36 Babysitters Share The Moments They Knew Kids Were Not Gonna Have Normal Lives

I have a friend who worked in a daycare right out of college."

"There was a baby who came in everyday dirty and hungry, so when she changed the baby's diaper at the end of the day she would write the date and time on the diaper with a sharpie."

"That baby came back the next day with the same diaper.... 12 hours later. After a few days of that she called CPS.

I'm a teacher, not a babysitter. But, when kids are afraid to go home or have their parents contacted about anything, there is something going on that raises red flags (and will, possibly, leave the kid fu**ed up for years to come).

I had a student a few years ago who broke down in tears in front of me, begging me not to email his mom. He had cheated on a test and was so scared of his mother finding out that, after the crying, he threw up in the trash can.

If you are that scared of your parents, then something is majorly wrong.

I was a casual babysitter, but when I lived in LA I babysat for a family that lived in a giant house on a hill and they refused to say no to their kid, and I wasn’t allowed to either. She wanted to do something dangerous and I wouldn’t let her, and she told me her parents let her do it. I said “well I’m responsible for your safety right now so I can’t let you do that.” When her parents got home they scolded me for saying no. That was the last time I babysat for them.

S****y parents that doesn't care. I once babysat a little boy, from the time he was 1-3. His mom was busy going on vacation and partying. I remember as he grew he had less and less clothes, because he outgrown the ones he had. I remember he only had 1 pair of socks, because his mom would lose every f*****g sock. I felt ashamed delivering him to the daycare with two different socks, all the time. It may not seem like a big deal, but look at it from a different POV: if you can't take care of a pair of socks, how are you gonna take care of a baby?

Knew a kid whose parents thought it was funny to tell him the wrong names for things. Socks were called turtles. Put your turtles on. S**t like this. Wondered why he had screaming meltdowns in daycare then kindergarten etc until he was finally able to read by himself. In grade 4. Because spelling turtle s o c k doesn't give you any head starts.

Not a babysitter, but I think my cousin might be a good example in this situation. He moves around so much that he literally lives in a boat, he has done school virtual schooling his entire life, so his only friends are his cousins, and his mother is both a Covid denier and an anti-vaxer. I feel bad for the poor kid.

Not a babysitter, but a Paraprofessional at an Elementary School. First Grade teacher goes around the classroom asking the kids what they want to be when they grow up. One of the boys says "I want to go to prison like my Dad!".

Babysat this kid while I was in high school. He was like 8, I was 17. He got thrown out of mainstream school for flipping a desk on his teacher. I think the biggest “this kid is going to be screwed up when he’s older” was either when he showed me his collection of knives he stole from the kitchen or when he took me to see his dads p*** collection. Yeah, didn’t work there too long.

In this instance it was when I was a preschool teacher but still applies.


A boy joins the school (age 3 years) with his almost 5 year old brother. 3 year old boy (let's call him Billy) has been enrolled and expelled from 3 other preschools in a year.


Billy beats other kids and teachers. Not hits beats them. I saw him grab a girl by the hair and start punching her repeatedly in the face because she wouldn't share her toy.


Here's the rub though. Billy obviously has issues, but the brother is making such a fuss to parents and other adults, Billy is never without being corrected. Billy once threw a ball to his brother and it hit the brother in the face by accident. The older brother said nothing until he realizes I saw it happen. The brother immediately falls to his knees and fake cries about Billy hurting him again "just like always".


The parents inform us that at home the brothers are not allowed near each other, and since Billy is a handful, they put Billy in his area of the house and that is where he eats and plays separate from mom, dad, and brother.


So Billy is absolutely f****d when he grows up. He already has some underlying issues but he will never get the chance to work through them because he's locked in his room away from his family and has no one who loves him. Even though he punched me in the face, I feel sorry for him.

I've worked in several kindergartens.


For me, most of the kids I thought that about.. Well, it wasn't their fault. They had just been dealt a really bad hand in life, and I knew it would take so much work for them to get ahead.


One kid, he was 5. His mother was diagnosed with scizophrenia, and this kid lived with a foster family, who did the best they could do.


This mother had basically "babied" him, resulting in this poor 5 year-old having no social skills at all. He would get into conflicts with other kids because he didn't understand their games and would interrupt them and they would, as a result, tell him to go away. He would then be sad, and took his sadness out on the kids by hitting them. He also had very bad verbal skills. When I first met him, I barely understood what he was saying. His tantrums reminded me of a much younger child. He also LOVED his mother. Since she had raised him by herself, she was his whole world.


The most heartbreaking situation was one day, when his mother came to visit him. This was after he had been moved to his foster family, and the mother was only allowed to see him with supervision. We had an agreement that she could come visit him in kindergarten for a few hours every week. So she showed up, and he ran into her arms. Two hours later, we had to physically pry him off her. He wanted to go home with his mom, and he could not let go of that. He didn't stop screaming until two hours later when he tired himself out and fell asleep.


I thought to myself that day "This kid is not growing up to be a functioning adult.".


It broke my heart. He was a really sweet kid. Funny, curious, inquisitive. I still send him a thought once in a while. I hope he's doing okay.

I babysat for my apartment complex when i was younger, practically running a day care out of my apartment. I had this one boy, Max, who was just reckless with everything. He would listen to me, but any time one of the others needed attention, he’d disregard me and what I’d told him. I stopped this kid from getting multiple concussions, I made sure he didn’t play in traffic, but the one day he had an attitude and wouldn’t hold my hand when crossing the street, s**t hit the fan. People would speed through the complex, and a large SUV ended up hitting him while I was trying to get him out of the way (difficult with 8 other kids). It wasn’t just some rando either... it was his OWN MOTHER that hit him!!! She had me stop babysitting until he was back on his feet and terrorizing her again, but I wasn’t gonna take responsibility of this wild child and any potential injuries that came to him under my watch. He was a good kid, just did stupid s**t constantly, like trying to dive in the shallow end of a pool, jumping out of trees that are 15 ft up, running up to any and all dogs to pet them (i was a dog sitter too and there were 4 or 5 dogs in the complex that were too aggressive for him to be doing that), and it was genuinely a matter of when, not if, he was going to get hurt again and I can’t defend myself for his injuries.

I'm not a babysitter, but a relative of mine was for a short period of time. She said this 4 or 5 year old kid would tell her about how he wanted to cut into his pets to "see how they work." The creepy behavior continued, she brought it up to the mother who didn't seem to care. One day she arrived, and the kid brought her a handful of various teeth that weren't human, still bloody. That was the last time she babysat.

I used to work at a daycare and this one kid kept trying to stick his finger in the electrical sockets (the sockets were taped off so he couldn’t) and would fall from pretty high places and hit his head. I have no clue how he’s still alive but I now believe he is immortal.

A twelve year old with no physical or developmental disability still needing his mother to take him into the family restroom.

(My nephew).

Had a kid who doused his mother's bed with her and her current pump in it, with lighter fluid, and was sitting in the floor trying to light matches.

He was just shy of 5. 😳.

The boy took me to his shed and showed me a bunch of road kill, you figure it out.

Over the summer I was a nanny for a pretty wealthy family. They were great and super down to earth and the kids were awesome and polite. However, they had a family visit for a few days. The family was from LA and the dad was a Hollywood agent. I don't really care for celebrities, pop culture or brands but it's all this family would talk about. They had two children and the older girl, who was around 6, said/screamed the following things to me over the few days:

"Get me conditioner because my hair is important!" (after throwing a goddamn fit when I told her there was no conditioner for her bathroom because it was in the room where the baby was sleeping)

"Nanny, get me food." (literally snapped her finger above her head)

"Build me a fort or I'm telling them that you should be fired!" (after being so incredibly mean to the other children and constantly complaining how bored she was in a house full of toys, art, and swimming pool outside)

I shut this s**t down so fast and told her to never, EVER speak to me or another adult like that. I told her parents and they acted mortified but never dolled out consequences or an apology. She put on a full face of make up everyday and wore heels.

Baby sat a kid. That kid is 8, all she does all day is watch youtube videos. Her parents don't care that youtube is just taking her down wormholes - so she now believes that the world is flat and she's obsessed with watching people open these weird dolls that have a gazillion plastic parts. Her parents buy them for her and she opens them and discards them. She is 8 and still has temper tantrums cause her parents reward them, and her parents who don't really like each other much, neither of them provide any discipline what so ever. Babysat once, once was enough - cause I said no to her and she hit me. Cause her parents have never said no and she has never had consequences for her behavior. Kid don't have any real friends - cause her parents gave her no instructions in how to be a real human being. It's a shame.

Smooth time.


I babysat a 6 year old and his parents has a few strange rules, but Smooth Time was by far the worst. My first day while walking through the routine, I was told every evening after bath time, I was to cover this kid head to toe in petroleum jelly to "prevent cracks in his skin" aka dry skin. It happened every morning as well, but the mom or dad did it then. I really don't think it was anything malicious, the other rules were similarly overly-cautious like the kid had to wear shoes at all times to prevent him hurting his feet, but that kid is gonna have a hard time at his first sleepover.


EDIT: What made it extra weird was the kid was extremely smart for his age and well articulated, so I don't understand why the mother insisted he needed help. I felt like he could do it himself.

Honestly, parents who don't care about the kid's education, for whatever reason. Probably, the parent didn't graduate high school in the first place and doesn't place a whole lot of value in education. Many of those kids (source: former teacher) end up working at McDonald's or struggling to find some other work. They don't even get into trades because you have to go to some kind of school for those, and school just isn't something they can "do".

This happened with my step-daughter, who is an absolutely wonderful person but her mom never cared how she did in school or even if she went. Hence her trying to make a living now at 25 by working in day cares, which does NOT pay very well. She wants to do other things but they'd all require school and she just says "I hate school.".