This 16-Year-Old Outsourced Her Babysitting Job And Then Paid Herself A Generous “Commission”

Reddit user u/Boct4212 recently found themselves in a parenting gray area after a routine babysitting arrangement took a slightly unexpected turn. Their 16-year-old daughter usually babysits her 8-year-old brother and earns $25 an hour when the parents go out.

When the parents planned to attend a late-night work party, the daughter initially agreed to babysit from early evening until after midnight. A few days later, she realized she had a friend’s birthday dinner that night and offered to find a replacement for part of the evening.

The daughter reached out to her friends and lined up one of them, Laura, to babysit from 6 to 9:30 p.m. She explained that she’d be home by then to take over, which the parents appreciated as responsible problem-solving.

Everything went smoothly, and Laura put the younger child to bed before heading home. The daughter arrived back at 9:30, checked on her brother, and went to sleep herself.

The next morning, the parents paid their daughter $175, assuming $100 went to Laura and $75 went to their daughter. Later, the OP discovered Laura was actually paid $70, not $100.

When asked, the daughter admitted she kept the extra money as “commission” for arranging the sitter. The OP felt awkward but didn’t see it as a huge issue, while their husband strongly disagreed.

He felt it was dishonest and unfair, especially since the daughter barely babysat at all. Now the parents are split on whether this was a clever initiative or a teenage lesson waiting to happen.

When asked, the daughter admitted she kept the extra money as “commission” for arranging the sitter.

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Here’s the original post by Reddit user u/Boct4212.

We sometimes pay my daughter (16) to babysit our younger son (8) when we go out on dates and such. He’s a pretty easy kid and we pay $25/hour.Recently we’d asked her to babysit while we went to a party for my husband’s work, we’d leave around 6 and not get back until after midnight. She said yes but a few days before said “oh no I forgot I have so-and-so’s birthday dinner with her family but I bet I can ask around if you want, most of my friends have curfews especially since it's a weeknight but they can do the first half of the night at least.” We said sure great idea.She goes off and texts a few group chats and comes back and says okay my friend Laura can do it but she has to be home by 10, but I’ll be home by then so she can babysit from 6-9:30ish and then when I get home she can call her dad to pick her up. We said that sounded great and thanked her for being so proactive and responsible, we were impressed as we wouldn’t have forced her to cancel her plans and she knew that.Laura comes over at 5:30 we do the tour/overview and she watches our son until 9:30. She puts our son to bed at his usual time. My daughter gets home at 9:30, relieves Laura, checks in on our son, and goes to bed herself. We got home at 12:30 after they were both asleep. The next morning we gave our daughter $175 dollars, $100 for Laura’s 4 hours and $75 for her 3 hours. I found out through the grapevine that she actually offered $18/hour in the group chat.When questioned, my daughter admitted she paid Laura $70, keeping the rest as “commission.” I feel really awkward about it and plan to give Laura $30 framed as a belated bonus/tip. But I also don’t think my daughter really did anything terribly wrong. I think 30% is a little too generous towards herself and she should have been honest with us but she used her network and organized it, why shouldn’t she take a (smaller) cut? My husband views it as stealing from both Laura and us, and sees it as having scammed her friends.When I said she used her network he scoffed and said all she did was send a few texts. He thinks she should have to apologize to Laura and her parents and give her not only the $30 she “stole” but the $75 she earned that night too. To my knowledge Laura and her parents don't know about this yet. My husband's other argument which I understand is that my daughter didn't even really do much babysitting to begin with. Our son was already in bed when she got home. So why should she get 50% of the total $ for doing 0% of the work?**TL;DR: My daughter got a friend to babysit for her due to a scheduling conflict, but kept a portion of her pay as "commission." AITA for thinking it's not that big of a deal?**

Let’s see how the Reddit community reacted.

NUT-me-SHELL

Do you want your daughter to learn integrity?

Deleted user

She scammed you.

Prize_Patience_2552

She lied to you.

tygrebryte

You backed her bad behavior.

No-Routine5222

You should use this as a learning opportunity.

BussyStudios

YTA.

Hyper_F0cus

Your daughter is a scammer.

Rygumb

ESH.

hBoBh

It wasn’t her money to distribute.

Excellent_Care1859

She’s not running a company.

iolight

Your husband is right here.

Existing-Two-2574

Time to take off the rose colored glasses.

MelonSegment

In the end, the OP isn’t sure whether this is a case of teenage entrepreneurship or a lesson in transparency that still needs to be learned. One thing’s certain: this family’s next date night might come with a much clearer babysitting contract.