A couple is torn after their trusted babysitter broke the #1 rule of the pandemic: social distancing. In a letter written to Slate's Care and Feeding advice column, one of the parents explained that they hired the grad student to stay in their house for a month while they had an unexpected death in the family. But when they got home, they realized she snuck a guest into the house, which was a huge problem. Now the parents are torn: Should they warn people about their babysitter's actions?
This wasn't some rando they hired -- she'd been their "go-to babysitter" for the past year.
They were hoping she could help them out while they had to make their unexpected trip.
"Due both to current 'stay home' restrictions and our dog’s unpredictable behavior around strangers, we clearly established that we expected her to be the only person in our house while we were gone," one of the parents wrote in the letter.
When they got back, it was clear that she didn't take their instructions seriously.
The discovery was made fairly quickly — their favorite baby-sitter hadn't watched their home all by her lonesome.
"While we were gone, she had, at various points, lied both affirmatively and by omission to conceal this other person, including by temporarily disabling our exterior security cameras," the parent continued.
Although the woman fessed up and apologized pretty quickly -- the couple knew they couldn't trust her ever again.
Not to mention, they felt like she put their health at risk. They told their sitter that they would no longer hire her in the future "or recommend her to anyone else."
Now they're both wondering if they have a responsibility to warn others about what happened.
The parent wondered if they should warn their neighborhood network or keep it to themselves.
On the one hand, the parents would want to know if they were their neighbors. "On the other, I'm willing to accept that she made a series of bad and compounding decisions in the context of housesitting for us that don’t necessarily mean she is not generally a good babysitter," the parent noted.
The parent also worried that the move would be vindictive rather than just sharing information.
"We’d appreciate an outside perspective!" the person wrote.
Some people were judging the parents for overreacting.
"Who the eff doesn't allow significant others to come over during housesitting?" one commenter wondered.
"All the Letter Writer (LW)'s going to do is make himself look like an even more ridiculous control freak to a wider audience than he already has," someone else agreed. "A live-in dogsitting contract for a month should come with an implicit 'plus-one' anyways. As long as nothing's broken or stolen than we don't give a f–k if your housesitter has an occasional overnight guest over to Netflix and chill."
A third person put it this way:
"I think LW is pretty out of pocket. I mean, it wasn't like the sitter was throwing wild parties, inviting randos from the bus station to couch surf, disappearing for days at a time or filming pornos in the master bedroom. It was *one* guest over the course of an entire month. Hardly egregious considering the time frame involved."
Other people couldn't believe their sitter's audacity.
"Unless she already lives with the person that came over, she violated the stay-at-home order in regards to social distancing," one commenter pointed out.
"I would totally want this kind of information if I was making a decision about someone staying in my home," another person commented. "That's a position that requires a heck of a lot of trust. Knowing that the person will promise one thing and then do whatever she wants if she thinks I won't find out — nope, would not want that person staying in my home."
Columnist Nicole Cliffe seemed to agree: This sitter had gone too far.
Normally, Cliffe wouldn't go nuclear for a babysitter who was looking for a little loving while staying at your house. But there's one thing that really stood out to the columnist.
"She turned off your external security cameras in order to do a thing you specifically told her absolutely not to do? During a pandemic?" she wrote. "That’s wild behavior."
Even if the person she had over wasn't ill, "I would indeed have sufficient concerns about her character that I would feel comfortable warning neighbors I actually know," she added.
That doesn't mean going overboard and start a smear campaign, she warned. "But if I knew Jean and Doug next door were looking for a babysitter, I would absolutely tell them."
It's not about ruining their sitter's life, but it's about letting her understand that her actions have consequences.
"The low-grade consequences of 'You'll never work for certain families on Lawrence Avenue again!' are well within the bounds of acceptable reactions to this," she concluded.
