Our reader took his 2 year old son there and was told, sorry, babysitting is only for families, or family memberships. The YMCA should take a look at the divorce rate in Chester County and everywhere for that fact, and see that families come in all shapes and sizes. If you look at what a single adult pays, it’s more than a family pays, yet they deny childcare to the single parents. This is not fair to the single parents who pay for a membership and may need to bring their child with them to workout, or maybe want to after they haven’t seen them all day from working their job. There message while waiting on hold talks about the economy, yet they want the single parents to pay a babsitter while working out, yet they offer this service to families for free.
We as I said will be adding to this tomorrow, please check back, we made calls to the Y, and they directed us to a Karen Babiac who has not returned our call yet, it was late in the day when we called. However we will update later when we hear back from the YMCA.
While your reading and waiting to come back, here is the fee schedule, so the families get so much more for less, including babysitting?????
Free Babysitting
Full privilege family members enjoy FREE use of our very popular babysitting program while working out!
Two hour per day limit.
| Brandywine YMCA 8 weeks to 5 years Monday to Thursday: 8:00 am to 8:30 pm Friday: 8:00 am to 7:00 pm Saturday: 8:00 am to noon6 to 12 years Monday to Thursday: 3:00 to 8:30 pm Friday: 3:00 to 7:00 pm Saturday: 8:00 am to noon |
|
Gross Annual
Household Income |
Family
(2 adults & dependent children in same home) |
Senior Couple (65+)
|
Adult
(23 thru 64) |
Young Adult
(19 thru 23) Senior (65+) |
Youth
(12 thru 18) |
Child
(0 thru 11) |
| $70,000+ |
$94.00
|
$83.00
|
$59.00
|
$44.00
|
$29.00
|
$20.00
|
| $65,000-$69,000 |
$88.00
|
$83.00
|
$59.00
|
$44.00
|
$29.00
|
$20.00
|
| $60,000-$64,999 |
$83.00
|
$83.00
|
$59.00
|
$44.00
|
$29.00
|
$20.00
|
| $55,000-$59,999 |
$78.00
|
$83.00
|
$59.00
|
$44.00
|
$29.00
|
$20.00
|
| $50,000-$54,999 |
$73.00
|
$73.00
|
$59.00
|
$44.00
|
$29.00
|
$20.00
|
| $45,000-$49,999 |
$65.00
|
$64.00
|
$59.00
|
$44.00
|
$29.00
|
$20.00
|
| $40,000-$44,999 |
$57.00
|
$56.00
|
$59.00
|
$44.00
|
$29.00
|
$20.00
|
| $35,000-$39,999 |
$49.00
|
$49.00
|
$48.00
|
$41.00
|
$27.00
|
$19.00
|
| $30,000-$34,999 |
$41.00
|
$40.00
|
$40.00
|
$36.00
|
$24.00
|
$16.00
|
| $25,000-$29,999 |
$33.00
|
$31.00
|
$31.00
|
$28.00
|
$18.00
|
$13.00
|
| $21,000-$24,999 |
$25.00
|
$24.00
|
$22.00
|
$20.00
|
$14.00
|
$9.00
|
| 0-$20,000 |
$19.00
|
$21.00
|
$22.00
|
$17.00
|
$11.00
|
$8.00
|
*Fees are subject to change.
As you can see from the comments, Karen Babiek from the YMCA did get back to us and was very polite, yet offered no answer for their babysitting policy. We are still confused about this as what the YMCA considers a Family, isn’t one person with their child a family???? I will let the Y use this post as a free advertisement as it seems that is what their answer is, but we WOULD STILL LOVE AN ANSWER AS TO WHY THE Y ONLY OFFERS BABYSITTING TO CERTAIN MEMBERS, A FAMILY IS A FAMILY, WHETHER IT’S 2 OR 5
We are so sorry to hear that one of our members is unhappy with the YMCA. We would be happy to discuss the confusion about the benefits of family vs adult membership with he or she over the phone or in person. Feel free to contact our member services director anytime.
At the YMCA we love families of all sizes and offer family membership to everyone. Whether you are a single parent with one or more kids, or two adults with or without children, you are welcome to join the YMCA as a family. When you do join us as a family you’ll get far more than you are paying for: adults swim or workout 7 days a week, take advantage of 2 free hours of babysitting a day while working out, participate in Parent’s Night Out once a month while we watch the kids, play with your child every Sunday afternoon during Family Sundays and more! If, for example, you take advantage of the two free hours of babysitting 3 times a week, let us watch the kids for free one Saturday night a month and spend an evening out, and come to the Y every Sunday afternoon instead of going to the movies, you’ll save hundreds of dollars a month on babysitting and family entertainment. We offer all of these benefits to help families of all sizes make the most of their hard-earned dollar.
We also support those who prefer to have a single adult membership. For $35 a month less than the family membership, the adult membership has its own set of benefits that include full use of the YMCA’s fitness center, pool, gymnasium and free and unlimited group exercise classes, reduced fees on programs and more. The adult membership does not include the babysitting service. Members who would like to participate in the babysitting service are invited to convert to the family membership outline above.
We want to thank the editors of this website for including the YMCA’s Income-Based Membership fees as part of this posting. The YMCA is a non-profit charity, and our mission is to never turn anyone away from our membership or programs due to an inability to pay. We’re very proud of our Income-Based Membership fee structure, which makes it possible for families and adults of all income levels to afford membership. As you can see, families with annual household incomes under 70K and adults with annual household incomes under $40K qualify for a reduced membership fee. Every month dozens of families and adults who would otherwise not be able to afford membership are joining because of Income-Based Membership. To learn more visit our website at http://www.ymcabwv.org.
We want to thank Karen Babiak for being so polite and getting back to us right away regarding this issue. We still though do not know why the YMCA doesn’t offer the babysitting services to the single parent. It would have been nice to have that info or policy here and why it is so. Again the YMCA does offer reduced membership fees which is great, but it still would seem that if the single parent can not bring their child with them, than they have to find someone to provide childcare for them which is a cost also. It sounds easy, but not every Parent has a babysitter or relative that can provide that for them.
Thanks Karen for your quick response and hopefully in the future the Y can allow the babysitting services for all that need them. That would be great!!
My gym offers free babysitting for everyone. I love it, my daughter is 2 1/2 and she loves it also. I work all day, we than both enjoy going to the gym. She gets to play with other children, while still being close to me, it’s like a time out for both of us.
I think there is a misunderstanding of what a Family membership is. The babysitter service is offered to a family membership which includes the adult and child. If the single parent and his child were both members then it would be a family membership and the babysitter service would be available to them. Since the child isn’t a member and just the adult, the service is rightfully not available. You do not have to be married to have a family membership.
I’m confused about what all the confusion is about. It seems pretty simple, and as a single parent myself, not discriminatory at all.
If you understand that we live in a capitalist society and that nothing called “free” ever really is (someone, somewhere is always footing the bill), then you can grasp that though they call it FREE babysitting, it is not really free. By paying for a family membership, you are paying for the monthly usage impact of your family and the services they may participate in. This doesn’t matter if your family has one parent, two parents, gay parents, guardian grandparents, etc. The Y is not saying single-parent families cannot purchase a family membership…THAT would be discrimination. They are simply saying if you want your children to be eligible for the free babysitting, the children need to be paying members. That seems pretty fair to me.
The memberships are income based, so if “single dad in question” wants his son to be cared for while he works out, but is afraid he can’t afford a family membership, he should talk to the financial aid office.
good luck to him
If the family membership is cheaper than the single person membership then what is the point of this article? He should just get the family membership for him and his son. He’ll be saving money and he’ll enjoy the benefit of free babysitting. Am I missing something?