This such thing happened with a woman who posted about her experience in a Reddit forum called “AITA” (Am I The A**hole). The woman, whose username was @Electron_Professor, described herself as a 28-year-old female who babysits on weekends to make some extra money. But her side hustle is causing her moral conflict after an incident during one of her babysitting gigs. RELATED: Mother Makes Teen Daughter Sleep Outside In The Cold After Taunting Homeless Man
The babysitter called the police when a mom didn’t come home on time.
“The mom is never home on time,” she told Reddit, 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,” said the babysitter. After experiencing miscommunication multiple times about pickup time and getting frustrated waiting hours for the mother to come home, this next night was the final nail in the coffin for the babysitter. The babysitter wrote on the Reddit post that she got to the house at 6 PM and was supposed to leave by 9 PM because she had plans with her friends. RELATED: Mom Punishes Son Over ‘Heartless’ Prank He Pulled On A Girl In His Class But Wonders If She Went Too Far The mother promised her that she would be home on time, but once again, she’s late. Hours go by and after multiple calls, texts she still isn’t answering. The babysitter’s plans were ruined and she was, “p*ssed 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.” The babysitter didn’t know any other family members nor the father of the kids so she couldn’t call them. After giving the mother a grace period of 15 minutes and calling again, she finally called the cops. “They showed up and I showed our agreement in text from earlier in the week confirming that she’d be home by 9,” she says. The police tried to contact the mom, who didn’t answer, and then told the sitter she could go home while they take the children to the police station. RELATED: Mom Wonders If She’s Wrong For Picking Her Son Up From A Sleepover Because The Family Has A ‘Bath Day’ Finally at 3 am, the babysitter was awoken by a frantic call from the mother asking, “Where are the kids? Why am I not here?” She told her to check the police station. The mother then cursed her out and the babysitter 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 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 refused to ever sit for her again. She asked if her potentially losing her kids was worth me being petty,” wrote the babysitter.
Did the babysitter do the right thing?
According to findlaw.com, The common misconception regarding missing persons is that they must be absent for at least 24 hours, however, this is rarely the case. Multiple law enforcement agencies often stress that a missing person case should be reported as early as possible. On the Reddit thread, lots of users agreed that she was NTA (not the ahole) for calling the cops. One user commented, “One thing I’ve learned from True Crime is the wait 24 hours to file a missing person thing is a myth. She wasn’t where she said she’d be when she said and wasn’t responding to any communication. She was in fact a missing person at that point.” Another user commented, “I 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000% agree,” and said, “As a Firefighter, I have witnessed first hand the tragic results when someone fails to make the phone call on an abusive or neglectful mother. The end results of not making the calls are small-sized coffins.” Someone else also commented, “Furreal. She was 6 six hours late and not responding. That’s a are-you-dead-in-a-ditch type situation.” Therefore, fortunately for the babysitter, lots of other users were on her side, and after initially doubting her decision, she now hopefully realizes she wasn’t the ahole. RELATED: Dad Makes 16-Year-Old Daughter Shave Her Head After She Bullies A Girl With Cancer Megan Hatch is a writer at YourTango who covers news & entertainment, love & relationships, and internet culture. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
