now’s the time!

Yeah, what I’ve learned in this is nanny, sitter, daycare, worker, au pair, everything else that I’m not thinking of, teacher, probably, all of these things, they’re significantly undervalued. think of them, we’ve put them in certain places in our mind as a society, because I know where I’ve put them. And I know that’s not after this conversation where I think that they should be.

And I like that you don’t take offense to either of those titles. I’ll say personally, as a former nanny, I’ve, I take offense to the word manny. I don’t like, why do we need to do that? The one, why do we have to say you’re male? It doesn’t make any sense to me. That’s like male nurse, right? Isn’t it? Okay. That’s a whole different thing. That’s my Ted talk.

Genna Hackley
That’s a really good point. Yeah, we should talk about that sometime.

Danny – Enginehire
Genna, where should people go to learn more about you, Babysitters of Boulder and other resources on this topic?

Genna Hackley
Well, we are at babysittersofbolder.com and Instagram at babysittersofbolder. And another group I’ve gotten so much useful information from is the National Domestic Workers Alliance. They are working for respect, recognition, rights of the domestic in-home workers in the U.S., working on legislation for baseline rights that people have in domestic work, in-home work, which includes babysitters and nannies.

Danny – Enginehire
Amazing. Genna, thank you so much for joining us.

Genna Hackley
You’re welcome. Thank you for talking with me.