Internet Backs Babysitter Who Called the Cops After Mom Didn’t Come Home

A babysitter who called the cops after the mom didn’t come at the agreed time, and was unreachable, has received widespread support online.

The 28-year-old shared a post to Reddit as she debated if she did the right thing, explaining the mom had a history of being flaky. The dilemma, shared on Wednesday, has been upvoted more than 20,000 times, and sparked a fierce debate.

Posting under Electronic_Professor to the site’s Am I The A****** forum, the woman, thought to be in the U.S., revealed she babysat on weekends to “make extra cash.”

Explaining the dilemma with the mom, who she worked for for about a year, she wrote: “My issue is, the mom is never home on time. She used to not give me return times but finally I started asking as it made it impossible to get anything done on the weekends. I’d go babysit so she could go to ‘brunch’ but she’d be gone from 11 AM to 7 PM. 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.”

The babysitter agreed to watch the kids, aged 3 and 7, on a Saturday night from 6 p.m., with the understanding the mom would be home by 9 p.m., as she had plans later on.

But the evening didn’t go as planned, as she explained: “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. 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. I try calling her 30 minutes later and it goes to voicemail on the second ring, I text her again and she leaves me on read. If she had reached out saying ‘Hey, I’m staying out until x time,’ I would’ve stayed. I don’t know any of her family nor the father of the kids so I can’t call them.”

Sticking to her ultimatum, she called the cops while the kids were sleeping.

“I gave her a grace period of 15 minutes and tried calling again, finally called the cops (non-emergency line). They showed up and I showed our agreement in text from earlier in the week confirming that she’d be home by 9. They try contacting her, didn’t answer. I was dismissed and they took the children to the police station. I go home and go to bed,” she said.

She says she was awoken in the early hours by the mom, after returning home and demanding to know where she and the kids were.

The babysitter continued: “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 next day, she sends me an essay saying the kids’ father was called and there’s a DCF [department of children and families] investigation launched against her.”

She added the mom called her “every name under the sun,” and she didn’t second-guess her actions until she talked it over with a friend, who sided with the parent.

The babysitter continued: “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.”

But after sharing the conundrum online, Redditors overwhelmingly backed her decision, while the babysitter also confirmed she tried to go with the children to the station and she didn’t get paid.

The babysitter continued to stand by her actions, saying: “I’m sorry but she’s late every single time. I’d get once and awhile. I have clients who get caught up in traffic or misjudge what time a show will end.

“But she is consistently *hours* late. She was 6 hours late and didn’t answer her phone. That’s neglect. What if one of the kids was hurt?”

She continued: “I wasn’t sure if I was going to get paid or if she was even still alive. What if I woke up the next morning and she wasn’t there? The cops would ask why I waited so long.”

And it seems she asked the mom where she had been, but didn’t get an answer.

“I am always told she’s going out with friends. Saturday, it was dinner and drinks. I assume they did go to dinner but then maybe went to a club or another friend’s house. I asked her after she sent me the long text where she even was and she told me that was none of my business,” the babysitter added.

Tipidmeal wrote: “This. I can’t imagine leaving my kids for long periods of time and not checking up on them. Regardless if it’s with a family member or not.”

WithoutDennisNedry thought: “Furreal. She was 6 six hours late and not responding. That’s a are-you-dead-in-a-ditch type situation.”

While Lanky-Temperature412 added: “Yeah, her kids could have been in an accident or something and she’s not even answering the sitter’s calls?”

Although MyrddinEmrystheWelsh said: “I mean, she left it on read, so she knew the kids weren’t hurt.”

While it’s not clear where this happened, Kansas’ DCF shared definitions of abuse, which covers lack of supervision.

They explained it constitutes: “…failure to provide adequate supervision of a child or to remove a child from a situation which requires judgment or actions beyond the child’s level of maturity, physical condition or mental abilities and that results in bodily injury or a likelihood of harm to the child.

“Abandonment: to forsake, desert or cease providing care for the child without making appropriate provisions for substitute care.”

Newsweek reached out to Electronic_Professor for comment.

File photo of teddy in police car.
File photo of a teddy in a police car. A babysitter claims she called the cops after their mom failed to return home.
gargantiopa/Getty Images

https://www.newsweek.com/babysitter-call-cops-children-mom-home-1643411


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