Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 19, 2025
They told her to have the kids ready by 9:30.
It sounded routine, almost administrative. A small logistical note in the middle of party details. Only later did it begin to feel like a setup. In domestic work, requests don’t always arrive as requests. Sometimes they show up as assumptions already in motion.
This story doesn’t begin with shouting. It begins with familiarity years of trust, good pay, affection for two children she genuinely enjoys. Then seven more children appear at the door. Coats, shoes, parents mid-conversation. The shift is quiet but decisive.
From that point forward, the question isn’t just whether she can handle nine kids. It’s about what happens when the scope of someone’s labor expands without being named. And who is expected to absorb that expansion without comment.
A nanny with an established, well-paid position agrees to watch her employers’ two children while they attend a restaurant party. On the day of the event, she discovers that seven additional children belonging to their friends are also expected to stay under her supervision. This plan was arranged in advance, but not disclosed to her.
She privately challenges the assumption and refuses unless the compensation reflects the increased workload. The employers react with visible frustration. The evening collapses; the party is not attended. A phone call follows in which she is insulted and blamed for the fallout.
The next day, one employer reaches out again part apology, part attempt to regain control of the arrangement. In that conversation, insecurities about younger caregivers and attachment surface. The nanny declines the offer to return and severs contact.
The central rupture forms where professional agreement is replaced by expectation, and where refusal destabilizes more than just one evening’s plan.
Text Version
AITA for not babysitting other kids even though I am a nanny?
CONCLUDED
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Nannyontheloose
AITA for not babysitting other kids even though I am a nanny?
Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole
TRIGGER WARNING: entitlement
Original Post March 17, 2022
Not on my main account because a lot of previous clients and friends follow me on there.
I(56F) have been a nanny to a couple, we’ll call them Jenna(29F) and Mitchel(32M) for a few years now. They have been great people and I also like the pay since they’re fairly wealthy they give me a big sum and I also love their kids. They have a boy(4) and a girl(5) who are really sweet and I look forward to seeing them.
On to the problem: Jenna and Mitchel decided to host a party at a restaurant they live close to, no problem for me, I’ll watch their kids like usual while they have their fun. They’re giving me the run down on things like the usual but then something odd they said was “and make sure the kids are ready to be picked up by 9:30pm.” I thought this was strange but decided to push it to the back of my mind as they never said previously anything about other kids and only said that one statement … maybe it was just a slip up.
About 20 mins go by and Mitchels and Jenna’s friends come over to pick them up I’m assuming so I go over to meet their friends and their friends brought all their kids for me to babysit. There was at least 7 kids I saw. I pulled Jenna aside and asked her why their friends expected me to babysit their kids and to just get someone else to babysit them, as I only agreed to babysit HER kids.
She seemed taken aback and said she thought I wouldn’t mind since I don’t do anything else with my time anyways,(my husband died 11 years ago so I’m always by myself at home now.)which was true but this was never part of the agreement. Apparently all her friends were busy and couldn’t come to the party because of their kids and to save money and time Jenna just offered to dump all their kids at her place for me to watch.
I got angry and said unless she’s willing to pay me 7x the amount of money she pays me now, there’s no way I’m watching 9 kids for the amount of time that they’re gone(8 hours) and I just wouldn’t be able to handle it. Her face changed from confused to frustrated and said I should be lucky I’m their nanny at all with the amount of money I’m paid and to be grateful and do this one thing as it’s just one night she just wants to treat her friends to a nice dinner. I was shocked and didn’t say anything else and just left their house.
Mitchel later called me cussing me out and saying how I humiliated them and embarrassed them with my actions and how they had to cancel everything last minute because of everyone’s kids and I was a selfish stuck up lazy bitch for not doing this one time thing. I didn’t say anything the whole way through until he was done talking and just hung up and now I’m really wondering if I messed up here…i really like their kids and they were great people before this incident.
AITA?
VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Slopez604
Nta. It’s just business. You’re following the established contract. If they didn’t want to be embarrassed, they should have contacted you prior to renegotiate. And by the sounds of it, they don’t pay you enough to turn turn blind eye this once in order to retain the job. “Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”
JuliaX1984
This was no failure of planning – they deliberately lied by omission to try to blindside her into accepting 4.5 times as much work without extra pay.
NTA Those were NOT the terms you agreed to, and they know it.
OOP
Yes, and they didn’t say anything about hosting a party until that day. So they already set up everything prior to talking to me about baby sitting their kids. My guess is they wanted to already be too far into it and didn’t tell me about anything so it would be too late for me to back out. Unfortunately for them, I have two legs, and can walk myself out of their lives.
SJ_Barabarian
They see her as an appliance, not a person. “The child-watching machine is acting like it has rights!”
OOP
I didn’t even think of it like that! Good point…wealthy people do have a history of taking advantage of others.
~
ArrowTechIV
I am so confused. This is a “party” at a restaurant that lasts 8 hours? Then it ends before 9:30 pm? So it starts at 2 pm? And then they had to cancel everything because you wouldn’t babysit — but they hadn’t cleared the “babysitting all the children” with you ahead of time?
That’s just weird. If the restaurant and food were booked for an 8 hour time period — probably on a weekend, which would include prime business hours — then the lack of honesty and clarity here is odd. That’s too big a commitment (probably a contract was involved) to just collapse.
OOP
Sorry for the misunderstanding! When they said they had to cancel, they had to cancel for going/showing up. With something that close and how they already booked everything prior, they couldn’t cancel the actual even and still paid for everything. So not only did they lose a sitter, but also a lot of money!
ArrowTechIV
Wow! So they booked this big party and didn’t give any thought to running the number of children past you? You are NTA.
OOP Updated March 18, 2023 – Same Post/Next Day
UPDATE(because I’m not sure how to actually update): I didn’t expect to be posting an update so soon, as I thought they would both ghost me and we wouldn’t talk again and they would find another nanny…I was wrong. Jenna called me this afternoon. Hoping for an apology, I picked up. She tried to guilt trip me into babysitting for her kids again, saying how there isn’t another one like me and she didn’t want a younger nanny because she didn’t want the kids latching onto her and calling her mom and if anything wanted them to think of them as a grandma(what the fuck?). She then went on to say she was sorry and she was wrong for doing what she did and wanted me to come and be their nanny again.
I let her finish with her rant. After she was done talking, I said I was sorry she was that insecure about baby sitters her age and if she was that worried she should take her head out of her ass and focus on her kids rather than her business and even though she doesn’t respect my time and effort I DO, told her good luck finding another sitter, and blocked her and Mitchel. I’m still having a hard time finding a replacement, but at least I’m free from the entitlement they showed.
I most likely would not have said all that and put my foot down If it wasn’t for all the comments you guys gave so thank you! Really down played my self worth as a nanny because I’m a caregiver for years, so the boost really helped 🙂
Source
Seven children arrive.
Parents linger at the doorway. Someone adjusts a backpack strap. One child asks where the bathroom is. The nanny steps aside with Jenna and asks why their friends think she’s watching all of them tonight.
There’s no raised voice yet. Just a question.
From the employers’ side, the logic may have felt simple. One trusted caregiver. One house already staffed. A practical solution to a social inconvenience. “Just this once” carries a tone of flexibility, even generosity.
But headcount matters. Time matters. Compensation matters.
When she names the numbers nine children, eight hours the atmosphere shifts. Jenna mentions gratitude. Mentions pay. Mentions that she doesn’t “do anything else” with her time. It lands in the space between them. Not shouted. Not whispered either.
Then it escalates quickly. The party is effectively abandoned. Money is lost. Later, the husband calls. He swears. He says she embarrassed them. He calls her selfish. Lazy. The words stack without pause. She waits until he is finished and hangs up.
No speech. Just the click.
It would be easy to frame this purely as entitlement, but that flattens it. There is something else threading through the update the next day. Jenna calls back. She apologizes, yes, but also confesses she doesn’t want a younger nanny. She doesn’t want the children calling someone else “mom.” She says she prefers a grandmother figure.
Control slips into the conversation sideways.
The key shift sits earlier, though in the decision to expand the job without asking first. Agreement, retrofitted after the fact. When she refuses, the structure they relied on falters. The disruption feels larger than the request itself.
Whether this was strategic pressure or a habit formed by privilege isn’t fully clear. The story doesn’t settle that. It ends more practically than philosophically: blocked numbers, a search for new work.
What remains is that doorway extra children standing there, coats still half on and a question that changed the tone of the evening.
