Mothers helps

What is a Mother's Help?

A Mother's Helper essentially helps out a stay-at-home parent or a family needing extra help while they are home. A Mother's Helper mostly works under some supervision to handle all aspects of child care, errands, easy meal preparation and light house work. Because of the varied duties and because an adult is often in the home as well, the role is different than that of a babysitter, nanny or in-home provider.

A mother's help is normally aged between 16-20 and has little or no previous experience of caring for children. Mother's helps are not nannies and cannot be expected to take full responsibility for the children unless they take occasional sole charge of older children.

Typically, the role of a Mother's Helper is held by young women who may aspire to move into other child care positions in the future.

A growing use of a Mother's Helper is for parents who work from home or run a home-based business.

Mothers Helps Qualifications

While a Mother's Helper usually has babysitting experience, no qualifications are required to perform the job. CPR and first aid training are recommended.

Mothers Helps Duties

A mother's help will assist the parent(s) with childcare and housekeeping duties. These duties will be carried out under the supervision of the parent. Day-to-day duties may vary with a Mother's Helper, as the more accurate job description will be do "perform duties as per the family's needs." This job is very flexible, may be either part-time or full-time, live in or live out, may include babysitting on occasion (when the helper is in sole charge), and may be an hourly or salaried position.

Mother Helps Salary

Salaries start at £50-60 pw net for 16 year olds and rise to about £140 pw depending on age and experience.

Mother Helps Tax & National Insurance

If the mother's help salary is less than £110 per week then there is no liability to PAYE or national insurance. However, if the mother's help earns more than £110 per week then they are subject to national insurance and PAYE if earnings are more than £124 per week.

Please refer to our employer information for more details about your tax responsibilities or contact us for help as Taxing Nannies specialise in calculating mother's help tax and can issue your mother's help with weekly or monthly wage slips.