Ugh...the worst experience I had with babysitting was when I was older and decided to help out my brother and SIL.
It was the last time I ever babysat for family. Here is a novel if you care to read.
They have two kids and my SIL's best friend who had been their fulltime nanny for 4 yrs, up and quit without notice. This should have been my first clue.
My SIL called me up freaking out because she had no one to watch the 4 yr old and the 6 month old. I was unemployed for the summer, the first one that I can ever remember and I thought I would help them out and get a little cash in the process. I agreed on slave wages because in my mind I was helping them out because they are family. My brother was working two jobs and wasn't home much. They were struggling and even though I was unemployed my husband makes a decent living so I thought I would pay it forward so to speak. They obviously did not see it that way. I watched 2 kids (plus my own but well that doesnt really count) 10 hrs a day, 5 days a week for a 100 bucks. Oh that works out to be about 50 cents an hour. In my SIL's mind this was big money. I viewed this as a favor and she viewed it as I was her employee.
I had all these big plans to do things with the kids and my own child would get to know his cousins. My brother and SIL had a yard full of toys and a pool and I had a list of parks I wanted to take the kids to. I thought it was going to be a great summer. I had no idea how critical, rude cheap and demanding my SIL was. I also had no idea how uninvolved my brother was. He was just as bad. She and my brother were never much for housekeeping but I had no idea they lived lived like pigs. The house was dirty and cluttered. I never could find stuff in that house. The steps leading to the basement were littered with clothing. Instead of taking dirty clothes to the basement they just tossed them down the steps. On the rare occasion I had to go into the basement, this was a feat as I had to hold onto the hand rail and scale down the stairs stepping on tons of dirty clothes not knowing where one step began and when one ended.
Also my SIL had these odd rules about stuff. New toys that had been given to the kids from previous christmas' or bdays were still in the packages. I was not allowed to open them. She wanted to take them back to the store. I saw many gifts I had given the kids unopened stuffed in closets. My SIL is extremely bizarre on this sort of thing. People give her kids gifts but if she doesnt feel they are up to snuff (which is most of them) she will put them in a closet thinking she will return them for something else but she never does. She had a yard sale a few yrs later and everyone that showed up was thrilled to see tables and tables of brand new stuff. So anyway, I made the horrible mistake of opening a toy for the 4 yr old. When my SIL got home from work and saw the toy, she flipped out. She told me she had planned on returning that gift. Well if its freaking June and the gift was from the previous christmas, good luck returning it!
Also the kids closets were filled with brand new clothing that I was not allowed to put on the kids. Some of it had sat in there so long the kids were well past the size. A complete waste. I had to rummage through unorganized dressers and laundry baskets to dress them. The kicker is most of the stuff was stained and old but there in the closet were nice, new clothes still with tags that I couldn't touch.
My SIL then started to vent about me to her mother within ear shot of the 4 yr old so my niece would tell me all about what mommy says. Apparently my SIL expected me to do laundry and clean the whole house. The 4 yr old would eagerly tell me all my faults. I did keep the kitchen clean but my SIL did not like the way I loaded her dishwasher so she asked me to stop doing that. She would forget to run it and when I showed up the next day, all the dishes were still dirty so I had to wash them anyway.
She put a lock on the thermostat so I could not adjust the A/C. On the real hot days it was miserable in the house. The inside would get well over 85 degrees on some days. The kids were cranky as was I. The pool was no relief because no one kept up the pool so it would turn green every other day and finally my brother said he was pretty annoyed that I wasnt keeping the pool up for them!
There was never any decent food in the house either.
I started bringing my own food and the 4 yr old wanted it. So I then ended up bringing food to the house. So the whole thing was costing me money. My husband was getting livid. Oh and all my big plans of taking the kids to parks and so forth? Nada. My SIL told me she didnt want me leaving the house. On top of that the 4 yr old had major attitude and was hard to handle. She was completely disrespectful. When I gave her time outs she would cry to my SIL about it and then my SIL would chastise me in front of the kid. This of course made things worse and the 4 yr old started to think she was in control. I also realized my SIL is a social butterfly. She would pack up the kids after getting home from work and take them to her church where she volunteered 4 hrs almost every day. Or she would go visit her mother that lived 45 minutes away. She kept the kids up till midnight every day. Then I understood why the house was such a wreck. But she expected me to get them up by 8 am so they would have a nap by mid afternoon so they wouldn't be cranky when she was doing her church thing. A hot house, tired kids and crappy food to eat. Bad combo.
The final straw came in early August. I overslept and my brother called wondering where I was at. I felt horrible! I apologized and was freaked out. I thought for sure he was going to get in trouble with his job. He told me to relax and not speed over to his house. Everything was okay. So I get over there and I found out that he actually quit his second job a month prior. He just didnt want to sit at the house with his own kids so for the past month he was out hanging out with his friends all freaking day before going to his night job. I was livid! My SIL knew about his quitting his job as well but never said a word to me. I had it at that point. I told them both it wasn't working out and I was ready to look for a full time job. My SIL didnt bat an eye and said she felt it was for the best anyway as she wasn't all that thrilled with "my performance." The new sitter lasted 2 days. The next one a week, the one after that, one day. I think they went through about 6 babysitters in 2 months. My brother got a better job and my SIL lost hers so she stayed home with the kids until they started school. My relationship with my SIL and brother was never the same. I live out of state now and only see them once a year. The kids are older now and my mother often tells me how my SIL cries she can't handle the oldest child. I guess my niece often tells my SIL she is ugly, fat, throws things at her and doesn't listen. Shocker.
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I am a bit disappointed that something so simple turned complicated. I guess I had envisioned that we would all be close. When I was a kid we grew up with our cousins and were close so I kind of wanted the same thing for our kids. My brother would say he wanted this too but the effort wasnt there. When I was a kid our aunt watched us for summers so I just thought it was just family taking care of family. I didnt realize I had signed up for an employee type situation. 
