There is a long list of things that can give you severe anxiety as a parent.
In fact, I’m not sure that list ever ends – and for almost all of us, choosing a babysitter is pretty high up.
OP has an older teenager living with them because she could no longer stay at home.
My (f26) and husband(28) took in one of my little sisters friends (f18, just shy of 19). Let’s call her Sam. Sam has been with us for almost a full year, and we’ve been taking care of her.
We also have two small children (3 &1) who live in our home as well.
She doesn’t pay rent but she does sometimes babysit.
We occasionally ask Sam to watch the kids for us when we have errands to run or want a date night etc.
She graduated high school in May, and did not have a job over the summer nor paid any sort of bills, so we didn’t think it was a huge ask considering we pay everything. Cellphone, shoes, clothes, anything she needs.
All has gone well, as far as OP knows.
We just finally trusted Sam enough to watch the kids over night so we could go out of town to celebrate our anniversary.
Everything went fine and we returned home with no issues.
Or so we thought.
Then one day, the girl had trouble waking up.
Today, I had some errands to run while husband went to work, so I asked Sam to watch the kids for about 2 hours last evening. Sam is in no way a morning, and it’s VERY apparent. For reference this is at 7:12 am. The kids had just gotten up at 6:30.
This morning when she got up to watch the kids, she instantly fell asleep back on the couch. Husband and I had to wake her up before we left.
We have a car in the shop currently so I was dropping him off then doing my errands. I had to use the restroom after dropping him off so I stopped back home, to find my house door unlocked and the home alarm not turned on.
Sam was in the room with the kids sleeping. This was at 7:50 am. She had no idea I ever entered the house.
I was angry but got back into my car to go do what I needed to do.
When OP checked the cameras, she saw the babysitter giving her kids melatonin (in the morning) so they would go back to sleep.
While I was driving, I had a nagging feeling to check the living room camera from after the time we left. What I see on the camera horrified me as a mom.
Not even 10 minutes after we left, Sam goes to the spot we keep the children’s melatonin (my child is autistic and takes it nightly) and proceeds to plop one into my child’s mouth.
She lost her mind and told her to pack her bags and get out.
I saw red I sent the video to my husband to confirm what I saw, and he agreed. I then also sent it to my mom to triple check. I fly home and go inside to confront her. She lies and lies to me until she tells me that she actually did do it.
I told her that she needed to be out of my house today by 1pm. And she had a total meltdown. She gave me every reason in the book as to why she did it, and freaked out that she has no where to go.
I told a few people because I’m so upset I’m crying. I had some people who agreed with me, but some saying I shouldn’t kick her out since she has nowhere to go. Making me feel horrible.
So my question to you is; AITA for kicking her out over giving my child melatonin?
Did she overreact? You know Reddit is the place to go!
The top comment says everyone was in the wrong in some way.
This person tends to agree.
Plenty of people thought it was more complicated than some wanted to make it seem.
Most do think the babysitter was wrong for drugging the kids.
We’re all prone to overreact when our kid are involved.
This is for sure a messy situation.
Hopefully clearer heads prevailed before any big decisions were made.
If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.