A young mother needed help with caring for her newborn when she returned to work.
She asked her 64-year-old mother to look after the baby, but she demanded payment and her daughter refused.
One Reddit user recounted the dilemma between her and her mother.
The woman explained that she had recently had a baby and needed help with caring for her newborn as she went back to work.
The first person she thought was perfect for the job was her mother, a 64-year-old woman who had been a homemaker since 1992.
However, her mother was not thrilled with the idea of working as a full-time nanny.
The grandmother reasoned that she was too old and had already raised her own children.
She also told her daughter that she should have considered staying at home if she wanted a child.
The elderly woman explained that she and her husband had agreed that she would stay home and take care of the children while he worked and provided for the family.
If they were able to do this, her daughter and her partner should find a way to create a “traditional” family.
While the 29-year-old woman considered these options, she explained that they had just experienced a pandemic that had taken a toll on their finances.
As well as the unstable economy, the woman spoke about her monthly income and accumulated debts.
She said: “I make $55,000 a year, but I have $39,000 in student loans and another $20,000 in other debts (credit cards, car loan, medical loan debt).
My partner makes about $36,000 a year and has $5,000 in credit card debt.”
Since the Reddit user was the main source of income in the family and had a lot of debt, she couldn’t afford not to go back to work.
In addition, the extended family lived in a small studio flat and planned to save up money to move to a larger place when the child was older.
Therefore, every cent mattered to the young mother.
However, the grandmother was not prepared to look after the child for free.
She demanded $20 per hour, including additional fees if the parents were late picking up the child, as well as a car seat, a pram and compensation for transporting the child back to her daughter’s house, as babysitting in her flat was not possible.
According to the young mother, her mother lived 15 minutes away and had only come to their home once in the five years she and her partner had lived there.
But the grandmother had personal reasons for not wanting to enter her daughter’s flat.
The daughter thought her mother’s demands were inappropriate, particularly because she would have to invest extra in a car seat and pram.
She made her position clear and wrote: ‘I want to save money to reduce our debts and I don’t want to pay her so much or invest in duplicate things because it will lead to more debt for me and my partner.’
What seemed like a simple solution to her problem eventually led to conflict between her and her mother.
After the mother put forward her conditions, it was cheaper and more practical for her and her partner to give the newborn to a nursery.
However, the original author of the post reached out to other Reddit users to ask if she was wrong to refuse to pay the mother to look after the baby.
‘She does nothing but watch TV and cook food,’ the post author added.
The Reddit user’s story was poorly received.
Other users were just as harsh as her mother, saying she shouldn’t have had children if she couldn’t afford to take care of them.
One comment noted that the woman should have discussed the arrangement with her mother during her pregnancy because she knew she would be returning to work.
Many people shared this opinion and thought the user was rude for saying that her mother does nothing but watch TV and cook.
Online users emphasised that the elderly woman is retired and has the right to refuse the offer as looking after children is a difficult job.
Commenters added that the older woman was right to remind them that she had already raised her children.
This meant that she could occasionally babysit out of kindness.
The whole story made readers think the user was demanding.
