Search icon

Musings

15th Dec 2023

‘Am I wrong for calling the police on the parents of the kids I babysit?’

Anna Martin

Babysitting

Babysitting is usually one of your first jobs

Whether it’s looking after your little cousins or your neighbour’s kids often it involves making sure nothing breaks while babysitting until their parents get home.

So what would you do if they didn’t come home on time and weren’t returning any of your phone calls?

Well, this Reddit user called the police and now wants to know if they did the right thing.

“I (16f) sometimes babysit on weekends. My mom’s coworker needed a babysitter, and she gave him my number. I agreed to babysit three kids from 2 pm till 8.30 pm. Because the parents had some party to get to,” they explained.

babysit
Credit: Getty

“It went okay. But the parents didn’t get back at 8.30. At 9 I tried calling him, but he didn’t pick up. I texted a few times. At 9.30 I tried calling again. And again at 10. And 10.30.”

After continuously calling the parents and beginning to feel nervous the young woman decided to contact the police.

“At 11.30 ish I called the police because I didn’t know what else to do. And I was worried something might have happened to the parents too. They came, and around the same time, the parents came back. The dad screamed at me, and he’s still very upset.”

Though this young woman wasn’t sure she had made the right call, her fellow Reddit users offered her support.

“You did everything right. I babysat (many years ago) when I was your age. The parents being 3 hours late and 3 hours unreachable is a babysitting emergency. They should ALWAYS be reachable in case there’s an emergency with their kids or you or the house,” commented one individual.

babysit
Credit: Getty

“You did the absolute right thing. You tried contacting the father quite a few times, and he didn’t respond. They came back three hours after you were told they’d be returning,” agreed one person, “The father was in the wrong, and he knew it. That’s why he screamed at you.”

Another person wrote, “You did the responsible, safe, logical thing. They can blame themselves for not calling you to tell you they were going to be late and for not being reachable when you tried to call them.”

READ MORE: