Babysitting can be fun, but let’s face it, most of us won’t take hours out of our spare time for free. The one exception many people make is for their friends and family. It takes a village, or so they saying goes. So if you happen to have some particularly creative hobby, it would seem like a no-brainer to bring along some supplies.

A woman asked if she was wrong to not give her friend’s child free paints after spending the day doing crafts with her. Netizens shared their advice, thoughts and some gave some suggestions on how to approach situations like this in the future.

Arts and crafts are a great babysitting activity

Image credits: towfiqu98 / envato (not the actual photo)

But one woman refused to just leave her materials with her friend’s child

Image credits: Elet / envato (not the actual photo)

Image credits: masterwoodhandler

Some folks thought the woman was being greedy, but it doesn’t hold up

Some of the more negative comments, which can be found below, made some far reaching arguments about the woman “using” Ella for “free labor,” presumably as they assumed she would then be selling these items. The “free labor” argument is contentious, since the woman herself was already babysitting for free, on a day off.

This is the difficulty with a story like this, because obligations and relationships don’t always mix entirely correctly. It’s possible to take the transactional point of view of some commenters, where “labor” needs to be exchanged equally. This might be fair, but it’s also a hard thing to “implement” in a friendship.

After all, imagine splitting every bill down to the cent when going out. It’s always good to pitch in, but seeing a relationship as an exchange of goods and services seems counterproductive. On the other hand, it’s also fair to say the woman could have made it clear that Ella wouldn’t be able to keep all the items.

Children tend to not have as nuanced a view, so it’s worth establishing ground rules. As the woman notes, she did let her keep the figure she painted herself, so it’s not like Ella “lost” everything. Similarly, babysitting is work and the woman was kind enough to prepare a rather engaging activity. In other words, if you ask your friend for a favor, you should probably be happy when they choose to help, even if there are some nuances you don’t agree with.

This relationship ultimately can benefit from some extra communication

Ultimately, this does seem like a resolvable issue. Riley needs to understand that these items and materials do have a cost, her friend is already not being “compensated” for babysitting. This isn’t to say that she shouldn’t babysit, helping out the people close to you is simply a good thing to do, but taking someone’s time and money is perhaps too much.

The woman who shared the story, from her side, should have made things a bit more clear, but that doesn’t diminish her point of view. She is taking her time and seems to already be willing to do fun stuff with Ella. Arts and crafts are not actually that cheap, even if the end result is a “toy,” so she is going above and beyond most babysitting jobs. Both sides are upset, perhaps for justifiable reasons, but this doesn’t mean it can’t be worked out.

Hopefully, they can just talk it out, because this doesn’t seem like an issue worth ending a friendship over. Similarly, Riley can use this as a teaching moment with Ella. No doubt Ella did feel upset, but this is a great way to learn about costs and expectations. No reason to burn bridges with the “fun aunt” who is down to do babysitting duty when needed.

The woman shared some details with commenters

Most folks thought she was in the right

But a few thought she was exaggerating the situation

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