Mom Asks If She Was Right To Ground Daughter Who Left Her Sister With A Neighbor Instead Of Babysitting Because She 'Had Plans'
Her mother was rightfully upset about the entire debacle.
AstroStar / Shutterstock A mother decided to punish her eldest daughter after finding out that she broke the rules while looking after her young sister.
Posting to the subreddit "r/AmItheA--hole" (AITA) — a forum where users try to figure out if they were wrong or not in an argument that has been bothering them — she explained that she had asked her daughter to watch her sister while she was out.
However, everything went south as soon as her eldest daughter was left in charge.
A single mom grounded her daughter after leaving her sister with their neighbor to party instead of babysitting.
In her Reddit post, the woman wrote that she is a single mother to her three children — Polly, 16, Trevor, 12, and Cassie, 8.
Shortly after Cassie was born, their father left, and she has been without additional support ever since.
"I have 2 sitters that I can call on as needed and I use them before I’d ever ask Polly for help. I don’t want her missing out on her teenage years," she said.
She explained that Polly had been planning on hanging out with some of her friends one Saturday, but Trevor had fallen ill and was experiencing a high fever, so she decided to take him to the hospital.
Since everything was happening all at once, she couldn't get ahold of any of the usual babysitters, so she asked Polly to watch her younger sister while she and their brother were gone.
"I apologized that she’d have to miss out on time with friends but said I’d pay her and she could even have her friends over [at] our place. Polly pitched a fit and asked why I couldn’t send Cassie to the neighbors."
She told Polly that they don't know their neighbors well enough since they just moved into the neighborhood.
While Polly appeared irritated to have to watch her sister, her mother promised to pay her $18 an hour for the trouble and pointed out that she has asked Polly to watch Cassie in the past as well.
When she arrived at the hospital, the doctors immediately tended to Trevor, and when she had a moment alone, she decided to call Polly for an update.
"When I called Polly to update her, I heard people talking in the background and said, 'oh, you had your friends come over?' She told me no, she dropped Cassie at the neighbor’s and went out."
She was furious after hearing that Polly had dropped off Cassie with the neighbors to go out.
When she asked for the neighbor's number, her fury only rose when she learned that Polly hadn't even asked for their number, and just left her sister in the care of strangers.
She told Polly she was to go to their neighbor's house, pick up Polly, and go right back home.
"At first Polly refused until I told her she was grounded. I made her FaceTime me when she got home to show that Cassie was with her."
She didn't hesitate to call her mother, the children's grandmother, who drove two hours to stay with both girls and was instructed not to let Polly leave the house.
When she and Trevor eventually returned from the hospital, she lectured Polly and grounded her for two weeks.
"She got mad at me and said that I can’t expect her to drop her plans. I point out I never do, but this was an emergency and her brother was sick."
Polly rebutted, saying that it was not her "problem," and that she should've still been paid, despite never actually babysitting her sister.
"I apologized profusely to the neighbor who said it was okay and that he would’ve called me but Polly didn’t leave my number either," she concluded.
Most people who commented on the woman's Reddit post agreed that she was NTA (Not The A--hole).
"This was an extreme situation and Polly acted amazingly selfish and irresponsible," one user wrote.
"She is old enough to fully comprehend how terrible and dangerous her actions were, but instead doubled down on being petulant."
Another user added, "That's [a] groundable offense — doing something you explicitly told her not to."
"If one of the sitters had responded, I'm sure it would have been no problem for her to wait for the sitter and then go out."
A third user chimed in, "Sometimes family emergencies take precedence over plans with friends. She is a member of the family and has obligations to the family."
"Your request was reasonable. She was very irresponsible. Grounding was an appropriate consequence."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.