“I am 15 years old and I babysit to make money. I took a first aid course and a babysitting course,” the young girl started her post. She shared it on the subreddit ‘AITA’ (Am I The A-hole), a forum where users ask if they’re in the wrong over disagreements that have been bothering them. RELATED: Mom Wonders If She’s Wrong For Telling Babysitter It’s ‘Inappropriate’ To Take A Shower While Minding Her Kids
The babysitter was hired by a family to watch their children while they attended a wedding.
She explained in her post that one of her “little sister’s classmate’s parents” asked if she’d be available to babysit while they enjoyed a night out, to which she agreed. When she asked them if they would be staying out late and if she should pack an overnight bag, the parents assured her they wouldn’t be out that late and would be home at midnight. The young girl checked with her father, who gave her the green light, since “he is my ride” and “he doesn’t want me alone in a car with adults he doesn’t know.” After arriving at the home where she’d been babysitting, everything was going smoothly, and by 11:50 p.m. the girl’s father was there to pick her up. “The kids were all asleep and I was watching tv. I texted them at 11:00 to [double-check] that they would be on time. The mom texted me back ‘yes,’” she wrote. RELATED: Internet Sides With Babysitter Who Left Child With A ‘Stranger’ So She Could Hang Out With Her Friends
After thirty minutes passed from the time the parents promised they’d be home, the babysitter noted that they still weren’t back.
By 12:30 a.m., the parents still hadn’t arrived back to relieve her so she could go home. She texted them once more but was met with no answer. The young girl ended up calling her father, who was furious that she still wasn’t ready to leave and that the parents hadn’t shown up yet. “One o’clock. I call them. No answer,” she said, noting that her father had gone back to their house, gotten coffee, and came back during that time. After texting every 15 minutes with no response, that’s when she decided to take matters into her own hands. RELATED: Stay-At-Home Dad Asks If He Was Wrong For Taking Son Trick-Or-Treating Without His ‘Workaholic’ Wife
The babysitter opted to pretend that there was a break-in so the parents would rush home.
“[At 2:20 a.m.] I have an idea. I texted them that someone tried to break into their garage but that the alarm scared them away,” she recalled. The parents ended up coming back home “drunk in an Uber in 15 minutes” after she sent them a text proclaiming someone had tried to break in. “My dad made [them] pay me for my extra time before we left. He told me that I’m not allowed to babysit for them again unless I charged them for an overnight stay.” However, when the young girl went to pick up her sister from school the next day, she saw the mother, who was furious that she’d lied about an intruder. “She gave me sh-t for scaring her and her husband. That they had checked their security cameras and no one tried to break in. I said sorry the alarm went off so I called you,” she explained. “She called me a liar. Which is fair. But I don’t feel bad about what I did. They lied to me first.” RELATED: Mother Makes Teen Daughter Sleep Outside In The Cold After Taunting Homeless Man
Most of the people who commented on her Reddit post agreed that she was NTA (Not The A-hole).
“I mean as a general rule of thumb, lying about break-ins isn’t a great idea but I can totally understand where [the babysitter] was coming from,” one user wrote. “And mature parents wouldn’t have allowed it to ever get to the point that a fabricated story was necessary to bring them home.” Another user chimed in, writing, “They had no regard [for] you and your time, forcing a minor to stay up way late and ignoring your texts.” “The fact that they came home right after you scared [them] shows that they read your texts, just decided to ignore them.” RELATED: Woman Explains Why She Refused To Swap Plane Seats So A Mom Could Sit With Her Kids Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.
