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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2025-11-09 17:14:57+00:00.
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Nannyontheloose
AITA for not babysitting other kids even though I am a nanny?
Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole
TRIGGER WARNING: entitlement
Original Post March 17, 2022
Not on my main account because a lot of previous clients and friends follow me on there.
I(56F) have been a nanny to a couple, we'll call them Jenna(29F) and Mitchel(32M) for a few years now. They have been great people and I also like the pay since they're fairly wealthy they give me a big sum and I also love their kids. They have a boy(4) and a girl(5) who are really sweet and I look forward to seeing them.
On to the problem: Jenna and Mitchel decided to host a party at a restaurant they live close to, no problem for me, I'll watch their kids like usual while they have their fun. They're giving me the run down on things like the usual but then something odd they said was "and make sure the kids are ready to be picked up by 9:30pm." I thought this was strange but decided to push it to the back of my mind as they never said previously anything about other kids and only said that one statement ... maybe it was just a slip up.
About 20 mins go by and Mitchels and Jenna's friends come over to pick them up I'm assuming so I go over to meet their friends and their friends brought all their kids for me to babysit. There was at least 7 kids I saw. I pulled Jenna aside and asked her why their friends expected me to babysit their kids and to just get someone else to babysit them, as I only agreed to babysit HER kids.
She seemed taken aback and said she thought I wouldn't mind since I don't do anything else with my time anyways,(my husband died 11 years ago so I'm always by myself at home now.)which was true but this was never part of the agreement. Apparently all her friends were busy and couldn't come to the party because of their kids and to save money and time Jenna just offered to dump all their kids at her place for me to watch.
I got angry and said unless she's willing to pay me 7x the amount of money she pays me now, there's no way I'm watching 9 kids for the amount of time that they're gone(8 hours) and I just wouldn't be able to handle it. Her face changed from confused to frustrated and said I should be lucky I'm their nanny at all with the amount of money I'm paid and to be grateful and do this one thing as it's just one night she just wants to treat her friends to a nice dinner. I was shocked and didn't say anything else and just left their house.
Mitchel later called me cussing me out and saying how I humiliated them and embarrassed them with my actions and how they had to cancel everything last minute because of everyone's kids and I was a selfish stuck up lazy bitch for not doing this one time thing. I didn't say anything the whole way through until he was done talking and just hung up and now I'm really wondering if I messed up here...i really like their kids and they were great people before this incident.
AITA?
VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Slopez604
Nta. It's just business. You're following the established contract. If they didn't want to be embarrassed, they should have contacted you prior to renegotiate. And by the sounds of it, they don't pay you enough to turn turn blind eye this once in order to retain the job. "Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine."
JuliaX1984
This was no failure of planning - they deliberately lied by omission to try to blindside her into accepting 4.5 times as much work without extra pay.
NTA Those were NOT the terms you agreed to, and they know it.
OOP
Yes, and they didn't say anything about hosting a party until that day. So they already set up everything prior to talking to me about baby sitting their kids. My guess is they wanted to already be too far into it and didn't tell me about anything so it would be too late for me to back out. Unfortunately for them, I have two legs, and can walk myself out of their lives.
SJ_Barabarian
They see her as an appliance, not a person. "The child-watching machine is acting like it has rights!"
OOP
I didn't even think of it like that! Good point...wealthy people do have a history of taking advantage of others.
~
ArrowTechIV
I am so confused. This is a "party" at a restaurant that lasts 8 hours? Then it ends before 9:30 pm? So it starts at 2 pm? And then they had to cancel everything because you wouldn't babysit -- but they hadn't cleared the "babysitting all the children" with you ahead of time?
That's just weird. If the restaurant and food were booked for an 8 hour time period -- probably on a weekend, which would include prime business hours -- then the lack of honesty and clarity here is odd. That's too big a commitment (probably a contract was involved) to just collapse.
OOP
Sorry for the misunderstanding! When they said they had to cancel, they had to cancel for going/showing up. With something that close and how they already booked everything prior, they couldn't cancel the actual even and still paid for everything. So not only did they lose a sitter, but also a lot of money!
ArrowTechIV
Wow! So they booked this big party and didn't give any thought to running the number of children past you? You are NTA.
OOP Updated March 18, 2023 - Same Post/Next Day
UPDATE(because I'm not sure how to actually update): I didn't expect to be posting an update so soon, as I thought they would both ghost me and we wouldn't talk again and they would find another nanny...I was wrong. Jenna called me this afternoon. Hoping for an apology, I picked up. She tried to guilt trip me into babysitting for her kids again, saying how there isn't another one like me and she didn't want a younger nanny because she didn't want the kids latching onto her and calling her mom and if anything wanted them to think of them as a grandma(what the fuck?). She then went on to say she was sorry and she was wrong for doing what she did and wanted me to come and be their nanny again.
I let her finish with her rant. After she was done talking, I said I was sorry she was that insecure about baby sitters her age and if she was that worried she should take her head out of her ass and focus on her kids rather than her business and even though she doesn't respect my time and effort I DO, told her good luck finding another sitter, and blocked her and Mitchel. I'm still having a hard time finding a replacement, but at least I'm free from the entitlement they showed.
I most likely would not have said all that and put my foot down If it wasn't for all the comments you guys gave so thank you! Really down played my self worth as a nanny because I'm a caregiver for years, so the boost really helped :)
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
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