As a teenager, babysitting is a pretty good gig. We’re paid in cash, you don’t do it everyday, and once the kids go to bed it’s pretty chill.
There are some drawbacks, but at that age we’re happy to stick it out for our earliest paychecks.
But one Redditor learned that patience can grow thin after a bit. She posted her experience on the “Am I the A**hole (AITA)” subReddit.
The Original Poster (OP), aptly known as aitaclothdiapers on the site, touched on the specific issue in the post’s title:
“AITA for refusing to babysit a baby in cloth diapers?”
It all began with some unexpected side work.
“I (23-year-old female) used to nanny from college until like a year ago before I got a my dream job. I work 65+ hour weeks so I really look forward to relaxing on the weekends.”
“The family I used to nanny for begged me to watch their kids last weekend so they could go to a last minute birthday party…”
“…I said no at first because I need my weekends to decompress after a long week but they were in a bind so I agreed.”
And thinks have changed since she started that dream job.
“Since I left they had a new baby. While I was nannying both kids were potty trained so I never dealt with diapers with them.”
“I show up and they start going over the baby’s schedule and they then tell me they use cloth diapers so for poops I have to scrap it off into the toilet.”
That gave OP pause.
“I told them I am not doing that. We can either use disposable diapers just for this night or I can set the poopy ones aside and they can clean them when they get home.”
“I said that they should have told me this ahead of time because I would have said no.”
The parents, however, were happy to share their take.
“They said there is to reason to tell me that, it’s just normal baby care.”
“I said that as some who nannied and babysat for 5 years this is the first time I’ve been asked to do this, so it is out of the ordinary and it is respectful to be clear about things like that with child care providers.”
“I said I am not handling poop more than I need to. So I can either leave, use disposable diapers, or leave the poop ones for them to clean later.”
And it escalated from there.
“We started arguing so I just left and went home and had a relaxing night.”
“My mom said I should have just done it because they were in a bind but I gave them options and they vetoed all of them so I stuck to my boundary. AITA?”
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Most Redditors agreed with OP.
“NTA. The entitlement is strong with these ones, especially when they are desperate for babysitting. Boundaries are important, but I would be telling them to lose your number.” — giantbrownguy
“NTA. Not only is this boundary valid (ew), you were DOING THEM A FAVOR. They sound entitled.”
“Go home and relax, reward yourself for killing it at your dream job, and forget the expectation that you give up your needed time to scrape baby sh** out of a cloth.”
“Seriously…. The fact that they insisted AND couldn’t budge on disposable? I’d never help them out again.” — oknerium
“Absolutely NTA. You didn’t want to babysit period, gave them reasonable options to accommodate, and went with the best decision for your comfort.”
“Their baby is not your responsibility, and it’s not your fault that THEY needed help last minute.” — 60percentimaginary
“NTA at all, that’s disgusting.. for them to get mad at you because you don’t agree to scrape their kids sh** from cloth to the toilet is so entitled I’d find new people to nanny for” — EffectiveApricot
“NTA There are some things you do not want to do. You cannot change your feelings on that. I do not see why they did not just say leave the diapers – it must not have been an important event.” — crbryant1972
Others spoke from experience.
“Cloth diapers are becoming the trend within this last year. All my friends/SIL who have had babies use them. So I get why they didn’t tell you.”
“But they also should have accommodated to when you said no as a boundary. I think leaving them off to the side was a fair deal. Nta” — Lt-shorts
“NTA. I cloth diapered my daughter and plan to cloth diaper my second baby. Whenever we left baby with anyone else, I provided disposable diapers.”
“My mom was fine with using the cloth diapers so I always told her if it was a poopy one, to just set it aside and I’d take care of it when we got home.”
“Also use to work in a daycare and it was always the parents responsibility to take care of poopy ones for the kiddos that were in cloth diapers.” — -poppyseed
“NTA. We were big on cloth nappies for my child and there are specifically nappy bins designed to store soiled nappies.”
“You have to be able to transport the things home if your child’s nappy needs changing outside the house. So you obviously don’t always clean them straight away.”
“Point being, they could have let you just dump them in the nappy bin as you suggested, and put the lid on tight, or go for disposable just for the night. They are TA for not making sure you were ok with that particular situation!” — Mumique
“NTA- I work in a daycare. Parents are allowed to bring cloth diapers and have us use them. But they also bring a wet bag that all dirty diapers go in. We do not scrape poop into trash or toilets, we plastic bag the poopy diaper and stick it in the wet bag.”
“The potty training teachers are also allowed to say ‘I will not potty train in cloth, either use disposible or potty training is entirely on you.’ And all cloth diaper parents are required to bring in disposible so if we run out of cloth or whatever we have diapers to put the kid in.” — Ennah_Schemer
So although it’s unlikely OP will babysit much in the future anyhow, she can rest assured she was in the right during her latest experience.