If you enjoy spending time with kiddos, babysitting is a great way to make money...unless the parents refuse to pay you, that is. A Reddit user recently posted screenshots of a conversation between his sister and a woman whose children she babysat in which exactly that happened. The alleged conversation is enough to bother anyone who has ever been a babysitter.
The screenshots begin with the babysitter texting the mother, politely asking if she could collect the money the following day. There are certainly circumstances in which a parent may have to pay a sitter at a later date, but evidently, this mother did not intend to pay the babysitter at all.
She replied, "I wasn't aware payment was involved. You got free ice cream and a day of fun..I'm sorry for the misinterpretation." Granted, I don't know the woman who was doing the babysitting, but I'm just going to take a wild guess that "a day of fun" for her does not consist of supervising someone else's kids—free ice cream or otherwise.
The babysitter responded: "Uhm...we discussed payment of $16 an hour beforehand. Over text." When the mom asked to see the texts, the sitter had a screenshot ready to send her. The screenshot shows a previous conversation the two seemingly had, in which the mother is the one to suggest a rate of 16 dollars per hour.
The mom then said that she deletes her texts often, to which the sitter apologized, explaining that she enjoys seeing the kids, but is only babysitting for payment. This is when things take a really bizarre turn—the mom begins insulting the woman, and then refuses to pay because "they're easy kids!"
The sitter even compromises, agreeing to accept $100 instead. However, the mother says, "Absolutely not. I wish I didn't have such a stuck up [expletive] watching my kids. I am going to block you now—please do not contact me again."
Many commenters on the Reddit thread suggested that the babysitter take the issue to small claims court. According to Buzzfeed, the Reddit user and his sister decided to call the woman's husband instead. After explaining to the man how costly going through the courts for reimbursement would be, the couple agreed to pay the $128 in cash to the sitter.
...How KIND!
