She Babysat A Sick Toddler For Three Weeks, Got Really Sick Herself, And The Kid’s Parents Only Just Took Him To The Doctor, So She Wants To Tell The Family That She’s Never Babysitting While Their Child Is Sick Again
This 29-year-old woman is currently attending graduate school. But, in order to afford her tuition, she’s had to work alongside studying for her degree.
So, for nearly the past two years, she has been babysitting for the same family. For the first year that they worked together, she was actually watching a child full-time.
This year, though, she is only working for the family two days a week because the toddler is now getting sent to daycare on the other three days.
“And I have other responsibilities on the other days,” she said.
Still, she’s been pretty annoyed with the family she works for this past month because, for the last three weeks, the kid she watches has been really sick. Then, the toddler’s cold turned into a full-blown ear infection, and he even developed diarrhea.
And despite being sick for so long, the kid’s parents did not bother bringing them to the doctor until just yesterday.
“So I ended up getting his cold and have been sick for the past two weeks,” she explained.
On top of feeling really under the weather, she’s also still been required to babysit the kid. Plus, she lost out on a few of her other babysitting gigs. According to her, the other families just did not want their children around a sick babysitter, which she understands.
That’s why she is really annoyed by the fact that the toddler’s parents didn’t step up and address the sickness sooner.
nenetus – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
On the one hand, she understood that the child’s parents still needed to work to pay the bills. But, on the other hand, she truly believes that they should’ve been responsible for taking care of their sick kid– not her.
“They are no longer my main income, but right now, they’re the only ones I have because no one wants me,” she reasoned.
Due to all of this, she is actually considering confronting the kid’s parents and putting her foot down. More specifically, she wants to tell them that this is the last time she’ll ever babysit while the toddler is sick.
“I’m already sick, so it doesn’t matter at this point,” she vented, “But in the future, I’d love to avoid this situation.”
However, before she talks to the parents, she isn’t sure if setting that boundary would make her a jerk or not.
Should babysitters be expected to watch sick children, or is that the parents’ job? Do you think she should talk to the toddler’s parents or not? What would you do?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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