Not having kids is a choice a lot of women make for a variety of reasons. For those of us with kids, having people who are child-free in our lives is amazing. Sometimes it’s just from a social perspective; it’s great to have friends who can just pick up and go. And it can come in handy when it comes to child care.
Those friends might be more easily available to step in and babysit if we’re in a pinch. But it’s not fair to take advantage of those people in our lives who don’t have kids, as one woman pointed out.
The woman had struck up a friendship with her neighbor.
The 32-year-old child-free woman posted on Reddit, sharing that she had become “friendly” with a new neighbor. Her neighbor has two young kids, “and seemed nice enough at first.” After talking a few times, the woman revealed that she doesn’t go into work every day. She also revealed that she doesn’t have kids.
“Two days ago, she randomly knocks on my door and asks if I could help watch her kids from 11am to 3pm, because she has an interview,” the woman wrote. “I hesitated and I’m not really equipped to babysit. She says, it’s just a few hours I don’t even have kids and I’ve got time.”
She agreed, ‘against my better judgment.’
The OP said part of her agreement was a belief it would be a “one time favor.” The mom then dropped off her 6- and 9-year-old boys “with no snacks, no water bottles, no instructions, and just told me they like cartoons.”
Mom returned four hours later. When she did, she “doesn’t even say thank you. Just informs me they’ll probably be back next week, same time.” That seems awfully presumptuous!
The woman asked the mom to give her $30 for watching her kids.
And mom did not take kindly to being asked for money. “She then said she thought we were friends that she doesn’t have that kind of money,” the OP wrote. But that wasn’t the worst thing she said, not even close.
The mom told the woman, “You don’t even have real responsibilities, you should be helping your community instead of asking for cash like a daycare.” Excuse us? Why would you say that to someone whose help you need?
Now, the woman doesn’t answer her door.
People replied with horror stories of their own.
Apparently, this mom’s behavior wasn’t as uncommon as some would believe. Lots of people had similar experiences.
“I lived in an apartment complex with my daughter who was 10 years old at the time,” one person shared. “There was a family upstairs with 2 little girls she would play outside with. Well one day, their mom had to go run errands, so she asked my 10 year old child if I could babysit. My child, who does not understand adult responsibilities, said sure. So these little girls show up at my apartment, and at first I thought they were just playing together which is fine. But then it got to be our dinner time so I sent them home. And they tell me they can’t go home, their mom left and locked them out.”
Another person told their tale: “When I last lived in apartments, my youngest child’s classmate (not friend, just casual acquaintance) showed up at my door one day and said, ‘My dad said you were going to start babysitting me. Turns out said classmate and my youngest were talking about what their parents did for work, and my youngest mentioned I occasionally worked from home. Classmate went home and told her dad, and he assumed I worked from home exclusively, and, as such, was available to babysit. Therefore he told his daughter to start coming to my apartment after school, rather than go home alone.”
