Kylee Erin Gallavan, who goes by @kylee_gallavan on TikTok, is wondering if you would ever dare leave your toddler unsupervised at a hotel pool after that actually happened to her, and the mom didn’t even make eye contact or ask Kylee if she could watch her kid before walking away.
Kylee is a nanny for a living, and she’s not attempting to be judgmental, but she found the situation so jarring, and now she’s opening up about it.
Kylee spent an hour in the hotel hot tub as part of a staycation, and right before she got out, she noticed a toddler girl came into the pool area with her mom.
The mom allowed her toddler to swim, and Kylee got out of the hot tub to go dry off on one of the chairs sitting around the pool. When the little girl was done swimming, the mom said she could watch her tablet, which Kylee thought would be a great break for the mom.
The little girl curled up under a blanket on one of the chairs. Kylee then noticed the mom got up and walked over to the stairwell door to peer through the window before walking out another door on Kylee’s right and leaving.
The mom didn’t ask Kylee to watch her daughter or say something like she had to use the bathroom, which is where Kylee thought she had gone. Kylee felt responsible for this woman’s toddler, so she didn’t want to go back to her room.
“I was kind of hoping to leave now, but I can’t really leave because now I feel responsible for this toddler, not even as a nanny, but as a human being,” Kylee explained.
“We’re right by the pool, she swam with a flotation device, she didn’t have it on under the blanket, I watched them take it off, so I was like, ok, maybe the mom’s having like a bathroom issue, I’m not really sure.”
Kylee spotted the mom out of the corner of her eye, popping in and out to see what the toddler was doing. Kylee still didn’t feel comfortable leaving, so she set a timer for 10 minutes.
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When the timer went off, Kylee got up to leave, and the mom came back into the pool area with a weight in her hand (the gym was located close to the pool).
Kylee was astounded to piece together that this mom was working out while her kid was left without adult supervision by the pool. Kylee began putting her clothes on and was interested in seeing how the mom would react since the little girl was about to be completely alone.
Well, the mom continued to leave her kid in the pool area. Kylee could see the mom was lifting weights in the gym, and Kylee noted that it only takes five seconds for a child to drown.
“It happens when people are in the pool with their children, and you are leaving, let’s just talk about pool safety, you are leaving your kid by the pool without an adult that they know, no flotation device is left on, the kid is watching an iPad under the thing,” Kylee said.
“But number two, stranger danger. You could have at least started the conversation with me, figured out I was a nanny, but even then, like we’re at a random hotel in Washington, D.C., like are you kidding me?”
“And then not only do you leave her by the pool with a stranger, but then you go around the corner to start a workout. Like, judgment at the beginning of this was like don’t judge her, single mom, blah, blah, whatever, but like that is blatant disregard for your child’s safety and…that is unacceptable.”
Ultimately, Kylee called the front desk to tip them off. Kylee’s goal was to relax at the hotel, but what the mom did really stressed her out.
People sounded off in the comments of Kylie’s video, and many were outraged that this mom was so irresponsible with her toddler.
“I wouldn’t leave my toddler alone at a hotel pool with 99.9% of the people I know, let alone an absolute stranger,” one person commented.
“This story disgusts me. Drowning is 100% preventable,” another person said.
“If I was feeling nice, I would have waited 5 minutes, then called 911 for [an] abandoned child. If I was not feeling nice, I would have almost immediately called the police, not hotel staff. When that child dies due to their mom’s incompetence I wanted it recorded,” a third person weighed in.
By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
