Reddit Stories - I began BABYSITTING for this mom who WOULDN'T sign a CONTRACT and only

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #babysitting #parenting #contract #boundaries #responsibilitySummary: A babysitter shares their experience with a mother who refused to sign a contract. This situation led to confusion regarding expectations and responsibilities. The babysitter navigates challenges, highlighting the importance of clear agreements in childcare to ensure both parties understand their roles and maintain a professional relationship.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, babysitting, parenting, contracts, boundaries, responsibilities, childcare, agreements, professionalism, family, advice, experiences, relationships, communication, issues, supportBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6816713/support.This episode includes AI-generated content.

I hope you enjoy this story. I began babysitting for this mom who wouldn't sign a contract and only wanted cash. Then I discovered a secret camera aimed at the spot I nurse my baby. Daughter and realized she had been secretly watching to me the entire time. I'm honestly kind of freaking out right now. For context, I'm a teen mom to my seven-month-old daughter. I recently started nannying again because I needed the income, and I took a job that wasn't ideal. Two kids in my neighborhood for $16 per hour.

I used to study child health and development in college before I dropped out to raise my daughter, and I've got about a year and a half of nannine experience. I found this family on care.com and looking back. There were so many red flags. She had no profile picture, she refused a phone interview, saying she only does in person because she can tell character better that way. She used military time for everything. So I assumed she was ex-military she's not, and she insisted on meeting at a school,

not a coffee shop or anywhere public I suggested. She was 15 minutes late and showed up in short shorts, no bra, slippers, and high socks. Not exactly the strict, polished person I expected based on her tone over text. She had three kids, 6F, 4F, and almost, 2M. The interview actually went okay, and because she lived near by, I accepted the job on the spot. She mentioned paying me as a 1099 contractor, which is illegal for household employees in my state, so I told her she'd either need to do under the table cash or a proper W, too. She chose cash but refused to sign a contract because she didn't want

paper trails. Another red flag I should have listened to. During the interview, I specifically said no secret nanny cams. She told me she only had two cameras both in her kids' rooms. which I was completely fine with. But then weird comments started happening. One day, I served the kid some fruit that was already cut up in the fridge. Later, she mentioned you forgot to wash it, another time. She brought up a snack I had packed for my daughter when I never left at her house. She mentioned me wiping down her counters with a reusable towel something she couldn't have

known unless she was watching me. She also somehow knew I used voice to text because of my dyslexia. Something I never told her. At that point, I assumed there was a hidden camera or mic somewhere, which was super off-putting, considering she knew I breastfed my daughter, and had specifically asked if there was any cameras. The vibe in general was off. She made really degrading comments, like saying she doesn't understand why anyone would go to college for child development and strictly referring to me as a babysitter.

She was dismissive, controlling, and constantly added new chores on top of child care to the point that I could barely focus on the kids. Her daughter would also often say some weird and concerning things, for example, my mom's going to be mad, but it's okay because she won't be mad at me, the floors are really dirty. You need to sweep them. And one time she went on a minute, tangent about silly, forgetful people who always forget everything after I left my lunchbox at their house overnight along with this and some other stuff she said I just assumed she was repeating stuff her mother had said.

But today was the breaking point. My daughter wasn't feeling well, so she wanted to be held most of the day. The two-year-old knocked over a set of picture frames on himself. The house was not at all child-friendly. The four-year-old had multiple meltdowns, and when I tried to calm her, she started kicking and hitting me. I let the mom know I'd need to leave early, and she agreed as long as both kids were down for a nap first.

While I was feeding my daughter before leaving, I noticed the Alexa was flashing green every time I spoke. I googled it and learned that means there's a drop in basically, someone is listening in. That's when I started looking around the room. And sure enough, I found a hidden camera tucked inside an open purse, pointed directly at the chair where I breastfeed my daughter. I froze. My stomach dropped. I grabbed my baby, packed up our stuff, and left without unloading the dishwasher. A few hours later, she sent me a long text rant about clarifying expectations. Basically, she wanted me to be a maid, not a nanny, all while watching three kids. After talking to my husband, I've decided I'm quitting immediately. I'm still shaken

that someone recorded me feeding my baby without consent. I'll update once I officially quit and send her my message but seriously. Trust your gut. Additional information from OOP, I am 19. I graduated high school early starting college when I was 17 got married when I was 18. The children were not unattended the mother works from home but is upstairs but she does have two cameras in each of the children's rooms. I did not take any pictures because my mangle was to get out of there. I don't know how to leave an update, but I will write one tomorrow. Update, I forgot to mention in my last post that I unplugged both the camera and the Alexa before I left that day. Between that and my mom,

who's a therapist and have talked to her before, strongly believing she is a narcissist, I decided I will not be returning. My mom actually helped me write a text to keep things calm and avoid any retaliation than any mom knows where I live, so we wanted to be careful with how I worded it. Here's what I sent her. Thank you for sharing your concerns. Today was definitely a rough one with sick kids, lack of sleep, and a lot of challenging behaviors. After reflecting, I feel that with the expectations and the different ages, this position isn't the best fit for me. For safety reasons, I believe it would be better for you to find someone else. Two I'm knocking down the picture frames today because I was preoccupied with, for F,

and my daughter has really shown me that it would be best for me to step away immediately for everybody's safety. She replied with, okay, wow, that was pretty unexpected. I disagree with the imminent safety concern, especially being that he is 20 months and didn't do it with malicious intent, but I respect your decision. I will calculate your time and pay you accordingly. My mom said this is a typical response of a narcissist, taking her child faults as her own. I just replied, thank you, and she did end up paying me, but only about one-third of what I was owed. Here's the message she sent with the payment, paid. 30 minutes removed for unfulfilled obligations that I had to tend during my lunch today

and six hours removed for previous overpayment of miscalculated hours. Thank you for your time with us. The unfulfilled obligations she's talking about. Dishes I had already cleaned but didn't put away from the night before, when I wasn't even working and not sweeping the floors. Also, looking back, I feel like there was a lot of mind games should play with me through stuff she heard and saw, including her miscalculating the hours she randomly started counting my five hours days as six hours and would constantly mention it and write it on my clock and sheet.

I don't know if she was testing me just feels odd. She would also constantly repeat that she was a good person and had good morals, even sometimes going as far as repeating. She's a good person three times in the same conversation. I haven't filed the police report, but I also don't have any photos. I've reported her to care.com. She already has a post up I'm planning to check and occasionally to see if it's taken down and she hired somebody else they sort of live in my neighborhood so maybe I'll be able to catch the nanny on a walk and give her a heads up. They also had a nanny before me that left abrupt as well. A few people pointed out in my last post that I was being severely underpaid or right. I've already started looking for other nanny positions and have been offered

22 dollars and 25 cents per hour, which just confirms how much I was being taken advantage of. Edit, it has been about four days I mentioned I had found her on care.com. I saw a post up now she's offering $15 to $18 an hour. The $18 an hour is a lie. I doubted she'd find anyone in that price range, but sure enough her post is taken down. I looked in her account still up so I assumed she found a new nanny. I took the long way to work and drove by her house and sure enough a mom of one or two kids was standing outside holding their baby.

Can't help to think she's trying to do this to another mother. I'm afraid to say anything to this mom because what if it's her family once again my mom is practically diagnosed her as a narcissist and I'm terrified of what she would do given she knows where I live. Additional information from Oop, Boop, I had left a toy at their house and they left it by my mailbox just a little bit odd. Next story, friend and I jokingly called his GF a vampire as an inside joke before they met, when she found out she accepted him of cheating, then I discovered he's been lying about his age

to multiple women and making them role play as me during intimacy. My friend Nate and I met about a year and a half ago when I was finishing up my degree. He was an assistant lecturer slash PhD student in my department and taught a guest lecture very closely related to what I was doing my dissertation in. I thought he was gorgeous, but the uni had to be. has a pretty strict rule about dating students after something messy happened and they decided the power dynamics are messy. Whatever, I stayed to chat with him about my paper and he agreed to help. This turned into a series of hangouts slash dissertation help. We went off topic at times and by the time

I was done with uni Nate was still talking to me as we'd become friends. I won't say that nothing ever happened because we did drunkenly kiss once after Nate was no longer in danger of breaching any uni rules. It wasn't a bad kiss, but there was no spark. Whatever initial attraction was there disappeared and it was all platonic. We agreed to forget about it and it was never an issue again until yesterday. In the time he was helping me, we developed a few weird inside jokes. One of these was that he was dating a vampire. His parents are very pushy and manipulative and pretty much decided for him that he should get married in the next few years since his younger brother has. He wasn't dating anyone and certainly wasn't about to marry the next girl he took

out just to make mom happy, so I jokingly told him he should say he's dating a vampire. Stupid joke, but we gave her a name, a ridiculous name, save Veronica McVampire for the sake of the post, a personality, even booked tickets to a gig as Nate and Veronica McVampire, informal five-pound entry thing. Nobody would question the silly name as king as the credit card matched his name. Anyway, In all the time we spent together we used this joke a lot. It became a weird running thing that any girl he went out with was someone he was cheating on Veronica. This includes his current girlfriend, Kate. What was different about Kate, is that she actually fit a few of the personality traits that we'd assigned to Veronica.

It was nothing bad, she had a messed up sleep schedule due to night shifts and rarely left her flat during the day. Before they were seriously dating, we'd ended up deciding that in our weird inside joke, is Veronica. It's all some vampire test to make sure he loves only her. It's a stupid joke, it doesn't make a ton of sense without a long explanation about something we made up before we met her, and I don't know why we didn't just use her real name. But as time went on, we referred to her almost exclusively as Veronica. This was only in text to one another or if I met up with just him. Kate and I actually got along and while I wouldn't say we were best friends, I had nothing against her and it was clear how happy she makes Nate. We never said anything bad about Kate or Veronica.

It would just be something like, hey, are we still on for dinner with V tonight? Or V isn't feeling well, so you'll have to go to the party without us. It was obvious from the messages that he meant her, but because we didn't expect anyone to see the text that didn't matter. Yesterday, Nate sent me a text at 11 p.m. that just says, can I come over? It's important. I assumed it was about something entirely unrelated and I had just finished work, so I was closer to his flat than my own. I offered to go to his instead, but he rang me. Nate, it's really not a good idea for you to come over. It's about Kate. Me, oh shit, is everything okay with Veronica? Kate, who I didn't know was in the room with him or on speakerphone, starts shrieking and crying why the fuck do you call me that?

What's wrong with you? I should note that while I've used Veronica here, the name we'd assigned his fake girlfriend was a bit weirder and not a name you'd hear for a woman in her 20s in the UK. Nate quickly tries to comfort her, but she leaves the room, and he explains. An earlier message from me had made her suspicious that something was going on. I'd mentioned his plans with Veronica, and she'd seen the notification come through. She thought it was weird that he had plans with someone when they'd decided just moments ago to cancel their plans for the night. Rather than tell her that it was a nickname, he went with its an inside joke with O.P. She took that to mean that I'm Veronica and accused him of cheating.

He's told her about us having kissed before and that there was no chemistry. It was brought up pretty early in because we spent a lot of time together and she accused him of having something with me then. I'd also talked to her about it and thought the whole thing was sorted then. But she demanded to see the rest of the messages. Of course it became clear pretty quickly that it was about her, and he told her the truth, but she didn't accept that. Why would we call her names and make shit up about her, not getting that we created the stupid character before ever meeting her, why would we talk about her at all? She left pretty soon after she screamed at me and Nate asked me to go over. Given the circumstances I told him going to his was a

terrible idea, but we should go have a drink and talk so he wasn't alone. He ended up staying on my couch last night anyway, but Kate won't return his calls and texts. She's out of town until Sunday night now anyway with pre-existing plans with her dad, but I don't think she has any plans to get in touch with him when she's back. I really don't know what to do. He's asked me to speak to her, but I don't think getting myself more involved right now is a good idea. It all seems like something that would be an argument amongst middle schoolers, not three people in their mid-late 20s, but I know that we were the ones that were initially immature.

Please help. Update. my update got locked and deleted so I'm just going to paste it here because I'm getting a million angry messages and half of it isn't even relevant anymore. Hopefully any new people at least will see the rest of it. My earlier post about calling my friend's girlfriend a jealous vampire got a lot of attention. Most of you hate me and that's fine. I come off nasty and petty when the only thing you know about me is that I did something nasty and petty. I could write you a novel about how I saved a kitten once or whatever, but it wouldn't change anything relevant to this. That said, there have been some weird

developments. There was a lot more to this whole ridiculous argument. And if only for your amusement, here's the rest. I don't really need advice on this one. Going forward, Nate will be blocked. Contacting me or Emily will result in a formal report to the university on both our parts. A lot of you asked why he slept over slash mentioned that that was stupid. Why has we gone drinking at all? That's true, it was, we shouldn't have. It was late at night when this all went down and the only things open were pups. I honestly thought a chat in a public place would look better than him running to my place for comfort or whatever. He then missed the last bus home and stayed because taxis are expensive.

The apology was badly worded, I was upset and tired, and trying. I know it wasn't a real apology and I have since spoken to her and actually said the words I'm sorry. When I said I would win in the comments I didn't mean that I thought getting rid of Kate was winning. Basically when I met up with Nate he started to go on about how this was Kate's fault. I shut him down and told him it wasn't, and he proceeded to tell me that if it came down to it, he'd always take my side. Knowing what I know now I get why he said that. And I'm so ashamed I didn't catch on to how fucked up this all is a lot sooner. My friend sent me updates on what she said with her permission.

I wasn't sent screenshots or anything, basically just she's been crying and she told me that there's a lot you don't know. This led to a phone call with the friend acting as a mediator. So back to the story. As mentioned in the comments of the last post, a friend got in touch and told me that Kate had reached out saying that her relationship was falling apart and it was my fault. My friend Anna was told everything Kate's been through and was shocked. There's a lot more than any of us had been told, and Anna was nice. 99% sure I didn't know about this. She asked Kate if she honestly thought I'd be friends with Nate if I knew, and she agreed to talk

to me. On the phone I immediately apologized properly and she blew me off. She asked if I knew Nate was obsessed with me, and I told her that we're just friends, the kiss meant nothing, blah, blah. Yeah, turns out that's not what he told her. Shortly after she asked about our past and we were open about it, he admitted to her that the only reason we weren't together is that I'd told him I hadn't felt anything. He had wanted something with me as long as I had up to that point, but where I didn't feel

anything, he genuinely thought it could continue. He didn't want to lose me, so he just avoided his feelings. That's bad enough in itself, but he also admitted to that being a pattern. Of the girls he's dated, they all seem to be about five years younger than him. apart from Kate and myself, none of them have been in his department or at any risk of breaking uni rules, but all but one of them do attend my university. He apparently likes role-playing and asking these girls to pretend to be girls he's into, specifically myself and his ex-girlfriend from a couple years ago. Kate flat out refused after she met me, but went along with it a couple times before, because he doesn't tell them that the girl they're pretending to be is someone that

he actually knows. He got a wig in an outfit, a dress identical to one that I wear a lot, a cheer uniform for his ex, for each of us, and makes them say certain stuff, I can't control what people fantasize about, but to go to this length and not tell your actual partner that they're playing your ex or your crush is a little serial killer-ish. Anyway, he's also lied about his age. When he met me, he said he'd just turned 26 a couple months ago. When he met Kate, he'd turned 26 a week ago. Probably about a day after we made plans to do something for his 27th birthday she looked at his provisional and passing once and noticed that he uses his middle name

instead of his first. Not that weird by itself, but a bit strange that he didn't tell her. When she asked about it, he just said he decided to go by his middle name in sixth form. Be lied about his his actual birthday is the date he gave me, but he's a year older, 28. What he told her was just random and wrong. He justified it by saying he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable. Then got annoyed when she told him that she was definitely uncomfortable.

The age gap is almost two years more than she previously thought. C had an address from a city different to where he said he was from in our uni. She asked him when he'd lived there and he said that it's where his parents lived. She asked why he'd said he was from a different city and he told her it's the city in his postcode. The nearest city to where he grew up. But without giving too much away, he essentially told her that the reason his ID has a York address on it is that he lived in Leeds once and Leeds is in Yorkshire. Not those cities but similar logic.

Like it made no sense. She knew about the nickname. That wasn't what any of this was really about. She'd seen it a while ago, asked, and been told it was a name I called her. He went along with it for fun or whatever. She asked him to stop and he told her she. she was overreacting. It was still a shitty name and even now knowing my version of events she doesn't like that the joke didn't stop when she stuck around, but she says she probably

would have found it funny if I'd told her about it before all of this. Instead, she was convinced that Nate and I were having some weird affair and distancing ourselves from her with stupid nicknames and lying about what we did when she wasn't around. She doesn't want to see Nate again, and while she forgives me for the name thing she doesn't really want to drop everything and be best friends. That's fair. She's asked me to gather her stuff from Nate's house and meet her for a chat. She told me she won't make decisions for me but hopes I'll reconsider my friendship after all this. To be honest, I don't feel comfortable going to his place after what I know, so Anna is going to come along. I haven't said anything to him about what I know and don't plan to until we have Kate's

stuff. I don't think he'll get violent or whatever, but I can see him damaging her things as some petty revenge, and since I've learned I don't know him at all I can't guarantee he won't react really badly. After Anna and I grab her things we plan to contact Nate together and tell him that he needs to stay away or will report him to the uni. I know he's been very careful about not breaking the rules and hasn't technically done anything wrong, but since befriending students and trying for romantic relationships immediately after his restrictions and seems to be a pattern, I'm sure they'd at least watch him and it would look bad professionally. I don't think there's much more to say. Like I said, I don't think Kate and I will be best friends, but if she wants to stay friends

with anyone in the group it's pretty safe to say we're all dropping Nate. Going forward I'm going to watch what I say and assume anything said about someone without them present is going to get back to them, with or without appropriate context. I'll be better about boundaries and suspicious of anyone who isn't.