'AITA for not babysitting other kids even though I am a nanny?' UPDATED
"AITA for not babysitting other kids even though I am a nanny?"
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 feel 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 witch 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?
The next day, the OP returned with an 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. 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 rear and focus on her kids rather than her business.
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 :)
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
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."
NTA you THOUGHT they were great people, until they showed their true colours here. Completely insane to try and dump 9 kids on one person for 8 hours without even talking about it beforehand.
If Jenna and Mitchel can treat their friends to a party, they could certainly pay OP the fair wage to babysit a gang of children...and make the request in advance rather than act like entitled monsters about it. Another example of rich people who are cheap and banking on taking advantage of nice people who they think they can pressure into doing them extraordinary favors.
So they want the kids to think of her as a grandmother. But as soon as she gets sick or can't work they'll fire her like she's staff. I bet they'll tell everyone she overreacted and some people just don't want to work anymore or build a community. Rich people seem to really forget that the people they hire are people.
NTA. This is so wrong I can’t even believe it would need to be explained. Assuming you’d be ok watching 7 kids when you normally only watch 2 is ridiculous. And then thinking you’d do it for the same price? Even if you were crazy enough to take the job on, you would absolutely be within your right to charge far more for watching 7 kids than watching 2.
And then this snap about not doing anything else with your time? And capping it all off by cussing you out? These people sounds absolutely toxic. Sorry you lost the gig and you may even have cared about the kids and even the family but wow this is done. Don’t work for them again. Nannying for a family requires a lot of trust - both ways. And you can no longer trust them.
I just KNEW that despite all the cussing and bridge-burning that Jenna and Mitchel did when OP dared say no to a surprise-daycare situation that they'd come crawling back to her THE NEXT DAY still expecting her to nanny for them. Oh, is it hard to find a good child-minder? Especially one your husband won't try to bang? Well, shoulda refrained from treating the one you had like dirt, then.