Babysitter Wants to Know If She’s the Jerk for Calling the Police on a No-Show Mom

Babysitting is a lot of responsibility—you’re taking care of kids that aren’t yours, after all. So it’s only natural for the parents to want to make it as easy as possible for their babysitter. That means providing all that’s necessary to take care of their kids, and a ballpark range for when they’ll be home to relieve the babysitter.

However, for one babysitter, the latter was always a problem. Mom never used to give her a time frame, and when the babysitter got sick of never knowing when she’d be able to leave, she began to ask her when she’d be home. But even then, she’d never stick to it.

There was one particular incident that broke her. And she vented all about it on a recent Reddit thread, asking if she was the jerk or was the mother. Apparently she was asked to babysit from 6-9 p.m., and the babysitter had told the mom she really needed to be home by 9 because she had plans to go out with her friends.

“She promised,” the babysitter wrote. “Of course, 9:00 rolls around and she’s not home. I call her, no response. Text, no response. Another hour. Nothing. Still calling and texting. Finally, it is midnight. By this point, my plans are long ruined but I’m pissed and exhausted.”

She goes on to say that she called and texted her several more times before she told the mother that she is “considering the kids abandoned and calling the cops.”

Well, she wasn’t lying. She called the cops, who then showed up and took the kids to the station. The babysitter then went home and went to bed.

“I am awoken at 3 AM by a frantic call. It’s her. Where are the kids? Why am I not here? I tell her I followed through on my threat, check the police station. She cursed me out, I hung up and went to bed,” the babysitter said. “The next day, she sends me an essay saying the kids’ father was called and there’s a DCF investigation launched against her. She called me every name under the sun but I didn’t think I was wrong until I spoke to a friend with kids. She said I should’ve just waited it out and refuse to ever sit for her again. She asked if her potentially losing her kids was worth me being petty.”

Most people who read her story agreed that the general consensus was pretty obvious—the babysitter was not the jerk here.

“Part of parenting is being responsible and realizing you have obligations to others that are not you,” someone wrote. “What you did was kick her in the a**; you gave her a wake up call. She likely won’t ask you to be a sitter again, but given she’s exhibited a pattern of irresponsible behavior, maybe this will show he she needs to either a) grow up or b) realize she’s a shit parent and seek help.”

“She is a terrible client and does not appear to take her role as a mother all that seriously,” someone wrote.

What would you do in this woman’s situation?