a parents dream babysittier

If you're watching all 9 kids at once, I would not want to leave my child with you. 9 is a lot of children for 1 person to handle.

It seems to me, Sourcherry, on reading this discussion from the outside, as it were, that you are being rather defensive. The other responders are making valid points in answer to your questions: "Are there any tips that you can share with me to improve my business? Am I doing something wrong? What should [I] do to improve?" In the discussion heading, you did not imply that you were minding the children of relations and friends and it seemed as if you were wanting to run a business open to anyone. For that, in the UK, you need to be a certified child minder and I'm sure that the same applies in CA as well (though the certification process may be slightly different). I have no doubt that you are a genuine and lovely person and very good with children. Neither Katsmeow or Hairypits are insulting you or trying to make you upset. They are simply saying that, based on what you had said already (at that point it wasn't clear that you never minded all 9 kids at once), they would want to be very careful before employing you. Their comments were meant in a critical but constructive way. Since you obviously love caring for children, you could certainly improve your business by taking the proper certification and, perhaps, eventually opening your own day-care centre. Depending on the number of children you cared for, you would probably need to employ one or more helpers and your premises would have to meet certain standards. Book-keeping and other administrative paperwork would have to be done; you would certainly need to take out insurance and you might have to pay an accountant. There are a great many overheads and hassles involved in running a proper business ... but there are also a great many benefits in making it legal. What you charge your family and friends, of course, is your own concern but, if you want to improve and build your business, you will need to charge more than about $1 an hour per kid or, if you say you never have more than 3 at a time, between $3 and $4 an hour in total (come on! The minimum wage in CA is, I believe, $8 an hour and any 19 year old working in a store or a fast food joint earns more than $5 an hour!)

I've got to ask...are those charges normal in the states? I am in the UK, and the normal rate to be paid for childminding is £3 to £5 per hour. I currently pay £52 per week for a childminder to have my two little boys 2 mornings per week (8 hours in total). That is for a full qualified fully certified childminder. Babysitting rates are normally around £5 per hour as it would normally be in an evening but babysitters don't have any formal qualifications. To me if you are qualified you are undercharging. If you don't have qualifications then I think you should maybe undertake some in order to make you more desirable to potential new clients, then you could employ an assistant and take on more children.