12 Hours of work + 0 dollars = Angry Cath (Longish)

[Writer Cath]

A bit of background first.

My family has known "Linda's" a long time. She actually started out babysitting my siblings and I when we were wee ones. Two of my sisters were flower girls at her wedding. Later, we went on to babysit her kids.

The kids weren't the problem; they were actually quite wonderful, an older brother and a younger sister. Heck, one bedtime song ended up being a rousing three person belting out of Oh Canada. The kids were fantastically well behaved, sweet and really just a pleasure to babysit.

Usually the jobs weren't that long: they could range from a couple hours to the parents going out for the evening.

This particular time, I started sitting around noon, maybe a little earlier. I think the parents were going to a wedding, but it had been understood that it was a full-day job. Again, the kids were wonderful as always; we enjoyed lunch, went to the nearby park, and had supper. It was doubly nice because my parents were just around the corner, because I was only about 14 at the time.

So after getting the kids to bed, it's basically me hanging out watching TV. Around ten at night, the parents call an uncle to check up on us. No problem, I tell him everything's fine and he's off on his merry way.

Now it was a weekend, but I still didn't want to go to sleep; I never slept when I was babysitting because hey, those kids are my responsibility.

So it's about four in the morning when the parents get home.

And I admit it, I made a mistake: I forgot to lock the door. They made a quiet comment about this, but our neighborhood is quiet as hell and nothing particularly newsworthy has ever happened there, but still I could understand their concern. I assured them everything was fine and that the door had only been unlocked for a bit, but I was awake the whole time. I apologized profusely, but hey, at 14, mistakes happen.

So if you do the math, I babysat for more than twelve hours.

They never paid me.

Yeah, I made a mistake and a fairly big one, but I don't think that discounts the number of hours of work I did, ensuring the kids were fed and put to sleep and the living room was tidy and vacuumed etc.

So I told my mother about this and she was appropriately and basically said I was never to work for them again, because hey, this wasn't the first time they'd stiffed me. And they were well off too, so it wasn't a financial issue.

Then my mother told me about the days when Linda babysat us. We lived next door to my parents' business at the time; I was just a baby so I have no clue. She would do the bare minimum amount of work - no problem, there were five kids to tend to. But no matter how busy my mom was, Linda would come right in at the end of her shift and hand me over to my mom, uncaring if there were three customers waiting. She'd demand her pay so she could catch the bus.

Years later, she called me looking for a babysitter. Lo and behold, I suddenly became busy.

Whew, that wound up being so much longer than I expected. Does anyone else have any adventures in babysitting?

[Worker-Intellectual]

I don't see how the door was that big of a deal... you were home the whole time, nothing happened, probably nothing would happen if the lights were on and it was obvious someone was home (I don't think burglers go door to door looking for the unlocked one) and if they wanted the door locked they should have locked it on the way out.

and your math is off... going by the story it should be 16 hours of work + 0 dollars = Angrier Cath.

and I didn't find it that long... enough detail, just the right length to build up the suspense and be a coherent story instead of 3 lines of suckiness. Just right, in my opinion.

[Writer Cath]

*Smacks forehead*

and your math is off... going by the story it should be 16 hours of work + 0 dollars = Angrier Cath.

Dude, I'm an English major - I pretty much stopped paying attention to math in the sixth grade. Did some of my best writing there though.

[KamenRiderOsaka]

I remember when I was younger, there was a family with a 3 year old and a 7 month old who wanted me to baby sit. Now, Ive never been good with babies. Little kids Im good with, babies, no. Well, this baby also had colic and they didnt tell me. So, Im trying to get the 3 year old to bed while I have a baby who's upset over anything and everything...I was totally freaked out and called my mom. I think I was there for about 6 hours, my mom there for 2 of those hours, and she got the baby to calm down and sleep. I got paid like, $20 bucks. I never sat for them again. I was mad because I was stuck with a colicy baby and only got a lousy $3.33 an hour to do it. If I had been told, then I wouldnt have cared, I would have been prepared for it, but I wasnt, so I was mad. I was only 15 at the time as well.

But, I also had good baby sitting adventures. Like the family that paid me $500 for baby sitting for about 6 hours. I got there at 7, and they came in at about 2, 230. So more like 7 hours. They called me quite often, so I had some pretty nifty stuff in HS.

[Mighty Girl]

For a few months, I watched two kids while their parents worked. The mom worked nights and the dad worked days, and I was watching them until either dad got home or the grandma could come over.

The little girl was a severely spoiled brat. The little boy was less than a year old, and just smiled a lot. They always paid me in loose change, so I couldn't figure out if the amount was right until I got home and counted it all. The grandma was a total witch, she would lie and tell the parents that I took naps while there and never changed the baby's diaper. I ended up changing my school schedule around just so I'd have an excuse to ditch them, and I passed them off on an acquaintance who they apparently liked better.

[DesignFox]

I used to babysit for my nextdoor neighbor all the time. Two wonderful kids, and occasionally the third older child from the husband's previous marriage...all the kids were well behaved- the two little ones I had watched since they were bottle-fed aged... I miss babysitting them... and my neighbor always paid me pretty well, too.

I do have a couple sucky babysitting stories-

1- Once I babysat for a different neighbor. Usually I charged 5 dollars an hour to babysit. For one or two kids, this was fair. Well, she asked me to babysit during her daughter's bridal shower. So I agreed...what I didn't know (and she didn't tell me ahead of time) was that this was no ordinary babysitting job. I had to watch over/about 10 children! And most of them were like... babies through 6 years old! I got paid about 10 bucks to chase these kids all over the house, out the backyard, etc. etc. I was maybe 15 or so at the time, and didn't have experience watching that many children- it was a nightmare! I mean, NOW that I have all sorts of experience working at day camps and children's stores I know how to entertain a group that large...although, I can't forsee keeping that spread of ages all busy in one place at the same time without SOME assistance...that was just nuts! I couldn't believe that she only gave me 10 dollars for that load of responsibility either...

Story 2- A friend of mine used to babysit for a single mom. She only charged the woman like 3 bucks an hour, cause I guess it was all she could afford. Fair enough. but, friend doesn't tell me this ahead of time. I go and babysit for the woman- and her kid is a NIGHTMARE CHILD FROM HELL! I managed to get along ok with him- but at the end of the night he refused to go to bed...he kept arguing and running back and forth up and down the hallway. Finally, he is running around with a bowling pin... (I'm thinking why does he have a bowling pin?) and I ask him to put it away before he gets hurt...what does he do...? He smacks himself in the head with it...HARD. And of course starts crying...and even though I put ice on it immediately, he gets a big old lump on his forehead..complete with bruise...great... so Mom comes home, to crying kid with a big lumpy bruise. I explain what happens...yadda yadda...he FINALLY goes to bed...and mom goes to pay me...and I'm like...this isn't enough. I don't remember the details...I *think* she paid me the 5 an hour...or maybe I let it go... either way, she was upset that my friend hadn't told her I charged that much... and I think I was upset that my friend didn't communicate that said woman couldn't pay that much...and then my friend was upset with me that I even ASKED the woman to pay that much...
Ultimately, somehow, everything turned out alright...

But, I never babysat for her again! That was one job I told my friend she could keep.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

The husband has a very good philosphy about things like this: If you do something for someone and they do not pay you, LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.

His reasoning is that it will be a small price to pay to have something concrete to hit them with when they come sniffing around asking for more work out of you.

You can say "no" with absolutely no guilt, and a very good, irrefutable reason.

It really does weed out the parasites.

Bye, bye, Linda. Good luck finding a sitter.

[zzapp the witch]

From the time I was 12 years old, I had a summer job that I created for myself, painting faces at fairs and such. I'm good with kids, shy ones, bratty ones, even the spawn of Satan and I worked out an agreement. BUT the ONE TIME I babysat, we will not speak of, ever.

I pay my babysitter $5/hour to watch my 3, I get pizza for everyone, movies, and she can cruise the internet and chat with friends. PLUS I make jewelry, and she knows that any prototype she has first dibs on. (I also bought her her Prom dress, cause she's just that great).

[Sonoma]

My nightmare babysitting story stars the 3-year old little girl, and her infant brother. When Mommy & Daddy left for the high school reunion, it was understood that they would be back around 10 PM or so to feed the infant (he was still being breastfed at the time). Little girl (during the third viewing of Dumbo for the night), announces that she does not have to put her pajamas on until Mom & Dad come home. Any attempt to get her near her pajamas resulted in a high-pitched scream that would wake the dead, not just her baby brother. Finally my Mom came over, and was able to get the PJs on the little girl (I was only 13 at the time), and fairly inexperienced at babysitting. Mom & Dad finally came home to feed the infant well after midnight, then they went BACK to the reunion, after telling little girl that she could stay up until they got home.

We sat through countless watchings of Dumbo that night, and to this day, I cannot watch that movie. Anytime I would start to nod off in the recliner (I'm 13 years old, and it's now after 2 AM), I'd get an elbow to the ribs from the little girl. Needless to say, I happened to be 'booked' any time they wanted a babysitter after that night. Never did go back - there was not enough pay in the world for me to do that again.

[Tigress]

One of the last times I babysat was when I was around 15. My aunt, who is only 10 years older than me, had asked my mom to babysit her spoiled monster of a son after school. Since my mom worked until the evening, that meant I got "volunteered" to watch the little beast until either she got home or my aunt came to get him.

My aunt thought that this brat could do no wrong at all. He destroyed my brother's toys, intentionally made messes for people to clean up, almost strangled one of my kittens, threw rocks at anything that moved, and was generally a pain. But if anyone tried to discipline him (or even give him the ass-kicking he needed), my aunt would scream and rant and rave until you just acquiesced that you were a terrible child hater so you could get her and her demon-spawn out of the house.

One day, the brat was in rare form. I had had a bad day already and I wasn't in the mood for any of his crap. And my brother, who is dyslexic and has other undefined learning disabilities, was trying very hard to concentrate on his homework. But the kid decided that my brother had to play with him and kept pestering him.

My brother looked to me for help, so I told the child to go watch TV in the living room. The kid defiantly screamed that I couldn't tell him what to do and lodged himself between my brother's bed and the wall. I walked over there, climbed over the bed and pulled him out. He started screaming that I was hurting him before I even got a grip on him, so I just ignored it as I pulled him out and carried/dragged him to the living room while he fought me like a wild animal.

I sat him down on the couch and told him that he was in "time out" until his mom got there. I knew he wouldn't stay there if I left him, so I stayed in the kitchen/dining room to keep an eye on him. I made myself some dinner while I waited and the little angel decided to shout insults at me. When that failed to faze me, he started getting up off the couch, only to have me firmly sit him back down again. When he realized that I was serious about the time out, he decided to go for broke and trash the living room.

That's it. I'd had it. I grabbed the kid, spun him around and smacked his behind. (Note: This is the only time I have ever laid a hand on a child. Or even felt the need to.) Then I got in his face and yelled "SIT DOWN" in my drill-sergeant voice while guiding him not-so-gently back to the couch. After about ten minutes of him screaming at me about how he hoped I went to hell, my aunt knocked on the door.

The blood-curdling scream that ripped out of that child's throat was Oscar-worthy. The waterworks started almost instantly. The way this child acted, you thought I had gone Ed Gacey on his ass. And, of course, my aunt ripped me a new one for daring to lay a hand on her precious child. Then she waited for my mother to come home to tell her what a terrible, child-abusing niece I was.

It was about thirty minutes before my mother came home. And my aunt could not go for ten seconds without a cigarette, so she started using the kitchen's gas stove as a lighter instead of using the matches in the drawer next to the stove. This was the same aunt that had burnt down the kitchen when she was living with us seven years earlier. (She left a pan of oil on the stove while she checked on this same demon-spawn.) I can't prove it, but I believe she was doing that because she knows I have a latent fear of house fires and this was her way of making the wait even more uncomfortable for me.

Eventually, my mom came home. Mom listened to my explanation. She also knew how bratty this kid was and, frankly, didn't think it was fair to have me babysit him without so much as a "thank you" from my ungrateful aunt. Especially after my aunt had taken my brother and some of my other cousins on several outings and deliberately excluded me.

So, not surprisingly, my mom took my side. This started a 60-90 minute shouting match between my mom and aunt. I retreated to my room and felt horrible for starting the whole thing. Finally, my dad stepped in and told my aunt to get out of the house. This hadn't been the first fight my mom and aunt had concerning her brat and he was sick of my aunt coming to our house and picking fights. He was also sick of her son being obnoxious and trashing the house, without any offer from my aunt to help clean it up. And he also sick of my aunt taking advantage of my mom, and, by proxy, me. Basically, he was just sick of her.

So my aunt left and we didn't see her again for two years. I got off with a light sentence and an assurance that I didn't do anything wrong. And I went to go feed the cats and finish the rest of my evening chores.

And I was never asked to babysit that little monster ever again.

Fortunately, the kid grew out of his "monster-ness." He's now a pretty tame 20-year-old.

[Massage Therapist]

I never actually babysat for anyone, but I have a story about the people that used to babysit me when I was 4. It was a woman from Poland who spoke broken english, and had a 3 year old son. She always played the nice guy when speaking to my parents, so I can understand why my parents would have thought it was okay. Anyway, this 3 year old boy outweighed me by about 40 lbs - he was huge... and he had some kind of grudge against me.

This boy was physically abusive towards me for whatever reason - though I never mentioned this to my parents when I didn't want to go over there any longer for babysitting. (for whatever reason) The mom always said that 'kids will be kids', and we had to work out our differences on our own. So I always would just try to hide until the father got home from work. He was the disciplinarian, and always took pity on me.

The last time I was there, the boy actually tried to kill me! He had a pillow over my face with his full weight on top of it, holding me down. The mother just stood there. It was surreal. The father (thankfully) came home then and ripped the boy off of me. I finally mentioned this to my parents and they were horrified. I have no idea why I waited so long to tell my parents that this was going on. The woman was just evil in general, doing little things like not letting me stop to itch my foot on walks, etc.

Just a crazy lady.

[Retail's Bitch]

I was baby sitting some kids up the road and the mother was CHEAP! Two dollars an hour she paid me based on the fact that she and her husband didn't actually go anywhere... She'd go off and sleep all day, while I took care of her demon-spawn and did her housework. For two dollars an hour...

I did her dishes, I did her laundry, vaccuumed, cleaned and fed her kids... The sheer ridiculousness of it increased when Daddy (who was actually a known drug dealer..) bought his 3 year old daughter a fullsized 4-wheeler and expected me to run up and down the laneway with her on it to make sure she didn't zip out onto the road and get hit.

Then they'd get into their heads that I should take the kids out for walks in the stroller... The baby was fine... Didn't go anywhere... The 2/3 year old would LAUNCH herself out of the stroller and onto the road. Did I fail to mention the kid was probably about the weight of a 5 or 6 year old and built like a brick shithouse...

We lived out in the country and one day when Reena did this, our friend who rebuilt our fences and had cattle grazing on our land, stopped his truck on the road. Well he had to... Reena was in the middle of it... And he helped me load the stroller and the 3 year old into the back of the truck and drove us back to her house...

The last straw came when Peter ( the father) started doing work on his house and hired some of his goons. I was 16 at the time (I think..) and these guys kept hitting on me, making suggestive comments and bullshit. I decided that I was done being Stacey's scut monkey for $2 an hour if I had to put up with this crap too...

My mother wasn't as supportive as she has a tendency to be a little 'off' and accused me of just not wanting to work... I'd get there at 8-9 in the morning, leave at 7 at night and get $25 if I was lucky.

For some reason Mum allowed my younger sister to baby sit for them instead, despite me warning her about the dirty-minded goons and working for $2 an hour as a damned maid/nanny.

[Misanthropical]

I had a babysitter from hell, she was nice as pie as long as my mother was there, but as soon as my mother left, WATCH OUT! I don't remember if I told my mother what a horrid woman the babysitter was, but I didn't have her as a babysitter for very long. I was not a spoiled child, so it wasn't like I was being a demon child on her or anything.

I remember I babysat for a little boy who was horrid, he wouldn't listen to me, he would run around trashing the house, etc. The mother was always hours late coming home and I barely got paid. I only babysat for her twice, before becoming too busy.

My children really haven't been babysat, since I found out that a woman who watched my oldest as a baby once let her husband throw him on the floor. The baby was upset that I had left and was crying, so the husband picked him up and threw him on the floor. I didn't find out till much later, but the way the baby clung to me when I got back I knew that something was wrong and never let them babysit after that.

[Jester]

The way this child acted, you thought I had gone Ed Gacey on his ass.

Um, do you mean Ed Gein or John Wayne Gacy? Just wondering. Cause I never heard of Ed Gacey.

[Rapscallion]

Sounds like both in one!

Rapscallion