Babysitters have to deal with a lot: high energy kids, cleaning up after the kids and more. Here are some of the most inappropriate things they have to deal with.
Then Why Adopt?
“I once babysat just one night for these strange parents. The children were two five year olds, one was adopted. The parents told me that their biological son, X, was allowed to play Grand Theft Auto in his bedroom for as long as he wanted and that they had a stash of candy for just him and there were no restrictions. Yes, he was a brat. But then the parents told me about Y, who they adopted a few months prior. They actually told me ‘he’s not allowed to leave the living room, because he’s adopted.’ And that was their only reasoning. It was shocking and to this day I can’t fathom or understand those people’s reasoning. Also, I can’t imagine what else he was denied or how else his treatment was altered just because he was adopted.” Source
So Sad
“We’d just moved to a new town in rural Ireland and I got part time work experience in a local school. John, only 11, one day asked me on behalf of his mum if I did babysitting. I said usually no but if she needed help I’d help out. So eventually I met her and she asked me a specific day. I said yes. So I get there and the mother is just on her way out the door. ‘Ok the younger ones are in bed, it’s just John and Sarah you have to look after. And if John asks, could you make a run to the shop to get him some tobacco and vodka. There’s some lemonade he can mix it with don’t worry.’ It turns out little John was an alcoholic. At 11. Twice later that year teachers caught him with beer in his bag and even had to call the police when he gave an 8 year old a sip of Guinness. Turns out John’s parents used to use vodka and even whiskey to shut him up when he was loud (it’s later been discovered he had ADHD).” Source
It Sadly Goes Both Ways
“When I was 11 my sister and I were frequently watched by the same sitter. A 17 year old girl. I thought she was hot. Like many 11 year old boys I was subject to frequent unwanted erections. One Saturday night my sister was asleep and I was watching Are You Afraid of the Dark with our sitter. Thats when it happened. BOING an erection showed up. I was embarrassed and unsure what to do, I started to squirm a little and try to formulate a plan. I was too late, my sitter glanced over and saw the erection. What she did next blew my 11 year old mind. She started to stroke it over the fabric. Then she reached in and pulled it out. She proceeded to give me what was my first, and by far my most memorable hand job. All the way to the happy ending. I was hyped. I was stoked. I was a legend in my own mind. She only watched us once or twice after that and there was no repeat of the event. It took me close to twenty years to realize that what she did was COMPLETELY F–KED UP. The boost to my ego, and the way it affected my opinion of sex and women was not great. I came to expect sexual satisfaction, I became the type to ‘whip it out’ at my first chance alone with any female and see what happened. All in all, I think it warped my perception of women, sex and relationships very much and was a contributing factor to many years of having very little relation in my mind between sexual activity and emotional connection.” Source
Maybe They Should Have Never Come Back
“I came home from work one Friday to find my wife babysitting a neighbor’s child, probably 18 months. I was told they were out for the evening and would be coming back late, probably picking him up Saturday morning. By Monday, I wasn’t sure if I should call COPS or just start raising him. From the moment I got home Friday, I took care of him, played with him, fed him, changed him. I’d heard him crying every day from their apartment; he’d be left to cry himself to sleep at night. When I put him to bed the first night, he started crying as soon as the light was off. We’d put his playpen next to our bed for him to sleep in, so I laid down on the bed and put my hand on his back and talked to him quietly. After a few minutes, he fell fast asleep. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night, all I had to do was lay him down, put my hand on his back, and say ‘See you in the morning.’ I did not have to stay in the room, he’d fall asleep with no crying or fuss. He just wanted to know that he wasn’t being abandoned. They came back Tuesday. We’d been knocking on their door and calling every day. They acted as if nothing were wrong, and only paid my wife for one day. After they finally showed up and got him, I could hear him crying in their apartment again. It seemed to anger his mother when I told her how I got him to sleep quietly every night. Shortly after, they moved.” Source
Lock The Door
“The family had two boys, about 2 and 8. The older boy was very mischievous, and didn’t like to go to bed when he was told. The younger one would follow his brother around, so it was a pain getting them both to sleep. The parents told me to deal with this by locking them both into their rooms, and to ignore them if they cried. I felt really uncomfortable locking them in, knowing that if there was a fire or any emergency I might not be able to reach them in time and they would be trapped. I also felt that it was cruel to ignore a crying toddler in my care. I instead played with them until they were really tired, put them to sleep, and sometimes sat right outside their doors to make sure they stayed in bed.” Source
Completely Inappropriate
“When I was 17 years old I babysat for a couple that lived about 15 minutes from our house. Dad was invariably the one who drove me home. One evening he started stating what he considered facts: ‘You’re tired of all those 17 year old boys. You’re ready for a real man.’ I answered awkwardly, slowly understanding where he was going with this. The drive ended and I hurried out of the car. The next time they asked me to babysit, I thought about it, and thought maybe I was just overreacting and went back. That night he and his wife were accompanied by his younger brother. Dad and younger brother drove me home. They lit a joint and handed it to me. I partook while they began to dream up schemes to hang out with me outside of the babysitting gig. I never went back after that. In hindsight, I can understand why the mom was always so frustrated that their sitters would never stick around.” Source
Wanna Hit?
“It was the early 70s and I was babysitting occasionally. Jobs were posted on a dorm bulletin board. I arrived at an apartment full of stoned people, including the parents, getting high for a concert. The kids were asleep already. They offered me a hit. At first I was gobsmacked that they wanted me to watch their kids while high. And then I thought they probably smoke around them all the time. Then one of them said, ‘So, you goin’ to the concert?’ ‘No. I’m babysitting.’ ‘Oh, right, man.'” Source
No Pay
“I did a bit of baby sitting and had asked to look after a baby, so I rode my bike about 15km to get to their place. The kid was a lot younger than I had been used to looking after. The mom left and didn’t really say when she was back, so I fell asleep on the couch, woke up a few times and checked on the baby. It was the 80s so no mobile phones and I just sort of assumed this is what I was supposed to do. She turned up about 8am the next morning, thanked me for the babysitting and I sort of waited awkwardly till I realized I wasn’t getting paid, so rode back home. In retrospect, that is some next level irresponsibility, even by 80s standards. I also still don’t get how she thought that it wouldn’t be paid.” Source
Unaware Of Protocol.
“When I was 11, I babysat for a couple that lived 8 blocks from my house. They had one child and both parents were doctors. They were nice people and I baby sat for them almost every Saturday night. When they got home, they would pay me to the quarter hour. No rounding up for good measure. The worst part? The husband would ask me if I could walk home by myself. He was always tired and not in any condition to walk or drive. What was I supposed to say? No? So I would bolt home, scared s**tless. If my parents were home, I would call my dad to come get me. Sometimes he was sleeping and he had to get out of bed. The docs would make me wait out front for him, too. They needed their sleep. This made my parents furious but this went on for about 6 months. Finally, my mom had enough. The next time the Drs. called me to babysit she scolded them saying, ‘Listen, my daughter is no longer going to babysit for you if you will not drive or walk her home at the end of the night. My husband and I don’t think it is our responsibility to pick her up. We raised 3 daughters and had plenty of sitters over the years. We always gave them rides home or put them in a cab. Always. You need to step up and take this responsibility.’ I was floored. My mom was full of calm, but righteous indignation. It was beautiful to witness. ‘And for the record, I know this is your first child so you may not know these things, but it’s customary to round up when calculating the pay. The quarter hour payment is ridiculous. Especially because you’re not driving her home. Surely you can spare a few quarters for your son.’ Mrs. Doc apologized profusely and thanked my mother for letting her know. I continued to baby sit for them until HS. Then I got a life.” Source
The Perils Of Drunk Driving.
“I would babysit for a friend of my parents when I was between 12-15 years old. The parents were pretty big partiers, but I actually liked the fact that they stayed out late because I was paid by the hour. They would come home pretty drunk and eventually the father started asking me to drive myself home. He would sit in the passenger seat while I drove and drive himself back to his place after dropping me off. I’m sure he thought this was a safer alternative to him driving me home while completely drunk, but not only was I under age, but not a particularly good driver. Unfortunately, years later his wife did kill herself in a single car accident involving alcohol.” Source
TMI
“I used to babysit for a couple who I’ll call John and Jane. One of the things I noticed early on was that they were having marital problems, which I concluded from marriage counseling papers left on the countertops. It looked like mostly some kind of worksheets where they wrote down everything they didn’t like about their spouse. Their son could read and obviously so could I. I tried to ignore it, but I’d be in the kitchen making their son a sandwich next to a piece of paper that said ‘John does not care about my sexual satisfaction’ and things like that. So the situation was awkward enough, but then it got weirder. John always got home from work before Jane, and he would usually just drive me home immediately. One day John arrived home as usual, and asked me to come talk to him for a minute. I figured I’d done something wrong so I was freaking out. What he did say was ‘Would you mind taking (son) out to play in the yard for a few minute before I take you home? I want to jump on the computer and whack one out before Jane gets home.’ Me being 11 and immensely relived he didn’t yell at me for anything, I just said ‘Sure.’ Some time later John drove me home. It was one of the most awkward car rides I ever had in my life.” Source
She Was So Wrong
“When I was only about 11 I was asked to babysit twin 6 year old boys, both who were in special classes for behavioral problems. Since I frequently babysat my brothers, I apparently thought I was capable of doing this. I was wrong. The most standout memory of this was: Twin 1: Look, I can climb out my bedroom window to the roof. Me: OK cool, but please DON’T do that. Twin 1 starts to open window. Twin 2: Can I go to the bathroom? Me, while wrestling twin 1 away from window: Yeah, of course. Twin 2, waving from outside the window, on the roof of their two story house: Look, we can go out the bathroom window too! Twin 1: Yeah we do this all the time with our mom Me: And she doesn’t think its dangerous?? Twin 1: No she does, sometimes she just ties us to our chairs so we don’t do this. I guess the inappropriate part is thinking a sixth grader could watch your kids when they had such severe behavioral problems.” Source
Apparently It Was A Very Different Time
“When I was 15 we lived next to 3 divorced women who each had a child around 3 yrs old. I babysat for them a lot as they liked to go out partying A LOT. They told me if the kids wouldn’t go to bed to just put some cream de cacao in their bottles. One time I called one of the ladies and told her I was going to do LSD for the first time and didn’t want to do it at home. She said I can probably figure out somewhere to go. Upon leaving the house with me and her child knowing full well what my plans for the evening were, her only advice was ‘don’t paint the hall, K?'” Source
“Oh, There Were A Few Things.”
I would say the MOST inappropriate thing I was asked to do was hit the children. It was never, ever, ever going to happen, but I knew in the first, like, minute and a half of that job that I’d never be back. I was either 12 or 13, very young. The woman called me after another woman I babysat for every once in a while had recommended me. The first woman was no delight to sit for, either she once counted popcorn kernels into a paper bag with each child’s name on it. Each child could have no more than fifty kernels in their microwaved lunch bag of popcorn. Wild stuff. Anyhow. It was a very weird vibe just walking in. The mom was sort of wild-eyed hostile for no apparent reason, and it was chaotic from the get-go. She had two beautiful little girls, one of whom was a young preschooler who didn’t really speak. The little girl saw me, toddled partway over, stooped to pick up a dead squirrel by the tail, and held it up so I could see it. Without hesitation or a single word, the mom backhanded the child across the face and sent her flying. She kicked the squirrel aside, picked up the girl, smacked her on the bottom, and told me to follow her into the house. At least one time and probably more during her instructions to me, she told me to ‘just smack em’ if they did anything wrong. Yeah, no, I’m not doing that. The fun part of all of this was that, as I mentioned in some other weird-babysitting-anecdote answers, after she gave me my instructions she placed a big stack of cash on the microwave. Then she turned around, pointed a finger in my face, and told me that if any was gone she’d know I’d stolen it. Her husband ended up getting home before she did, and he paid me from the microwave cash before driving me home. I was never asked back (I wouldn’t have gone), but I always wondered if she went back and saw money missing and yelled that she effing knew it.” Source
Definitely Not Her Fault
“I was eleven. A young couple down the road from our farm had a baby boy. They hired me for $1/hour. His parents told me to add scotch to his baby bottle to help him take a nap. They didn’t tell me how much though and I knew nothing about booze. I poured about half an inch, added milk and about an hour later the kid projectile vomited all over his nursery and was zonked for the entire four hours! My mom asked how it had gone. I told her about the scotch in the bottle and she went ballistic. She called them up and schooled them. The boy grew up to become an alcoholic and I always thought it was my fault.” Source
The Toilet
“The kiddo went to the bathroom and remained there for like fifteen minutes, so I went in to find her. She was on the toilet, straining. I was about to leave her in privacy when she flailed her little arms and said the phrase that will live in my memory forever: ‘You can’t leave! You have to SQUISH me!’ I had quite the WTF expression. So I went, ‘What?’ She says, ‘When I can’t poop, mommy and daddy always squish my tummy, so you have to squish me!’ And she places one hand on her stomach, and one hand on her back, and demonstrates how to squish her. So I accept her demands and gingerly put a bit of pressure on her stomach. But, oh, no. ‘Harder! You have to squish me harder!’ So, I’m literally squishing the s–t out of a small child for a few minutes until finally she breathes a sigh of relief and tells me she’s done. She hops up off the toilet and there, in the bowl, is this tiny corn kernel sized turd. I squished a baby for almost f–king nothing.” Source
Breaking And Entering
“When I was 14, I babysat for a family with 4 kids. One summer I took the kids to play outside and in a fit of anger, the eldest one managed to lock us all out. Dealing with ‘oh no we’re stuck out here we’re gonna have to eat grass to survive’ panic from two of the kids, I noticed the kitchen window was open, so I broke the screen off and lifted the youngest through the window, coaching her on how to unlock the door and let us all in. In essence, I caused property damage and broke into their house, but it didn’t seem to annoy the parents too much when they returned and I explained.” Source
“I Never Told Anyone”
“I was about 14 and one summer, I babysat during the day for a family across the street. They had 3 children. 2 were in elementary school and one was a baby. I was sitting in a recliner watching TV, with the baby asleep in my lap, when the father came home. Next thing I knew, the father had his hand in my shirt around my breast. I don’t remember what I did, I must have looked shocked or said something because he said he thought I wanted it. I avoided him and left promptly the next 2 days and then they fired me.” Source
“Marry Their Mother.”
“That request from three little girls will scare the h*ll out of a single man. Oh, wow, will it ever. My neighbor was a single mother with three daughters aged 11, 13 and 14. Their mother got home from work much later that I did. After school the girls would come to my house and wait for me to get home, perhaps an hour later. My house was a ‘safe haven.’ I would often cook dinner and feed them, their mother after she got home and my girlfriend. Those girls made it very obvious that they preferred evenings where it was their mother, them and me. No girlfriend. One evening, when they knew my girlfriend wasn’t coming over they had decided to make a romantic dinner for me, their mother and them. Conniving little wanna-be matchmakers. Spaghetti and a bottle of wine! When I got home all three were throwing spaghetti at the refrigerator across the kitchen. They had heard that when spaghetti was done if you threw it against a wall it would stick. They had opened a romantic bottle of white wine. The wine was half gone. They were half gone, too. They wanted a heart-to-heart talk. ‘When are you going to marry mom?’ On and on until mom finally got home. Then they clammed up. Mom didn’t know they were going to do this. I opened a bottle of red wine for mom and me. I needed it. To draw this story to a close their mom and I didn’t marry. She married an exceptional man who legally adopted the girls. I was at the wedding. The girls were so happy they cried. I got something in my eye.” Source
Lost The Kid
“We had been playing in a bedroom when the two sisters began fighting over a toy. I interceded and the older girl stormed out of the room in a huff. It was awhile before I realized she wasn’t coming back. I started wandering the house calling her name. No response. I checked the basement. I checked the yard. I was really panicky and for an additional reason than most. Years earlier, the family had suffered the death of a 4-year-old who had wandered from home and drowned in a neighbor’s pool. So what’s a 13-year-old to do? I called my mom. Minutes later, she walked into the house and said very loudly, ‘Fiona! Come out! We are going to Dairy Queen!’ We heard a giggle, then an, ‘OK!’ She had been hiding under a pile of dirty clothes. The little snot. So, we went and got ice cream. I knew we were rewarding bad behavior, but this babysitter really needed some chocolate.” Source