Babysitting can be a very rewarding way to make money. As you can imagine, babysitters can often become rather intimately acquainted with the families whose children they take care of.
It's all fun and games until you discover the money the husband is hiding in his study, however.
Special thanks to Redditor NuclearSquid74, who asked the online community "Babysitters of Reddit, what seemingly normal parents had dark secrets?"
"Not a deep dark secret..."
Not a deep dark secret, but as someone with 15 plus year in childcare, it's pretty common for a lot of wealthy parents to prioritize their jobs and themselves over their kids. Kids can sense this and usually develop some sort of unhealthy way to get more attention. The response is usually to throw money at the problem instead of genuinely getting the kid help or re-examining their family structure. It's always so deeply sad to me, a few families I have worked for, I genuinely wondered why they had kids. I understand parents need a break and people have to work, but man, it was so sad.
"I worked full time..."
I worked full time for a family with 11 and 8 yo girls. Mom played everything off like they were all happy and perfect.
They treated the 11yo like a queen and constantly cut the 8yo down. Dad was sleeping in another room, and clearly couldn't stand the mom. She's play it off like he was just grumpy in the mornings.
I never understood why people think the nanny won't know. We know everything.
"One night they came home..."
Not so much as dark but really sad. I baby sat for a typical upper middle class family, dad worked mom was stay at home. The mother was always a little over protective like checking on their daughter the second they got home, but I didn't think much of it.
One night they came home and we talked a little. She mentioned how much she loved children and her daughter so I asked her if they ever thought about having another. She completely broke down and explained that she had multiple miscarriages before and after her daughter so they stopped trying. I felt really awful and really sad because it seems like she wanted another baby.
"You'd be surprised..."
I babysit 3-5 times a week.
You'd be surprised at how many adult 'bedroom' toys I see. A lot of them are just out in the open. Like they forgot to hide them. I overnighted once and the guest bed had bondage straps. Parents totally forgot about that.
That's not too surprising. But some of their kinks are.
"All of a sudden..."
I was babysitting once and the kids were wrestling in the living room. All of a sudden the smell of dank filled the room. I hear the kids stop and say "what is that?" One of them had knocked over a big tin can on a shelf and the parents weed stash spilled everywhere. I sent the kids away and cleaned it all up for them and put it back.
"One family..."
One family- I still dunno what was up with them. It's like they were squatting in a model home or something. It was a fully furnished house that looked to be straight out of Better Homes & Gardens magazine, but there was nothing in the drawers, fridge or cabinets. No toiletries in the bathroom except for toilet paper, no food or silverware in the kitchen, no clothes in the closets or in the kid's drawers and no toys! The lady just told me to order food for the kids & they watched tv. It was weird!
I baby sat a lot when I was 13-15. At the time I lived in a small town. I was a very popular baby sitter as I also worked at the daycare centre. Often I would have kids from two or three different families at once. I didn't care I got triple the pay for having three different groups of kids. I was recently told why I always had groups of kids like that. Turns out the small town had a swingers club and I was the go to baby sitter for their different groups.
"The mother was in her thirties..."
I nannied for this very rich family with three kids from the west coast who would come to south Florida for summer vacation every year. The mother was in her thirties, clearly had her kids when she was young, and was very stereotypically hot— blonde, thin, big boobs, perfect teeth. Her husband was a little older, salt and pepper, suuuuper handsome, very George Clooney-esque. Their kids were all blonde-haired, blue-eyed, cute as hell. They absolutely adored their parents.
Dad would help the kids and mom settle in at the house and then fly back to Cali for work. I babysat 3-5 times a week, 6:30pm-2am. Mom would get all dolled up, leave her wedding ring on the kitchen counter, and come home very late, clearly drunk, and sometimes brought men home with her that she introduced as her "friends." She would often overpay me, which I never complained about, but I worried for the kids.
"I was babysitting..."
I was babysitting for a local family who owned car dealerships. I answered the phone hello as one does and it was the father who didn't know his wife had hired a babysitter so she could go to an appointment. He started in with the stupidest sexy voice until he realized it wasn't wife, he hung up. Later he was caught cheating.
"Somewhat wholesome story..."
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Somewhat wholesome story: I used to babysit for the kids down the street when I was in high school. One night I went into the parents' bedroom to get something - I think a puzzle - and there was a book on the nightstand called "how to comfort your kids when you're thinking of divorce" or something like that. The next time I was over, there was a book downstairs (on the mom's desk) that was "the couples' therapists' guide to saving a failing relationship."
It made me sad because the parents seemed really happy together whenever I saw them. I felt bad that they must have been going through a hard time behind the scenes. My parents had a pretty unhappy marriage so I tried to be extra nice to the kids. I hoped they hadn't had to listen to their parents fighting.
Anyway, this went on for a few months with no further indications of trouble. I felt like I knew this awful secret that the kids didn't know. One night I came over to babysit—the mom was in grad school and she had a class—and the same books were sitting on the counter. As the mom was leaving, she was like, "oh, I can't forget the textbooks!" and grabbed them off the counter. I actually didn't know what she was studying, so I asked what class she had. Turns out she was studying to be a couples' and family therapist. The books I saw were her schoolbooks. In retrospect, that made complete sense because the titles were kind of academic, but I immediately assumed they were divorcing.
About a decade later, they are still married and the wife is a very successful couples and family therapist. Go figure.