Mom Asks If She Was Wrong To Tell Daughter It's 'Her Fault' The Babysitter Quit

"I have 3 kids: 6, 4 and nearly a year old. When I was pregnant with my youngest, I hired a sitter to pick the other two up from school and watch them," the mom wrote.

However, her oldest daughter began to develop an attitude when dealing with the babysitter.

"My eldest loved her babysitter but she began to develop a huge attitude. I know one of her friends has a nanny who she’s basically allowed to boss around with little consequence. We told my daughter that her sitter is in charge and she’s to respect her, not demand things of her," she said.

"A few months ago, the sitter asked my daughter to grab the baby’s diaper bag and my daughter sassed back saying, 'You can’t tell me what to do, I’m the boss of you!' Sitter told me that night and I immediately addressed it, in front of the sitter. I told my daughter that was not acceptable, she’s not the boss of anyone and I took away her TV privilege for a week," the mom said.

"It happened again just a month later and I had a much sterner talk with her, took away more privileges. Both times I made her verbally apologize and write a note of apology to her sitter. The sitter accepted it but I could tell she was losing patience," she wrote.

"I’ll add I did try talking with my daughter calmly and asking why she felt this was okay. She’d say 'We pay her, I’m her boss.' And I said no, that’s not true. I said she is hired to take care of her and deserved respect. My daughter would always seem to understand," the mom said.

"My daughter was acting up, sitter had tried several de-escalation tactics but finally told her to go have quiet time in her room.

My daughter screamed in her face, 'I’m the boss of you! I’ll get you fired!' The sitter calmly picked up the phone and called me (we have cameras in our house-which she knew about) and told me to come home, immediately. Upon arrival, she quit," the mom added.

As the mom has been scrambling to find a new sitter, her daughter has to go to an after-school program in the meantime. This means no swimming class or other fun activities.

"She’s been complaining that she can’t do it anymore and I told her that it’s her own fault. She is why her sitter quit and until I can find someone new, she won’t get to do the fun activities that her sitter took her to," the mom said.

The mom asked Reddit if she's wrong in blaming the six-year-old for the sitter quitting. Reddit thinks she's 100% right.

"Her actions impacted someone enough to make them quit a job they were being paid to do. She has soiled her reputation as word spreads fast within the babysitter community if a child treats their caregiver like that. I imagine this wasn’t three isolated events but more like it was happening way more frequently but those three times were when the babysitter was at her last straw.

The consequences before didn’t work and now the impact of her actions is bothering her. She is old enough to know now that her actions had consequences and this is why she can’t go to her fun activities," one person commented on the post.

"Personally, I think pointing out that not being able to go swim is a direct result if not having a sitter and that not having a sitter is a result of her behavior is a good example of natural consequences. And when you get a new sitter, I would carefully go over appropriate behavior again.

I would want to have a plan with the new sitter for if she tries the same tactics again," someone added.

Do you agree?