Depending on the kid, babysitting is an easy enough job, right? But what happens when the babysitter doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of children?

In today’s story, a woman shares how her 18-year-old sister freaked out when she had to babysit the neighbor’s kids for two hours.

Now she’s wondering if asking her sister to help was a mistake.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for telling my sister that if she needs this much handholding I won’t have her babysit anymore

I am very good friends with the woman across the hall from me. She’s a single mom to 2 kids (2 and 6) and I help her a lot with the kids.

She handles school and daycare drop off, I do pick up and extracurricular activities, dinner’s a solid 60% her, 20% me, 20% restaurants.

When school and daycare are closed, I’m typically the one who stays home with them because my schedule is more flexible.

I do get paid for my help with the kids but I charge her below market rate for babysitting.

But sometimes, their schedules clash and she needs help, too.

The older one is out of school all week.

I also have the week off, so I’m mostly home with him but earlier today I had a dentist appointment, so I left my sister (18) with him for 2 hours.

I left instructions saying that he needed to read for 15 minutes, could have 30 minutes of screen time, a list of things she could give him when he got hungry.

(Things that require a slight bit of preparation but next to no skill: peanut butter sandwich, dino nuggets (with instructions), Kraft mac and cheese, etc) with a note to give him a fruit and vegetable.

I also told her to tell him that he can take the dog to the park, get a chocolate bar, and left some craft kits out.

This should’ve been the easiest babysitting job ever.

But her sister was very confused.

She started texting me 10 minutes in with the most basic questions, like ‘what is he supposed to read’ (there’s a shelf full of books in the living room).

Also, ‘is he allowed to play with the toys on the table’, he wants a snack, ‘what should she give him for lunch’, ‘does she need to go to the park with him and the dog’, ‘does TV count as screen time.’

I told her any book is fine, she needs to go to the park with him, figure the rest out based on the instructions and common sense.

When I got back, dude was an hour into a movie and my sister was upset that I basically left her to fend for herself and that just because this stuff comes easy to me, doesn’t mean it does to her.

She was baffled and they agreed to disagree.

I told her that I left her a page of instructions, toys on the table, a shelf full of books, and that she should be able to figure the rest out on her own but if she needs this much handholding, I’ll get another babysitter next time.

Now she’s mad at me because I know she needs the money and it’s not her fault that she didn’t know what to do.

Now I’m wondering if I was a little harsh because she always did need things to be spelled out for her.

AITA?

This is why micromanaging always backfires.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Exactly.

Odd, indeed.

Brace yourselves.

Another reader shares their opinion.

Something to consider for next time.

The very specific instructions definitely made her more confused.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.