Mom wants to call the cops on their long time nanny. Husband says, 'don't get crazy.'
When this mom is angry with her kid's nanny, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for threatening to call the cops on our long time babysitter?'
Preface: I live in the US. Drinking age is 21. I understand in different countries it differs, but this is law where I am. Also, some context. When my kids were younger, they had an amazing babysitter, Allie. She’s only 10 years older than my oldest (Faith) and 12 years older than my youngest (Tim) My husband and I viewed her as a daughter figure, and she told us several times that she thought of us as parents.
Now, our kids are 18 and 16. Faith is several states away at college and ended up being rushed to the hospital. It was pretty bad, so my husband and I decided to go be with her, help out and potentially bring her home should it get there. The issue was Tim had a few very important exams at school as well as work, so he couldn’t come.
We have no family in the area, so we asked if Allie could stay with him for a few days, basically make sure that he’s alright. We’re also not dumb. Tim is a good kid, but we’ve all seen one too many sitcom episodes where parents go away and a party gets thrown. Ally agreed.
We returned 4 days later after our daughter was cleared. Later that afternoon, a friend sent me a TikTok which showed Tim drunk. A lot of kids his age were around and also clearly under the influence. I confronted Tim right away and he came clean. He explained that he was having friends over, which we did expect and were okay with. However, someone bought him alcohol and it got out of control.
I called Allie and asked where she was the night of the party. She said she was at her friend’s house because she didn’t want to intrude on Tim’s friends. I mentioned alcohol and she got super defensive before finally admitting that she supplied the alcohol before leaving. I am livid with both her and Tim. While I understand teens may drink, they put myself and my husband at risk. If someone got hurt, we’d be liable even if we weren’t home. Parents could’ve sued us.
We’re speaking with Tim about drinking responsibly, the laws around it and how much trouble he could get himself and others in. A talk we already had but I guess it didn’t sink in. He was also grounded. Allie tried to downplay it. I pointed out I have plenty of evidence that she supplied alcohol and threatened to call the police. She freaked out and said I was overreacting.
My husband is trying to convince me to not file a report. He says we should just cut Allie off and move on. But I feel this shouldn’t go unpunished. AITA?
Let's find out.
cryptographer writes:
ESH. Allie because obviously, not cool giving alcohol to minors, but the police, really? I guess you've never done a stupid thing ever in your life.
computercrafty writes:
NTA, but move on. Cut Allie off, Tim is grounded for a very long time, and, by grace, nothing bad actually happened. Everyone is fine. You've learned a lot about your son and Allie. And really, if Allie is this immature and irresponsible at 28, you're actually pretty lucky nothing bad happened when she was babysitting your young children regularly. You got lucky, Tim is lucky he didn't hurt himself, and Allie is incredibly lucky not to be in jail. Also, time to lock up your liquor cabinet if you have one.
airdydare writes:
ESH. My older siblings got me drunk when I was 15. It’s a shitty rite of passage, but what if it was your daughter buying alcohol for your son? Would you call the police? I’m going to guess not. On one hand you want to treat Allie like one of your own kids, and on the other, you want to punish her for having that kind of big sister relationship with your kids. Be thankful nothing bad happened but only call the cops if you’d do the same if it was your daughter in the situation.