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 wouldn't have any issue with a sensible 13yo babysitting for an evening; I also don't think it's unusual for sibling babysitters to be paid a token amount, given that they would be in the house anyway. I do think it's a bit shit of him to spend so much of his (already very minimal) contact time away from his daughter.

I was babysitting a boy with high needs autism at 14. I think it’s fine but he did underpay her.

Did she want to do it or did she feel she had to as she was there & they wouldn't have been able to go out otherwise?

Would she have gone to see him if she had known he would be going out?

I think the babysitting is fine at 13 as long as she was able to contact them and they weren't far away. I do think he should have prioritised spending the evening with his DD over a date night with his wife though. They could have had a takeaway and movie night at home and included her.

A 13yo is too young to be in sole charge of little ones for anything longer than an hour I think. The fact that lots of you on this commenting this thread did so at that age still doesnt make it ok imho.

If you think its ok would you/do you leave your 2yo and 5yo alone for an entire evening with a 13yo? I suspect not.
Plus of course in this situation the dad should be spending time with his 13yo not using her as cheap childcare.

Does he understand the purpose of contact time? He is supposed to be spending it with his daughter, not treating her as the hired help.

My 2yo wakes up too. I don't see why a teenager wouldn't be able to cope.
If you don't want to, fine, but there's not actually anything wrong with it.

My under 10’s were left to babysit 3 and 1 year old half siblings…..

A tenner isn't enough, but that's a whole other subject

I wouldn't leave my 14 and 11 year old alone at night for that long - 2 or 3 hours sure, but past midnight? No. Let alone with toddlers, and I'd generally consider myself fairly lax (and I was babysitting for people that young)

And yes, why would he leave her and take his wife out, rather than taking her out given how little he sees her. I don't understand that at all.

I used to babysit at 13/14 for my mum's friends they had a 5/6 year old. He would be in bed ready by the time I got there I'd read him another story (because he loved it) and then lights off. They used to have netball/rugby on the same night one of them would be back by about 9:30, often the mum who'd been playing netball with my mum, so I'd get a lift home. When I was about 15/16 I'd also babysit for the annual rugby black tie do which was until much later but then they'd put me in a cab either home or sometimes to the party I was going to! They used to pay me £5 an hour and leave me snacks or pizza which in the late nights was pretty good.
I wouldn't have felt comfortable looking after a toddler at 13 and for me the biggest issue here is she's there to see her dad and he's sodding off out and using her as cheap labour!!

Agree with this. I babysat my parents' friends' kids at 13 but they weren't as young as 2 and 5, plus we weren't left alone until after midnight

Total pisstake. She's far too young to be looking after small children for that long during what should be her time with her dad. Did he do anything nice with her during the day maybe she would have enjoyed a trip to the cinema! Also should have been paid fairly for her time. I babysat for 5 children by myself when I was 15 and it was way too much pressure!

Too young, I've only just started to ask DS who is nearly 18 to be in with my 13 year old DD if it is late in the evening!

I'm a child social worker, whilst I babysat children at 13, I wouldn't look kindly on it in this day and age - IF babysitting was something she was keen on, I'd expect it to start with one, older child, and for a much shorter period of time - past midnight could be quite frightening for a child of that age, also as they're step siblings I don't know how comfortable she would be eg if the two year old was upset?

Aside from that it beggars belief that he used her contact time to go to the pub - if he tries that again I'd suggest she rings you to be collected, and dad gets his arse home from the pub! That's not what she's there for, and I wonder how much say she actually got in the matter.

He took the piss. £10? What an arse

And you know that it’s not ok?

Did she want to babysit?

I completely agree with both of your points.

He needs to save going out for when he doesn’t see his child.

And 13 is way too young to be having responsibility of 2 kids that age.

I find it frightening, that so many people see teens nowadays as young children, unable to be left alone, to babysit, take the train alone.
I can't imagine the shock when they go to Uni, start a job or do adult things completely unprepared! Recipe for disaster.

That's shitty all over.
Pointless her going over if he's not going to spend time with her.
Too late in the day, she shouldn't be responsible for small children at bedtime.
I wouldn't leave a 13 year old with a 2yo for long at all, an hour or so maybe if she's comfortable but way too long and tbh with 2 of them I think it's too much responsibility. If the little kids start dicking around what exactly is she supposed to be able to do? It's not fair on her and must feel so shitty thsy he didnt want to spend time with his own daughter after so long.

I might let a 13 year old babysit for a very short amount of time, say an hour or so, and during the day, if the occassion was exceptional.
However, from what the OP says, the 13 yr old was expecting to babysit till 12.30 at night. As a mother, I would not feel happy about this, if the children being looked after were mine.
It is always a case of worse case scenario; ie what could be the worse that could happen, and could the 13 year old deal with it.

I can't imagine leaving a 13 yr old to look after a 2 year old! Maybe the 5 yr old but nit for tgat amount of time or that late

Was your DD OK with it.?

I have no issue in principle with the 13 year old being in charge of the toddlers for a couple of hours. But 5 hours, past midnight is too much - the 13 year old will want to be in bed, and won't be thinking about listening for the little ones, and the little ones won't realise she's there to look after them.

When I babysat at that age, it wasn't normally that late (and if it was, then my parents were a 5 minute walk up the road, so I could call for help if I needed it)

I’m really surprised at how many posters are saying I did this and that.

It’s not a race to the bottom.

I was left alone from the age of 4 and had to defend for myself.
I was fine and managed.
But just because I managed doesn’t make it ok.

We has kids working down the mines and chimneys.
We don’t do that anymore and it’s not because kids have regressed or are snowflakes or molly coddled.
We just know better now.