This Mom Refused To Pay Her Babysitter Because She Gave Her Ice Cream, And The Texts Are Bonkers

Kids are hard work. Seriously — even if you think you have easy kids, there are still quirks and challenges that arise on occasion. That’s why babysitters should always get paid a full amount — not only are they keeping your children safe, but they’re keeping them entertained. Plus, a job is a job.

Still, one unnamed mom who was outed on Reddit felt as if ice cream should have been enough payment after her babysitter watched her kids for eight hours. Not only is this ridiculous, but it’s completely against everything the two agreed upon prior to the visit.

The funny thing is, the babysitter — identified by Buzzfeed as Kristen — has direct proof of the $16 per hour rate that the two agreed upon. They did it through text, leading to a very strange response from the woman after some screencaps backed Kristen up.

“I delete my messages often,” she said, as if her deletion would also erase the text on Kristen’s phone as well. In the mother’s eyes, being able to offer Kristen “free ice cream and a day of fun” would make up for the $128 she was owed. Which, as any babysitter would tell you, is straight up bonkers.

The messages were made public by Kristen’s brother, posting under VortexThing, who shared them with the r/ChoosingBeggars community.

As expected, the Reddit community couldn’t believe this woman would back out after the job was done, and suggested that Kristen go to small claims court — if anything, to prove to the woman that she can’t be bossed around that way.
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“She’s hesitant because she thinks it’s a lot of legal work for $128,” VortexThing noted. “She’s just going to talk to the husband, who hopefully is a tad more reasonable…She’s livid and going off in our family group chat right now.”

As she should have been — being promised $128 and getting ice cream instead is a ridiculous trade-off.

Others thought it was funny that the mom was so technologically inept that she didn’t know how text deletion worked. For the record, every text you send has the potential of being saved forever.

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Others shared similar stories, many in which a simple legal threat provided quick action.

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Buzzfeed reports that Kristen chose to contact the husband about the situation, explaining that court fees would be more expensive than the money she was owed — and they report that arrangements were made to get Kristen the money she was promised.

But hopefully, this woman has a hard time finding a good babysitter in the future. Who knows how many people she’s swindled in the past?

Even though ice cream is literally one of the best desserts on the planet, there’s no ice cream out there that’d equal the equivalent of eight hours of hard work.