A mum was furious after the babysitter she hired forced her 8-year-old son to go to bed despite not requesting her to do so.
A mum was furious after the babysitter she hired forced her 8-year-old son to go to bed despite not requesting her to do so.
Finding a babysitter on such short notice can be difficult, especially one that you trust.
Weighing up whether to overspend on someone with a few hours notice or not being able to go out because you couldn’t find one is often the dilemma parents find themselves in.
But one mum thought she had found the perfect solution when she needed someone trustworthy on such sort notice to look after her eight-year-old son.
The mum’s son had a friend from class whose older sister was looking for babysitting work and didn’t live far from them.
Sophie was 16, “smart, responsible, and I’d seen her interactions with her brother over the years; so I felt confident things would go swimmingly if I hired her on the nights both my husband and I had something on,” the mum said.
But Sophie had other ideas, and it left the mum furious.
A mum was furious after the babysitter she hired forced her 8-year-old son to go to bed despite not requesting her to do so. Photo / 123rf
‘How dare she!’
The mum explained that she got home and her son wasn’t asleep, which she was completely fine with. She paid Sophie and the 16-year-old left. But it was what her son told her after Sophie had left that made her angry.
As soon as the mum left the house, Sophie made the boy go to bed and told him not to come out of his room.
He told his mum that Sophie said he was “driving me crazy” and that she kept him in his room so she could have time to herself on the couch texting.
Sophie then texted her own mother Kate to come over and do her job for her, using it as a threat to the boy she was supposed to be babysitting.
“I was absolutely furious to hear this. Not only had I said the going to sleep thing wasn’t an issue, Sophie didn’t entertain him or look after him in any way – she sent him straight to bed. And I’d paid her $50,” the angry mum said.
“But that wasn’t the thing I was angriest about.
“I couldn’t believe the teen had called her mother to come over to do her job. Part of me was mortified with the implication that my son was an issue.
“I felt like some trust had been broken, as it took my son to tell me what happened. I thought that was so strange.”
The mum said she decided not to bring it up to Sophie’s mum, as their sons were friends with each other and didn’t want to sabotage that friendship.
Readers took to social media to comment on the issue, but were critical of the mother for complaining.
“Babysitting doesn’t mean entertaining your child. It means being present so nothing bad happens. A child can be asleep the entire time and it’s still babysitting,” one said.
They continued: “How do you honestly expect a 16 year old to be capable of looking after a child at a parenting level? She texted her mother to come over to help her because she was struggling. It’s not like she sent the kid to bed and texted her boyfriend to come over for a pash on the couch. The employer here is acting like an entitled princess.”
Another added: “She seems to be taking a lot of stock in what an 8-year-old boy is saying ... My kids have said the same thing about their father when I’ve gone out ‘mum he made us go to bed as soon as you left’ when in fact they were running along the lounges and terrorising the dog for hours beforehand, while screaming at the top of their lungs … so definitely pays to get two sides to the story.”
She has since not asked Sophie to come back to babysit.
