Babysitter questions whether it was wrong to call police on children’s mother who failed to return home

‘You did the right thing,’ one person writes on Reddit

A babysitter has questioned whether she was wrong to call the police on a mother who failed to return home when she said she would.

The anonymous 28-year-old recounted the incident on Reddit’s AITA [Am I The A**hole] subreddit, where she explained that she has worked for the family in question before, as it is “easy money,” but “the mom is never home on time”.

According to the OP [original poster], she eventually started pressing the mother to share what time she would be home after the lack of information “made it impossible to get anything done on the weekends”.

However, despite the babysitter’s insistence that her employer disclose what time she would be back, the Reddit user said that the children’s mother never actually showed up on time.

“I’d go babysit so she could go to ‘brunch’ but she’d be gone from 11am to 7pm. My whole day was gone. After that, she’d start giving me times but never stick to them. She wouldn’t even call to tell me, she’d just stay out,” she wrote.

The negative experience with the family reached a tipping point on Saturday, according to the babysitter, who revealed that she called the police on the woman after she failed to return home when she said she would.

According to the OP, she had arrived at the family’s home at 6pm and the mother had promised to return by 9pm.

“I told her she needed to be on time because I had plans to go out with friends. I was even getting ready at their house after I put the kids to bed. She promised. Of course, 9pm rolls around and she’s not home,” she wrote. “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. I call her and leave a voicemail saying if she’s not home in the next hour, I’m considering the kids abandoned and calling the cops. I also text her this.”

After 30 minutes, the babysitter again attempted to contact her employer, noting that she doesn’t “know any of her family nor the father of the kids so I can’t call them”. When another 15 minute “grace period” went by, she followed through on her threat to contact the police and called the non-emergency line.

Babysitter calls police after mother doesn’t return home (Reddit)

According to the babysitter, when the police arrived, she showed them the texts from the mother confirming what time she would be home. After the officers also attempted to contact the children’s mother, to no avail, the babysitter said she was “dismissed and they took the children to the police station”.

In the post, the OP then explained that she was woken at 3am by a “frantic” call from the children’s mother, who wanted to know where her children were and why she was not there.

“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 recalled.

However, according to the OP, the next day she received a message from her employer informing her that the children’s father had been contacted and that the DCF [Department of Children and Families] had launched an investigation.

The babysitter concluded the post explaining that she hadn’t thought she had done anything wrong until she spoke with a friend who has children about the incident - who told her that she should have just waited and never babysat for the family again, instead of calling the police.

“She asked if her potentially losing her kids was worth me being petty,” she added.

Since the post was uploaded on Wednesday, it has been upvoted more than 21,000 times, with hundreds of Reddit users weighing in.

According to most users, the babysitter was not wrong for calling the police, as many noted that the mother’s behaviour was “irresponsible”.

“Her behaviour is absolutely irresponsible. She deserves a DCF investigation if she can’t be bothered to even respond,” one person commented.

Another said: “While I probably would have done what the friend suggested - waited, refused to ever sit again, I 100 per cent don’t fault you for calling the police. A daycare would have done the same thing if someone came for their kid six hours late.

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“She is horribly irresponsible and selfish and only has herself to blame for whatever consequence may come her way.”

Others assured the babysitter that she “did the right thing” because “it is never okay for a mother to be completely out of contact”.

“Being late occasionally is understandable, but it is never okay for a mother to be completely out of contact,” someone else wrote. “One of her kids could have choked to death or something terrible and she wasn’t answering her phone. You did the right thing.”

While many Reddit users were supportive of the babysitter’s choice, there were also some who noted that she should have stopped working for the family “a long time ago”.

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