ExH allowed 13 year old to babysit Step Siblings

[RobertGrayson]

DD turned 13 in September and typically sees her Dad every other weekend. Sometimes he can be away with work for weeks at a time with work (not his fault ofc), this year in particular there has been two separate occasions where he has not seen her for 6 weeks.

He will collect her Friday from school and return her home on Sunday afternoon.

During our catch up after she was dropped home on Sunday, she let me know that she babysat her two step siblings, 2 and 5, on Saturday night whilst her Dad and his Wife went to the pub and cinema. DD has explained that the Cinema is approx. 20 minutes away, they left at 7:30pm and returned at 12:30am.

AIBU to think that:

1. She is not old enough to be responsible for a toddler/young child.
2. Considering he sees her 15% of the time (at best) that they could have spent some time with her instead and not left her alone for a date night.

As an aside, she was paid £10, which I think is also a piss take.

I've spoken with ExH to say that I am unhappy, he didn't put up much of a fight so I doubt it'll ever happen again, but it's really playing on my mind still. Am I being oversensitive?

I was babysitting similarly aged children at 13. I can't believe teenagers have regressed that much in 20 years that they can't cope with babysitting their siblings for an evening.

13 is too young to be responsible for two kids that young. I think it might be illegal here (Scotland), but either way it’s too young - very unfair to put that level of responsibility on a child of that age. Quite apart from that though is the point others have made - why on earth is he going out with his wife in his (pretty piss poor) contact time??

The first thing I said was "how does she feel about it?". Who says she's not taken care of? A sensible 13yo is more than capable of managing a few hours of babysitting if she is willing. If she doesn't want to, that's another matter. Lots of 13yo would far rather the tv and snack cupboard to themselves than hanging out with dad and step mum...
I was babysitting at 13. My own DCs babysitter only just turned 16...

Step-siblings? So she hasn’t even known them for two years?

I think the babysitting is fine on paper so to speak.

It’s not ok that he’s doing this on a weekend he’s supposed to be spending time with her. It kind of is his fault he works away six weeks at a time, there are other jobs.

A 13 year old is not old enough to look after a 2 year old!!!

£2/hr? That's less than a third of the minimum wage for u18s. The poor feckers in illegal nail bars, car washes, cannabis farms and brothels probably get paid more than that.
I'd go pretty bonkers at him. So she's not worth spending an evening with, even though he hardly sees her, and she's only worth peanuts for babysitting? Is that what he's teaching her?

Please stop this from happening. The kids are supposed to be with dad not the 13 year old child. I would stop contact over this unless I could be absolutely certain it would not happen again!

What if the under 16 year old was the parent? How does that work?

the scenarios of sitting quietly whilst young children are sleeping soundly are great, but the point of having an older more experienced person there is that accidents can happen. Children can get out of bed. And if you are not used to looking after two year olds, they can be a lot more difficult to handle.
My parents and relatives left all of us with only my 13 year old sister in charge. Running about with cousins, 7 year old me tripped and I put my hand through a glass pane. Looking back, we were so lucky that it wasn't more serious as my sister didn't know what to do and waited until everyone got home.

The babysitting is fine.

The pay and it being his weekend is absolutely not!

You do not hand over your kids for them to be looked after by a child. It’s completely inappropriate and not something I would ever agree to. It would be dad or no one.

I wouldn't let a 13 year old drive my car around the block let alone take care of my 2 and 5 year old children. You are not being unreasonable.

In general I think 13 is ok but not for a 2 year old, they might not be able to communicate efficiently and there are still way too many dangerous things around that a 2 year old could get into, also choking hazards etc - it's just not worth the risk in my opinion

This really bothered me. This woman has married a man she's known for a very short space of time and has a near stranger looking after her children

The 2 year old needs to be in the care of an adult!
Please tell me you will never let this happen again.

My 2 year old wakes up at least once in the night crying for me, she's a completely different beast in the night than during the day and leaving a 13 year old with that responsibility is mad imo

If your DD was unhappy about it then I’d help her talk to her dad or offer to talk to him on her behalf (or offer to come pick her up early if they want to go out so they can hire another sitter and she can spend the night at home). But the reality is that you don’t have much control or right to make demands of how he handles this during his contact time, so it’s probably not productive to try to do so.

I babysat at 13, as did the generation before me when parents didn’t have cell phones. She was in a familiar home and if the parents left at 7:30 the little kids would likely have been in bed or close to it. If the 13 year old feels confident about what to do in an emergency, has a reliable phone, and the parents can be contacted then it’s not wildly unacceptable from a safety perspective. Your DD might well have felt more comfortable with this set up than having a babysitter she doesn’t know come over and sit up with her while the little kids are asleep.

Ideally your DH and his partner would schedule date nights for when your DD isn’t there given how little contact time he has. But then if he was a top-tier, super engaged father she would have far more contact time with him in the first place, so his choice here isn’t surprising. And if they left at 7:30 that’s likely only a few waking hours he might have spent with her instead.

$10 is way too low obviously and I would probably tell your DD that.

OPs child's is the 13 year old isn't she? Or have I misread?

I think as an occasional thing it's fine, provided DD is OK with it. Is the 2 year old still up? It's entirely possible one, if not both, smaller dc are already in bed.

I don't think she's too young to babysit, especially if her dad had his phone and wasn't far away. I do think he is a complete AH for not wanting to spend the evening with his daughter who it doesn't sound like he sees much of.

I don’t think 13 is too young to babysit older children (5/6 plus) but I am astonished that a 2 year old child was left in the care of a minor, that is far too young to not have a responsible adult around.

Ten quid? I was getting that for an evening's babysitting 40 odd years ago, I was probably 14 or 15. 😡

And yes, he should have spent time with her instead of lumping her with his younger kids.

Her step siblings are only 2 and 5? How long has she even known them? How long has her father and his wife been together?

When I lived in Alabama the local hospital ran 'safe sitter' classes for 11 year olds. It covered first aid and how to care for young children.

It was made clear in the class that the 11 year olds were not to look after babies, but a 2 year old and a 5 year old would have been fine.

I think a sensible 13 year old can babysit a 2 year old and 5 year old provided they know what to do in an emergency. They should be paid £10 an hour and an additional charge for looking after a second child.

No problem with the babysitting assuming she'd say no if she didn't want to and if the kids were easy to look after.

Another one wondering how well she knows them if the youngest is only 2?