There are certain jobs in this world that are fueled by pure, unadulterated love. And being a nanny is at the top of that list. But there is a line, a very clear one, between being a beloved caregiver and being a human-shaped doormat. One 56-year-old nanny on Reddit just found that line, and what her bosses did will make your blood boil.
Our narrator has been a nanny for “Jenna” and “Mitchel” for years. She adores them. She adores their two sweet, well-behaved kids. They pay her a “big sum,” and she looks forward to her job every day. It is, by all accounts, a perfect gig.
So, when Jenna and Mitchel decided to host a party at a nearby restaurant, she, of course, agreed to watch their two kids. It was a normal night. Or so she thought. As they were giving her the rundown, they dropped a weird clue: “make sure the kids are ready to be picked up by 9:30pm.” Kids. Plural. She thought it was just a slip of the tongue. Oh, how wrong she was.
About 20 minutes later, the bosses’ friends come over to pick them up for the party. And they… brought… their children. All of them. Not one or two. She saw “at least 7” extra kids. Seven. This wasn’t a babysitting gig; it was a pop-up, unlicensed daycare, and she was the only staff member.
The nanny, being a professional and not a pushover, immediately pulled Jenna aside. She asked, very reasonably, why all these friends expected her to babysit their kids when she had only, and ever, agreed to watch her two.
And this, my friends, is where Jenna’s “great boss” mask slipped off to reveal the monster underneath. She was “taken aback” (how dare the help question her?) and then delivered one of the most ghoulish, insulting justifications I have ever heard. She said she thought the nanny “wouldn’t mind since I don’t do anything else with my time anyways.”
This nanny is a 56-year-old widow. This “boss” just used her employee’s personal tragedy, her loneliness, as a weapon to guilt her into free labor. Jenna, it turns out, just “offered” her nanny’s services to all her friends to “save money and time” so they could all party.
But our hero is not a doormat. She got angry, and she set a boundary. A glorious, shiny, titanium boundary. She told Jenna that unless she was “willing to pay me 7x the amount of money she pays me now,” there was no way she was watching nine kids for eight hours.
Jenna’s face went from “confused” to “frustrated.” The mask was fully off. She told the nanny she “should be lucky” to even have this job with its high pay. She told her to “be grateful” and just do this “one thing” because she “just wants to treat her friends.”
Treat her friends? By exploiting her employee? By insulting her dead husband? The level of entitlement is truly staggering.
And our nanny’s response? It was perfect. She was “shocked.” She didn’t say anything else. She just… left. She walked right out of the house. An icon. A legend. She refused to be a party to her own exploitation.
But the story isn’t over. Because Mitchel, the husband, called her later. Not to apologize. Not to beg her to come back. He called to cuss her out. He said she “humiliated” and “embarrassed” them. He called her a “selfish stuck up lazy b**ch.” A b**ch! For refusing to be ambushed with seven extra children!
And after all that, after being verbally abused and emotionally blackmailed, this poor woman is still wondering if she messed up.
Let me be crystal clear: N-T-A. You are not the ahole. You are a hero. You didn’t just dodge a bullet; you dodged a full-on artillery strike of disrespect. These “great people” were just rich employers who were perfectly polite as long as you were obedient. The second you showed a spine, they revealed who they really are: entitled, manipulative, and deeply, deeply ugly.