This Brandy Melville-bearing babysitter brought the receipts.
A 15-year-old babysitter took to Reddit’s popular R/AmIOverreacting community to ask for help on an age-old issue — payment disputes between babysitters and the families who employ them.
Mae, as identified by the text screenshots in the post, shared that she reached out to a family she regularly babysat for after they allegedly neglected to pay her several days after the typical period.
The teen prefaced the screenshots by explaining that the parents were “more on the conservative side, and a lot more religious than my family, but they are generally nice,” so she initially approached the situation thinking the settlement snub was simply a mistake.
What she discovered once she texted Marianne, the children’s mother, was completely out of left field — the family had purposefully not paid her, claiming that they don’t feel comfortable doing so because of the teen’s “inappropriate clothing.”
Mae explained in the post that she was wearing a sweatshirt over the transgressive tank top for the majority of the visit, and only took it off when the two young girls asked her to run around and play with them.
Internet sleuths quickly discovered that the inappropriate shirt in question was Brandy Melville‘s Skylar Tank Top.
As she explained in the message to Marianne, the 15-year-old wore the tank top and sweatpants so she could be “in something flexible to run around in” with the kids.
Despite this, the teen profusely apologized for making the parents feel uncomfortable.
“If they had such an issue with the outfit, they shouldn’t have let OP babysit and should have dismissed her before working a full 7 hours,” reasoned a reply. “The fact that they’re refusing to pay now, they’re 100% being shady.”
Others were simply in awe at the fact that Marianne offered Mae a “second chance” after lowballing her, especially at what many replies agreed was already a fairly low rate for two children.
“Sometimes the stuff in this sub makes me think everyone is faking scenarios and no functional adults with kids can be that stupid or that much of an a–hole,” replied one shocked Redditor, “but here we are.”
Shortly after her original post went viral, racking up thousands of upvotes and comments, the teen made an update letting invested Redditors know how she handled the dispute after the outpouring of support and advice.
When Marianne neglected to respond to Mae’s initial response text, in which she offered to accept a scant $75 in exchange for her services, the teen followed the Internet’s advice and asked her mother to send her aggrieved employers an email on her behalf.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mae was forced to send a follow-up text after her mom’s email was ignored as well, but changed her stance: “While I feel awful that I offended you and Dan, we had never gone over ground rules about clothing, and I do not think it is fair for you to go back on your word.”
“I think that it is the best decision for both of us if you pay me in total, and we can put this behind us,” she offered.
In response, Marianne reportedly told the teenager that she found it “disheartening” that she was growing up into another version of her mother and has “prayed that [she] would find a sliver of normality among [her] parents,” before adding that she will not be reaching out for babysitting again.
Despite this, her husband did end up transferring the full $150 to the teen.
Mae also clarified that her mother is Jewish, and the babysitting family is Catholic, and was not surprised at Marianne’s response, given that, she claimed, “they do not get along very well due to opposing political beliefs and religions.”
However, the real win, it seems, was that Mae got the last word in: “I do not feel comfortable coming back in your house anymore, considering the way you have treated me, talked about my parents, and attempted to use me and go back on your words,” she explained.
Many of the Redditors in the replies of her posts were supportive of this response — under the original post, hundreds of users expressed concern over the sexualization of the teen’s appearance, and wondered if it was a safe environment for the 15-year-old to be in.
“I highly doubt I will be recommending you to any of my friends who want to get into babysitting. Have a good week,” Mae concluded tersely.
