Knowing your worth is important, especially when it comes to your time and skills.

If you were asked by a family member to babysit, would you do it for free, or would you come up with what you consider a reasonable rate?

This woman makes a lot as a software engineer.

She has both a full-time job and a profitable freelance side hustle.

Her cousin asked her to babysit three children during the holidays, so she calculated a rate based on the freelance work she would be giving up on those days.

But this babysitting rate sparked outrage.

Read the full story below to find out more.

AITA for saying my babysitting rates are $35 an hour?

I’m a software engineer.

I have a full-time job and a side hustle of doing freelance coding work in my own time.

I’ve always been the type to have a side hustle I put a lot of my free time into.

I get really bored sitting idle.

This woman makes a lot in both her full-time and freelancing work.

My freelance hourly rates are $60 an hour, and at my full-time job, my hourly pay works out to about $40 an hour.

So, that’s how I value my time.

While on vacation, she had been planning on doing some freelance projects.

Anyway, over Christmas vacation, I was staying at my parents’ house.

My cousin was also staying over with her three young kids from Christmas to New Year’s.

I’d been planning on doing some work on my freelance projects when I had free time, especially in the mornings, when my family had no plans.

She wasn’t in a rush to do them.

I wasn’t in any rush.

I was already ahead of schedule on them all, but I didn’t really have anything else to do.

It was in a really rural area and it’s like an hour’s drive to the nearest anything.

Her cousin asked her to babysit for three days.

Then, my cousin and her husband asked if I could babysit all day for three days so they could visit some friends in the area and hang out with just adults.

I said I had planned on doing freelance work at the library, and she offered to pay me to babysit.

I said I could if they got close to my freelance rates.

She wanted a number.

She was thinking about the babysitting rate she’s give her cousin.

Although my freelance rates are $60, I didn’t feel like that was right.

It was high. But I didn’t want to go too low.

Honestly, babysitting three kids would be harder for me compared to the routine coding work I had for my freelance project.

She said she could babysit if they pay her $35 an hour.

I don’t know a lot about kids and I’ve never babysat for long.

I had a feeling it would be stressful and difficult, so I said $35, which is below what I make hourly at work and what is the bare minimum I’d value my time for if that time is spent doing difficult work.

Her cousin didn’t take it well.

She went crazy at me, saying that’s a ridiculous rate for babysitting. That I was entitled and being selfish. That I’m trying to take advantage of how she didn’t have other options, etc.

I said that’s way below what I’d be making if I had the time to do my own work, and I’d be putting off my own work to babysit.

Even her cousin’s husband thinks it was too much to ask.

Her husband then got mad at me, saying that I was a 24-year-old girl.

That I’m damn near a child myself.

That my time is not worth that much and it’s childish to say that it was, and that I was a stupid girl for not knowing that babysitting costs like $15 an hour. When I grew up and have kids of my own, I will see how stupid I was being.

Now, she’s wondering if she was a jerk for asking such a rate.

I was kind of done with being called stupid, so I just told them I hoped they could find someone else.

My mom thinks that I asked for something offensive, snd my cousin and her husband obviously did too.

AITA for giving that number?

She didn’t want to babysit, and she had other work to do. If they want someone who will charge less, they should find someone who doesn’t already have a good job.

Let’s find out what others have to say about this on Reddit.

This user shares their personal thoughts.

This person has a sensible question.

Here’s an honest opinion from this person.

Finally, here’s a valid point.

When you know your worth, it’s hard to settle for less.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.