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“I Was Exhausted And Upset”: Babysitter Calls Child’s Dad After All-Night Ordeal, Fury Follows
Helping your family members with some babysitting is probably one of the most classic “family jobs” out there. Indeed, depending on where you live, it might be entirely normal to fully outsource your child-raising to whatever blood relative you happen to have in the area. But everything has its limits at the end of the day.
A young woman agreed to babysit her cousin’s kid, but ended up calling her ex to help her when the mom just didn’t come home at night. We reached out to the teen babysitter via private message and will update the article when she gets back to us.
RELATED:
Working as a babysitter when the parents don’t show up is always stressful
Image credits: leungchopan / Envato (not the actual photo)
Which is why one young woman decided to call for help when the kid’s mom didn’t come home
Image credits: benzoix / Freepik (not the actual photo)
She later shared some more details
Image credits: nikki_meel / Envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Same_Entertainer7765
Helping with kids is important work with a lot of responsibility
No matter how you spin it, leaving a fifteen year old with a baby overnight is just a downright terrible idea. Remember, a fifteen year old is a child, just like the baby, although in many ways significantly more capable. So there is almost no way her cousin, herself legally a minor, could berate her for her actions.
Unfortunately, this is probably a close reflection of their family dynamics, where certain folks are just told what they are supposed to do and are obliged to “follow orders.” After all, it’s not unusual for folks to get their family involved to help with a lot of things, including childcare. “It takes a village to raise a child,” or so the saying goes. Although, pointedly, researchers have struggled to actually pinpoint where this saying comes from. The internet is littered with similar stories of folks being “pushed” into childcare.
While we don’t really have the necessary information, it does look like the cousin is already used to doing some babysitting work. The real issue isn’t her being “exploited,” she wasn’t forced to do it, she agreed. The crux of the matter is the cousin blowing up at her over calling for help when she herself just didn’t show up.
It would appear that the cousin planned to keep the teen in the dark so she would babysit all night
Image credits: Image by Freepik (not the actual photo)
She didn’t even leave her any reasonable alternatives to contact. She didn’t even leave her location on, so the fifteen year old was basically forced to find some other help. After all, a crying baby is stressful enough when you are its parent, let alone a teenage babysitter. It’s still a lot of responsibility.
Texting her at 3AM is not a good “alternative,” as most folks would already be asleep by then. Imagine yourself in the babysitter’s shoes. You are now responsible for a child, it’s mom is nowhere to be found, you are getting more tired by the moment and it’s started to cry. The mother was lucky she didn’t call the police. In general, the cousin’s behavior was just entitled and downright exploitative. It’s also pretty short sighted, since she now lost access to a free and willing source of childcare.
In fact, she probably didn’t tell the babysitter because knew that she would absolutely not agree to stay the night. It’s not to say that the mom doesn’t deserve a night out, but this is not the way to go about it. Even worse, the mom didn’t even follow up in the morning, she just assumed that a teenage girl could spend over twelve hours looking after a kid. Unfortunately, her friends and the cousin’s mom also seem to think she did the wrong thing, although we have to assume they only heard the cousin’s side of the story.
Most thought she was not to blame
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What do you think ?
Caro 2 days ago
I don't get why some people said that OP should have called her own parents instead of P's Dad who was, obviously, available. It's neither OP's nor her parents job to cover the cousin's lack of responsibility. The cousin is lucky that OP did not call the police and or CPS. Yes, it's hard to have a baby at this age, especially without support, but if you want the live the life of a free teenager, don't have kids or have the kid adopted into a place that is willing to take responsibility.
Sand Ers 2 days ago
They say that because they think the sitter should help her cousin hide her irresponsibility from the baby's father. I entirely agree with the others who think this was deliberate. She never intended to be home on time, which is why she refused to reply to the attempts to contact her. What I'm wondering is how old the father is.
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Dusty's mom 2 days ago
When I was about that age I babysat for the newborn baby of an older sister of a classmate. Not one member of the family would have anything to do with the baby. They went about their business like baby and I weren't there. The mother was three hours late into the night when my mother came to see what was happening, as I was very new to sitting and didn't know what to do. The rest of the family had gone to bed. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink the whole time. Mom told me to go out and sit in her car (the mother was supposed to drive me home), and try to sleep. She stayed with the baby and when the mother came home around 6 a.m., Mom read her the riot act. She woke up the whole family, shamed them all, and demanded double money or she'd call police on them. The mother was clearly drunk and underage. I never had to deal with them again, and Mom and I worked out some protocols. This was in the early 1970s. In retrospect, Mom should have called the police anyway.
Bookworm 2 days ago
The ONLY circumstance where this would be the wrong thing to do would be if OP knew that P's dad was a non-custodial parent who wasn't supposed to have the baby with him - and in that situation, she should have called the police to report the abandoned baby. Obviously that's not the case here, since P goes to her dad's house for overnights. There is no scenario in which OP would be wrong for calling in appropriate backup. This was in no way reasonable or responsible behavior from P's mother, and OP is 15 - not even an adult who could, like, drive P somewhere in an emergency. You don't get to be mad about someone giving your co-parent ammunition in a custody fight, if the ammunition was literally just the facts of your own irresponsible behavior.
Caro 2 days ago
I don't get why some people said that OP should have called her own parents instead of P's Dad who was, obviously, available. It's neither OP's nor her parents job to cover the cousin's lack of responsibility. The cousin is lucky that OP did not call the police and or CPS. Yes, it's hard to have a baby at this age, especially without support, but if you want the live the life of a free teenager, don't have kids or have the kid adopted into a place that is willing to take responsibility.
Sand Ers 2 days ago
They say that because they think the sitter should help her cousin hide her irresponsibility from the baby's father. I entirely agree with the others who think this was deliberate. She never intended to be home on time, which is why she refused to reply to the attempts to contact her. What I'm wondering is how old the father is.
Load More Replies... Dusty's mom 2 days ago
When I was about that age I babysat for the newborn baby of an older sister of a classmate. Not one member of the family would have anything to do with the baby. They went about their business like baby and I weren't there. The mother was three hours late into the night when my mother came to see what was happening, as I was very new to sitting and didn't know what to do. The rest of the family had gone to bed. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink the whole time. Mom told me to go out and sit in her car (the mother was supposed to drive me home), and try to sleep. She stayed with the baby and when the mother came home around 6 a.m., Mom read her the riot act. She woke up the whole family, shamed them all, and demanded double money or she'd call police on them. The mother was clearly drunk and underage. I never had to deal with them again, and Mom and I worked out some protocols. This was in the early 1970s. In retrospect, Mom should have called the police anyway.
Bookworm 2 days ago
The ONLY circumstance where this would be the wrong thing to do would be if OP knew that P's dad was a non-custodial parent who wasn't supposed to have the baby with him - and in that situation, she should have called the police to report the abandoned baby. Obviously that's not the case here, since P goes to her dad's house for overnights. There is no scenario in which OP would be wrong for calling in appropriate backup. This was in no way reasonable or responsible behavior from P's mother, and OP is 15 - not even an adult who could, like, drive P somewhere in an emergency. You don't get to be mad about someone giving your co-parent ammunition in a custody fight, if the ammunition was literally just the facts of your own irresponsible behavior.
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