Tomorrow night will be our first time getting a non-family babysitter for our son (he’s 21 months), and I need a little advice.

The kid we’re getting to babysit is super, super nice. He’s 16 or 17 and we know him from church. When my husband asked him to babysit, he readily said yes, but when my husband said we wanted to pay him, the kid said we didn’t need to.

My husband thinks that the kid is just viewing this as a favor. The two of them have a kind of a buddy relationship—in an appropriate way of course. They occasionally play video games together with the kid’s dad, and the kid comes to my husband for advice sometimes. I think he kind of views/treats my husband like an older brother. Anyway, all that is to say, that’s probably why he views this as just a friendly favor.

But I really don’t want to take advantage of him and I want to pay him. My husband agrees on this. But how do we make this kid accept our money? My husband thinks the kid will be pretty insistent that we don’t pay him, but I just feel bad letting that go. We’ve never hired a babysitter before and I just want to do it right, haha. Any advice is appreciated!