The Babysitter That Cares
Babysitters are the savior of some busy parents and can provide care for children when their parents need to be doing other things. This 21 year old babysitter (we’ll call her Julia) truly cares about Mia, the child she babysits. The amount of of abuse Julia received from an entitled mother and her child on a bus ride one weekend would make some people quit, but Julia loved the girl she watched over. Mia is 8 years old and Julia has been babysitting her for her entire life. The family treats Julia great and Mia is an extremely easy child to babysit.
Julia cared so much for Mia that she never rose her rates over the years and charged an extremely small fee of about $2/hour. In return, Mia’s parents would give her gift cards for special events and holidays. Julia babysits Mia for fun and has a career that takes care of her expenses.
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The Bus Ride
One Saturday, Julia was watching Mia and decided to go on day trip to the nearest big city. Mia loved shopping and sightseeing so it was the perfect way to spend a relaxing day.
Julia hated, HATED, driving places because of all of the added stress so she decided that they’d go on the bus. They booked the bus and for a round trip ticket, it was only $12 with Mia being a free ride because she was under 10 years old. The bus also waited for you if you scheduled the round trip and were a little bit late for departure.
Anyway, they made it to the bus just like normal and hopped on. Julia let Mia use her old Nintendo DSi while on the ride so that Mia could have a solid distraction for the trip and so she could use her phone and relax a bit. Everything was great… until this entitled mom – we’ll call her Karen – and her son got on the bus.
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Bad Parenting
The mother-son duo got on and took the seats right behind Mia and Julia. No problem, right? Wrong. It didn’t take long for the little boy to notice the game Mia was playing and he became jealous.
He said to his mom, “Mommy, I want to play!”
Karen: “Well, go ahead.”
Julia thought that he would just ask nicely, like a normal kid, if he could play with Mia or try out the game but no – the boy jumped up from his seat, reached over Mia’s head and tried to take the game from her hands. He got it for a second, but couldn’t take it completely because Mia had the wrist strap on. Julia made sure that Mia’s wrist was okay and that they DSi wasn’t broken and then turned around, stopping the boy from trying again.
Julia: “Young man, that was not nice at all.”
Karen instantly replied, “He just wants to play. Let him play, too.”
To which Julia responded, “Teach your child to ask properly and I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t tell me how to parent my kid! You’re still a kid yourself.”
The boy cried out, “Mom! I want that game!”
Julia was fed up so she told them no and asked them to leave her alone. After sitting back down, Julia noticed that Mia’s seat was shaking and thought it was just because of the bus, then after a minute she realized that the boy was constantly kicking Mia’s seat. Even after he was asked to stop, he kept on kicking, so Julia told Karen that if she had to say it again, she would tell one of the bus drivers and that there would be an issue.
All Karen did was say, “He’s bored. Give him the game and he’ll stop, it’s not that hard.”
Julia immediately got up and took Mia with her to another part of the bus, then left her there while she went up front to complain to the drivers. Then, all of a sudden, Julia heard Mia yell, “NO! Let go!”
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Little Thief
Julia turned around to see that the boy had followed Mia to the new row and had the DSi in one hand and Mia’s hair in his other. Karen was watching this happen, smirking with a look of satisfaction as the boy ripped the wrist strap off Mia, taking the game and bringing it back to his seat.
Julia stormed at him, grabbing the game without saying a word. He started crying and screaming like a little baby, even though he was about the same age as Mia, 10 years old. Mia was in tears, the boy was screaming, and it was only 8 am. Talk about a rough morning. It was just supposed to be a relaxing day.
“You give that back right now! My son was playing with it!”
The second bus driver (they drove in teams of two) came to the rescue, physically forcing Karen back to her seat in the back of the bus. He then asked Mia and Julia to move up to the front, trying to put as much space between the two groups as possible. He told Karen to use some common sense and realize that the game wasn’t hers and that she can’t force people to give her, or her son, something that isn’t theirs. Yes, she was a full-grown adult. Karen tried to make up excuses saying, “My son only wanted to try the game,” and that “these girls are unfairly rude to my son,” and demanded an apology.
After settling down, Julia gave a subtle middle finger towards the back of the bus, hiding it from view with the seat. Mia caught her and started snickering and playing her game again. Crisis evaded…for now.
END OF PART 1
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