When you hire a babysitter to come to your home to watch your children, the typical expectation is that the babysitter will also make an effort to keep your children from breaking anything in your home. Parents don't want to come home to a house that's been destroyed by their toddler.
If something does happen while the babysitter is watching your kids though, who foots the bill for the damage?
Who's To Blame Here?
One user in Reddit's Am I The A**hole forum shared a recent story about his babysitter that he was looking for a second opinion about.
The title was "AITA for asking for compensation for something my kid destroyed?"
His Wife Had An Emergency
The dad was already at work and his wife had to "rush to work for an emergency" so she called their usual babysitter.
He writes that they've had her watch their child a few times, they pay her a "good rate" of $20 an hour, and she's 19.
She Knows The House Rules
Since she's babysat for them a couple of times, she knows the rules of the house and what the child can or can't do.
That includes that the 3/yo "is only allowed in the living room, play room, and dining room." The rest of the house is off-limits.
Another Emergency
While babysitting, the babysitter herself apparently had an emergency to deal with and was on the phone for twenty minutes.
To deal with her emergency, she stepped outside to take the call. "Her rationale [for stepping outside] was it was private and she didn't want our child to listen in."
You Can Do A Lot In Twenty Minutes
Apparently, in the 20 minutes that the babysitter was outside, their three-year-old daughter managed to get into a lot of trouble.
She was able to shift the couch that blocked the exit gate for the living room. She then climbed over the gate, opened the basement door and headed downstairs.
What Did She Do In The Basement?
Once she made her way down the basement stairs, she then pulled one of her dad's guitars off the wall.
He didn't specify how many guitars he has, but clearly he's a collector because she didn't pick a cheap one!
Now The Neck Is Broken
The child pulled one off the wall and now "the neck is all warped" and his luthier (someone who makes guitars) says the neck needs to be repaired.
Rather than just fixing the neck though, this dad says he's asking for a whole new guitar.
The Sound Just Isn't The Same
According to the post, simply replacing the neck of the guitar wouldn't be enough because it diminishes the value of the guitar.
The price of the new guitar is $2200, and he says he's asking the babysitter to pay since it happened on her watch.
Her Family And His Friends Disagree
The parents of the babysitter said that the parents of the toddler are the one responsible for paying for the repair, though the babysitter is offering to babysit for free from now on.
Even the dad's friends say that he's being too harsh, but he holds firm that "it was her responsibility, right?"
It's His Responsibility To Babyproof His House
One of the first things people in the comments brought up was the fact that his child was able to physically move the couch in the first place.
And then they added that if the guitars were that valuable, they shouldn't be stored in a place where his child could even reach them.
Also, A Child Can't "Warp" A Guitar Neck
A music manager in the comments also weighed in on the fact that the dad described the neck as "warped" rather than broken.
A guitar neck that's warped is a result of being store improperly or being used improperly, not from a toddler touching it.
Dad Should Be Footing The Bill
It sucks that the babysitter wasn't watching the child in the moment that it happened, but you can't expect a 19-year-old to pay over two grand to fix something that his child broke.
If she had two thousand dollars to spare, she probably wouldn't be babysitting in the first place!