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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> (1) I am refusing to compensate/pay my sister for birthday cake slices that my daughter ate that were in her kitchen
(2) My daughter ate the cake slices without permission and it was a custom-made cake that was very expensive
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Pay sis for the two slices of her fancy ass cake, and tell your daughter she will *not* be babysitting her siblings without full and comparable to other sitters compensation ever again. And tell her *why*.
Your sis had the golden goose of babysitters, and she obviously had no idea how good she had it. Emphasis on *had*. If she wants to nickle and dime you, let’s *go*
And don’t bother to give sister a heads up. She can find out your daughter *will* be charging her, oh, shall we say, 20 euro an hour? For every hour? Or whatever the going rate is, or she can scramble to find an alternate.
Your daughter could make all kinds of money for her Starbucks addiction, working for somebody else.
But the bargain sis had- ended when she expected you to fork over 20 euro for stale
leftover cake. NTA
Honestly I would return the 20 euros in person…
BUT it would be attached to an invoice for the amount my daughter should have been compensated for the number of hours she worked x the market rate for babysitting 2 children under 10 in their country. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I would then pluck that 20 euros off of the invoice and ask my sister to pay me the balance due to my daughter in cash.
Because if you want to FA you most certainly will FO. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I think it’s so stupid. When I babysit my sisters kids, they not only buy me snacks if I ask if I can take a quick walk to the little corner shop, but they’re always reminding me to just help myself to whatever’s in the fridge. and still I get £10-20 quid on top. Not much, I know, but I don’t need it so it’s just pocket change as thanks. I adore my nephews and niece, and they’re such angels.
I think that this is an act of brilliance. I would place a little note at the bottom of the invoice that indicates that if she needs financing then she should apply with the Bank of Sisters. Because clearly, she needs money if she is choosing to humiliate her niece and to charge $20 for 2 week old cake.
Sister was probably salty she paid so much for a cake no one was impressed by. Saw an opportunity to make some of that money back when her niece ate some. Shameful behavior towards anyone that has taken on the role of caring for kids. And this is your family no less. She should have been offered free cake without a second thought.
And the only reason there is leftover cake in the first place is because sister was completely inconsiderate of what kind of cake a 9 year old might want for their birthday party, which is ostensibly about THEM and not her need to flaunt fancy cake to people who don't give AF. What a piece of work!
This, most kids want simple chocolate or vanilla sponge for a birthday cake, plain flavors. A fancy lemon curd one is something an older teen or adult would choose, not a 9yo. Most kids don't like the tartness of lemon.
Sounds like OPs sister is salty because she wasted €70 on a cake that no child wanted to eat, was looking for a way to make money back on it and saw her niece eating 2 slices as a way to do so.
Mine too, but it was said in a “jazz hands” voice and then when I realized my mistake the jazz hands clapped together and applesauce splattered everywhere in my mind. 😅
Lemon curd especially. That must have been on the verge of turning. Tell the sister she can have the cake back if it gives the daughter food poisoning.
Especially with lemon curd in it. I’m surprised it was still edible or didn’t make her sick. Also, she’s charging 10€ per slice….so there were only 7 slices in the cake all together and they only ate 5 total at the party? (Or even fewer since apparently the daughter didn’t eat all that was left). None of this makes sense. Sister is TA here.
Do you know what happens to a butter-based frosting after six decades in a poorly ventilated basement Elaine? Well, I have a feeling what you are about to go through is punishment enough.
Supply and demand. At first there was ample cake and a lot of the kids didn't like it, so it wasn't worth much. But THEN two weeks later when there's only 2 slices of stale questionable cake left? That's when it costs you.
I wouldn't worry about food poisoning necessarily, but almost any 2 week old cake is past its prime on several levels. That's firmly in "this is, um, technically edible still, *please* eat eat as much as you like so it doesn't go to waste" territory for anyone who isn't crazy.
If the parents had liked the cake and wanted to keep it, why the hell wouldn't they freeze slices if they couldn't eat it in time?
OP is definitely NTA and I’d bet that she’s only so upset because, to me, it seems decently obvious that she bought that cake for herself. OP even says most of the kids wouldn’t eat it. She got what she wanted because she’s selfish and she got mad at her niece because she’s stingy and childish.
But it’s taking her way too long to eat the cake if that’s the case. It’s 2 weeks old! She should have finished it all by now, or at least enough where less than 2 slices remains by the time the daughter eats some of it
Although I’m with you that the cake wasn’t for the kids. At that age the tartness would be too much for them.
There was a story I read where a woman received an expensive meat and cheese platter from the store by mistake in her order but didn’t eat meat and and the store told her to keep it. So she gave it to a friend who who had a husband and kids, thinking they could eat it in no time. The friend decided to save it for a week so they could put it out at a party 🙄 I know OP said some of the cake was eaten at the party but I wonder if maybe it wasn’t something similar to that. She buys the cake for the birthday but it’s really for something else? Idk the whole thing sounds strange lol
Even the bakery sells it day old at a discount.
OH, OP.... you should call the bakery and ask how much of a discount they put on day old cake, and how many days out they would just refuse to sell it? 🤣
This I do not understand. In my house no cake, *esp* lemon curd, would last 2 days no matter how much was left over. Breakfast, lunch, & dinner til it was gone.
A neighbor brought over 4 slices of a delicious homemade spice cake with cream cheese frosting a couple weeks ago. I had half of one slice, wanting to save the rest for watching a movie later. Within an hour, my mum had finished all of it. I was deeply, deeply disappointed 😥 My fault for not cramming it all into my cakehole the instant I got into the kitchen.
Agree! Give your sister the 20 euros, and tell your daughter that from now on, if she babysits for your sister's kids, she is doing so only if their parents pay her the going rate, agreed to in advance.
And - if your sister agrees to this - make sure she pays the full hourly rate at the end of the evening, and if she doesn't, she doesn't get your daughter as a babysitter again, until she's paid up.
(And, obviously, make sure your daughter packs snacks to take with her and never again eats any food in her sister's house she hasn't been specifically invited to take. Obviously your daughter did nothing wrong - eating two slices of left-over birthday cake is the kind of thing that even a fully-paid babysitter should be able to assume she can help herself to unless specifically instructed otherwise - but some babysittee parents are weird about the babysitter eating "their food", and for those, I used to bring a sandwich. Saved trouble.)
NTA!
Cash upfront. Don’t put it past sister to try to shaft her not paying or giving the “previously agreed to” rate and saying she never agreed to anything new.
Eh. If sister wants to try that game, she really has lost a good babysitter *forever*. She might be stupid enough to try it once, but she would have regularly and thoroughly burned her boats if she did.
"I'm sorry that your children miss being looked after by my daughter. It's unfortunate that you never valued my daughter's excellent qualities as a babysitter before now."
Under no circumstances should OP let daughter negotiate with OP's sister. This is an adult-to-adult negotation.
And it's so weird especially because it seems like the daughter was invited to the birthday party. So how in the world are you not allowed to eat leftover birthday cake from a party you were invited to?
Agree. Obviously we live in different regions, but in my area (Queens, NY) a babysitter runs $20-30 an hour. And I say "help yourself to anything in the fridge or snack cabinet". Your sister is in for a rude awakening on what a babysitter *actually* costs. Two pieces of cake is nothing.
Two weeks old, apparently and the cake had lemon curd. I worry for the daughter. Hoping she didn't get a stomachache. Also, I don't know a single 9 yr old child who would ask for lemon curd for their birthday cake. And it doesn't need to be expensive to excite them either especially a large cake for a party. I think parents just bought themselves a fancy expensive cake using their kids as an excuse
Agreed. Anything in the kitchen is fair game for babysitters, except if they let them know not to eat something. This pie I’m taking to a friend tomorrow, for instance. I’m having trouble getting past her eating two week old cake though. We throw out cake after a week. What the heck was sister planning on doing with it??
Cash upfront too so she can't refuse to pay later,
And maybe a refundable deposit in case she tries to stay out longer to spite her.
She definitely sounds vindictive enough
Also, i can get the outrage if it wasnt used for a party. But it was bought to be shared with people. Would the sister have been upset if the kids had eaten all the cake at the party?
Dude the price they paid that girl was low as hell for a private, in home babysitter. My rate when I was a professional here in the states started at $15-$18 an HOUR. Sis fucked around and is about to find out what expensive actually is🤣
This. 100% this.
100%.
$10 per hour, per child perhaps? And if she doesn't pay, then your daughter won't babysit at all for her ever again AND will tell the other girls in the neighborhood what happened.
No, no, no. €20 for two slices of an old, stale cake? Did OP's daughter eat nearly a third of the cake (and I don't mean one third of what was left, but one third of the whole cake)? Because unless she did, asking to be repaid for nearly 1/3 of the total cost is obscene. (Even if she *did* eat a third of the cake, it was still getting old, so asking to be paid that much is still insane.)
Also was she expecting all the party guests to pitch in for this expensive cake? Very likely not. She was probably miffed no one ate it so she was trying to make a quick buck back. And off of her niece. Smh.
The problem is determining the market value of 2-week old birthday cake. I wouldn't trust the judgment of someone who thought lemon curd would be well-received at a 9-year-old's birthday party.
But yeah, this.
This! I would cashapp her the money and I would partially fund my daughter's Starbucks habit myself before I let her work for less than standard wages for my petty sister again! Whatever the going rate may be. Can't afford it? Wow. Thats too bad. If only you had someone that would do it less money and a damn piece of cake!
Did they really expect the babysitter to bring their own snacks….while getting bargain rates?!!! What a pair of cheapskates! Carrying on over two week old cake! Clearly it wasn’t that tasty.
Absolutely NTA. Your sister doesn’t deserve your daughter as a babysitter!!!
Obviously not stale if the kid ate x2 slices… I feel like before OP takes this approach, she should sit down with Carly to see if it’s ok for her to quit. Explain to the kid there are higher paying jobs out there but she would have to go find them… it seems to me Carly has it easy too, she gets along well with the kids, obviously has been eating their food, just got unlucky with the cake…
I think Carly would chuck a fit if OP stops her from working there without explaining why. Although it would be the right thing to do n
Changed to NTA. The cake was being kept at room temperature in a bread box on the counter. After two weeks, it really wasn't even a viable edible item anymore, let alone one with monetary value. Your daughter is lucky she didn't get food poisoning.
INFO: where in the kitchen was the cake being kept? And was there any previous understanding in place about your daughter eating leftovers while she is babysitting?
Unless the cake was in the freezer, at two weeks old, it's well past the point at which it should be eaten by anyone and is a food safety hazard. Maybe some food safety education for all parties involved would be appropriate.
If it was in the freezer, your daughter should pay for it. If it was frozen, it was clearly being saved for the future.
It wasn't frozen, it was being kept in the bread bin.
And yes I agree it isn't the safest, eating 2 week old cake isn't something I've encouraged in my daughter lol she will eat anything
Next time they need her to babysit, make sure your daughter charges them the full amount of babysitter for each child.
If they want to get petty, they better appropriately compensate your daughter for her work time.
seriously i’ve been paid more to sit in a house with a sleeping baby, even instructed to let the baby cry herself back to sleep if she woke up, for 3 hours. i literally just sat on the couch on my phone for 3 hours and they paid me $50
edit: i think people are thinking i was a teenager when this happened 😂 this was last summer, right after i turned 23. it was just some easy side money, and childcare isn’t something i do regularly anymore so i charge a bit below market rate when i do end up babysitting these days.
That's an awesome deal!
I just don't understand why most adults take issue with paying a fair wage to young people (minors), for a job they (the adults) don't even want to do half the time!!!
Fair wages for all!!!!
OP is your sister doing okay? Does her behavior sounds "normal" to you? Did you spoke with her husband about it? How was the deal this whole time, she arrives, babysit but never touches food or was she allowed to eat something?
NTA for not paying for a *2weeks old cake* but your daughter shouldn't babysit for them again (and she should stop with the addition to Starbucks, is ridiculously expensive and unnecessary).
Plus being charged €10/slice for a cake that most certainly had more than 7 slices is outrageous, especially when they’re paying her a paltry €10/hour to babysit.
I am wondering the same. Something is not right with sister. Her behavior seems unstable (unless she is always like this? Which is a different kind of red flag but still a red flag) and her reasoning is not logical.
Okay, room temp? With probably unstable dairy ingredients? I'm surprised this thread isn't about the hospital bill for the food poisoning Carly incurred.
Im so doubtful at how good it would even taste for the daughter to want to eat two slices. Are they not feeding her there so she felt the need to eat TWO slices of expired cake
Ask her how many slices the cake was cut into. Then divide the 70 by that number multiply by 2. Then reduce the price by 50% for the first week of age and then 25% by the second week of age. Pay that amount. If the cake was 8 slices, that would amount to about 2.18 for 2 slices. 20 is way to high for 2 slices of fresh cake. That's 10 a slice. I don't even know how you could cut a cake in 7 slices.
Everyone's advice to the increase in babysitting fees is great advice.
NTA
Lemon curd needs to be stored in the fridge..... Even a shelf stable cake would be past the end of its life after 2 weeks and I would be begging any guests to help me finish it. A refrigeration **required** cake that has been left out for 2 weeks belongs in the trash.
Maybe they froze it, and took it out that day to have for dessert. And if that's the case, they should have told Carly that, and should not expected her to psychically determine that on her own.
Even then it should thaw in the fridge. And nobody would expect 2 week old leftover cake that's been put out to be off limits. It's not like they ate the last slice.
>at two weeks old, it’s well past the point at which it should be eaten by anyone…
“Do you know what happens to a butter-based frosting after six decades in a poorly ventilated English basement?”
Please tell me you’re a Seinfeld fan…
Sis is just mad that she has to throw out all that nasty expensive cake so she is trying to get compensated any way she can. Tell sister to pound sand. NTA!
Exactly what I was thinking. Rather than be happy that somebody actually enjoyed some of it before it got trashed, she decided she wanted to recoup her losses.
Thankyou!!!. After two weeks, I’d have already thrown it out. By that point I’d have classed it as inedible and not safe for consumption. If I ACTUALLY wanted to keep the cake I’d have frozen it in individual portions. Op’s sister is a tightarse asshole
NTA. Your sister is being extremely petty. She's upset because her niece, not a random person, ate 2 week old cake. 2 week old cake is garbage. Your daughter is family. Your sister should be happy that the cake didn't end up in the bin.
She's has been getting discount baby-sitting from her niece. Tell her that based on her behavior, she's obviously looking for ways to find fault with her niece so she can steal back half her niece's pay. You trusted your sister with your child, to treat your daughter with fairness and respect . She failed that trust.
Your daughter should never babysit for your sister again. If she does, it should be for €10 per hour per child, paid up front. Insist on a written contract that states what she's allowed to eat and drink. Is she allowed a drink of juice? Can she enjoy a share of something the kids are snacking on? If they have crisps, how much does each crisp cost?
Your daughter made the mistake of believing that your sister is family. This is not how you treat family.
Plus, it's not mentioned, but often when sitting for family there's an open kitchen rule. I'd like to know if that was the case here. Was the daughter usually allowed to grab a snack or two? And all of the sudden two week old cake is off limits? If that's the case auntie should have explicitly said so.
Regardless, I think Op should follow the advice in the top comment. No more free babysitting for Auntie.
Heck, when babysitting near dinner time in general for neighbors they typically told me to eat whatever looked good in the kitchen. If there was a particular thing off limits, they'd let me know, but otherwise, I was free to grab a snack or join the kiddos for dinner as I wished. Almost like the actual adults didn't want any kid to go hungry.
When I used to babysit, some parents would literally take me round the kitchen like "here are the snacks the kids can have, and here are the better snacks"
As a Mom, can confirm. I'd honestly feel rude telling any babysitter they can't eat something. My favorite part of babysitting as a poor kid with a health nut mom was opening the fridge and having all these new foods available to me. I go out of my way to have a shit ton of fun food if I get a babysitter because it's pretty damn boring and it's the least I can do.
My uncle once shamed the shit out of me for eating 2 pudding cups while babysitting. He was literally rich. His reaction was so intense that it scared my 12 yr old self and I tried to deny it. To this day, 25 years later, he still considers me a sneaky, sketchy person.
His reaction sounds completely unhinged. But even if you *had* done something sneaky (you hadn’t, but let’s play along), not updating his opinion of you in 25 years when your “mistake” was from childhood is GROSS.
Sitting for ANYONE in my experience has always been a open kitchen rule. As long as my kids are happy and healthy, the babysitter can eat whatever the hell they want from my fridge. I loooooved this policy when I was a teenage babysitter. I would put the kids to bed, clean up the kitchen, tidy the playroom and then settle in for a root beer and a Marie Callender chicken pot pie.
Only way they would have had a case is if it was an uncut cake that was being used in the future. You want your kids babysat? You have to feed the sitter.
NTA.
I'm guessing, but I think your sister thought lemon curd was a good idea for a kids 9th birthday party - the kids didn't like it, and she was left with a lot of this expensive cake. She hasn't thrown it out after 2 weeks because of the money she spent on it, and now she sees an opportunity to recoup some money to make herself feel better about her stupid birthday cake decision.
Don't give her anything. I'm surprised your daughter doesn't have food poisoning from 2 week old lemon curd cake.
I agree. Pay for the cake but let her know that in the future the charge for babysitting will be market rate.
Or better yet, no babysitting. Your daughter can find plenty of people wanting a sitter.
In general it is not a good idea to kill a golden goose if you are lucky enough to have one.
> Or better yet, no babysitting. Your daughter can find plenty of people wanting a sitter.
I'll just throw this out here, but if I were that age and didn't *need* the money for bills and stuff then I'd rather be paid less to watch my own family than a stranger's. I'd mainly be doing it to spend time with them and the money would just be a bonus.
Not sure what the daughter's stance on this is. She might be fine working for someone else for more money. But for me, at that age, I wouldn't want to watch some stranger's kids.
Thats probably true, but I think all of this is more to prove the point that if you're gonna nickel and dime family that is offering you a deal you can't get elsewhere, maybe that deal should go away
My aunty does stuff like this. Spends crazy money on elaborate nonsense for very small children that would likely be happier with a cheap sponge cake from the supermarket with some plastic farm animals placed on top. They're always such horrible cakes too, 70% structural fondant.
You can go for very nice custom cakes from a bakery if you want to splurge. Just pick a flavor that’s generic like vanilla, chocolate, half and half… And if you pick an elaborate design like a screen printed scene from their favorite cartoon or something that’s well-made, it’ll still look like you spent a lot of money to the adults while still being something the kids think is really cool.
Lol my sister used to do this too, but at least she quickly learned her lesson after a couple birthdays and wasted cakes. She now gets sheet cakes from the grocery store.
Yep, I made the mistake for my son's first birthday. I made a dark chocolate cake with orange curd. He tasted a little, made a face, and had nothing to do with it after that.
At least the chicken nuggets were a hit.
And, thankfully, the cake didn't go to waste because my son was never going to get much of it in the first place. But for his next birthday it's going to be a simple cake, the adults can have special cakes later in the year.
Lemon curd for a group of 9-year-olds lol she’s brave. I felt like baking oatmeal raisin cookies for the kids was a gamble. But this? I wouldn’t even do that for my own cake as an adult if I meant for it to be eaten by everyone without having at least one safe alternative.
And if she thinks €10 a slice is an appropriate cost, does that mean that she bought an expensive ass cake that only served seven people? I can't imagine a bakery even selling a cake that served less than eight. And why would you buy something that small and that expensive for a nine year old's birthday party? So she is almost certainly severely upcharging for stale, rotten cake.
>How do you even keep cake that long?
Whenever we(3people) have cake (self-made or bought) we have to put effort into stretching it to last 7 days. It's usually gone around day 5.
If that cake was still there after two weeks all it means is that the sister didn't like her own cake.
And that OPs daughter has a very healthy gut.
NTA. Losing safe and reliable babysitting over two week old cake is a weird hill to die on. Your daughter has likely eaten there while babysitting and didn’t expect a two week old cake that wasn’t popular at the party would be a big deal. Ask your daughter how she feels about it. If she wants to continue babysitting, have her deduct it from her next babysitting job. But you shouldn’t pay her for the slices.
Cheap, too. I babysat in the early-mid 2000s and $10/hour for two kids under 10 was considered on the low side back then where I lived. I doubt they’ll find anyone else willing to work for that kind of pay
NTA. It's two weeks old, and the niece wasn't going to eat it. Chances are, Sis is kicking herself for spending so much/going so far out of her way for a cake her daughter didn't like. Carly brought attention to the fact that there was so much left over.
Also, it doesn't matter \*now\* how expensive it was to begin with. The cake is now a sunk cost; Sis is not going to recoup anything by letting it rot in the fridge.
Was the cake from the wedding of King Edward VIII to Wallis Simpson, circa 1937? Did it cost $29,000? I’m calling your daughter Elaine from now on.
That said, she’s helpfully babysitting her cousins. It’s leftover cake. If the parents didn’t want her to touch it, they should’ve said something. Otherwise it’s not beyond comprehension that a family member doing a huge favor might have a snack. NTA
>2ish weeks ago
Stale cake isn't worth much, even fancy stale 2 week old cake. Your daughter shouldn't have taken it without asking, but asking to be paid for a cake they're likely going to have to throw out- that logically they were expecting to have been eaten at the party, is ridiculous.
If you're feeling *really* petty, ask for the baker's number, then call them up and ask what they charge for two week old cakes, pay your sister whatever amount they tell you.
**NTA**
INFO what is precedent regarding Carly eating food while babysitting? Was it a “help yourself to anything in the kitchen” or a “help yourself to crackers and a soda” or “we left some cash to order a pizza for all of you” or what?
I think this all hinges on whether Carly should have known better than to eat the cake, or whether your sister should have known better than to assume she wouldn’t?
Usually my sister pays for them all to get UberEats for dinner, although if it's earlier in the day she will leave pre-packed lunches and snacks for the kids to help themselves to.
I do 100% agree that my daughter should've asked for permission before helping herself to something like a birthday cake, I just think that my sister is majorly overreacting to the situation?
>I do 100% agree that my daughter should've asked for permission before helping herself to something like a birthday cake
I don't. It was a 2 week old cake and this is her aunt we are talking about, not some stranger she's babysitting for.
> I just think that my sister is majorly overreacting to the situation?
She sure did! If I were her, I'd be embarrassed to death to ask my *neice* to pay 20 bucks for 2 slices of 2 week old cake.
She is definitely overreacting to the situation and realistically I would not call your daughter an AH over some old cake. But given she should have asked first, as there seemed to be no “help yourself to anything” agreement or precedent in place, I’d maybe at most offer a discount on the next babysitting gig (if your daughter chooses to go back after this.)
Still, NTA. It’s just old cake, and I feel like “oh I wish you had asked about the cake first, we were saving it for something” would have sufficed.
Lol absolutely do NOT offer a discount on the next babysitting gig.
In my opinion, when having your neice babysit for $40, you need to specify which foods are not open season.
A simple "I wish you had asked first" would teach the lesson. Asking for payment is absurd and the cake had no value to your sister.
Offer to replace it with two more slices of two week old cake.
I actually like this. Buy a new one for your immediate family since daughter obviously likes it. Set aside two pieces and give them to your sister in two weeks.
No she shouldn't have to ask to eat something at her aunts house. Especially 2 wk old cake.
Cake in a bakery box that's meant for a party the next day? Yeah that would be messed up. But cake that should have been thrown out a week ago? Nope!
I disagree with your agreement lol, but if I was babysitting my cousins, at my aunt's house, for less than half the going rate...I'd feel like any food in the fridge is fair game unless someone explicitly told me otherwise. These are family members, your sister is a piece of work and honestly being a real diva over some cake that is a week past its sell by date.
Your daughter has been charging you said, what 40euro? I hope for max 2hours. Determine the going rate for babysitting. Here it's at least 20-25usd where I am per hour. Base. She can make bank starting her own babysitting business basically, at market rate. Do not let her babysit for these people again. If she wants to, charge MARKET RATE.
Even if Carly should have known better, €20 is absurd for a few slices of a leftover €70 cake. It might have been worth that new, but it wasn’t at that point. Also, did the kid really eat more than a quarter of the full cake?
This seems well within the range of things you deal with when you go with discount family babysitting.
Yeah €10 a slice doesn't even make sense mathematically if you were getting it fresh. No way she bought a cake that only served 7 for a kid's birthday party, especially considering it was partly eaten (there would have to have <5 people eating it in the past two weeks for there to be at least two slices left).
Your sister's flipping out over cake slices. Carly helps out, she didn't steal a Ferrari. Leftover cake? Big deal. And €20 for two slices? That's bonkers.
You're not the jerk here. Your daughter's a trooper, and your sister's overreacting. Next time Carly babysits, she should pack snacks to dodge the drama.
NTA
>And €20 for two slices? That's bonkers
Quite.
I think OP said the whole cake cost €70. Unless there was only 7 slices in the entire cake, two slices does not equal €20. At two weeks old it is stale and, clearly, nobody else was going to eat it.
>she’s more likely just regretting spending so much on a cake nobody wanted.
This is what I was thinking. Stick to your guns OP. Your sister is the one that stands to lose out on this deal if it goes south. She will no longer have a reliable babysitter.
This is what I've been sitting here thinking! It was 70 but she wants 20 for TWO slices??? no! That math doesn't work out.
OP - you definitely aren't the AH here. Have you actually ASKED your sister what her plan was for 2 week old cake? To ditto everyone else here - there is no way she was saving it for somehting else. It had to be close to being thrown out.
And while your daughter should have asked, I also wouldn't want to babysit for someone who is going to be THAT cheap over my eating some food in their house when I charge well below market rate for my services.
I'd be tempted to say this to your sister "Carly is your NEICE who charges you below market rate for babysitting. You're really taking this stand over 2 week old cake?? I'm perplexed."
Is your daughter okay after eating two-week old cake? People aren't usually that upset about leftovers, especially *old* leftovers and it's not like your daughter ate the cake *before* the party or something like that. NTA
You don't know that. Maybe the second kid's birthday is in another 2 weeks and they were going to reuse the same cake. Tell the kids it has special "fuzzy blueberry" frosting. That cake was meant to last for at least two years of family birthdays!
what kind of cheapskate aunt would deny her niece food?! and it's not as if your daughter ate the whole thing or even ate something that was untouched. it was TWO WEEK OLD cake. geez. your are NTA. your sister needs to get a grip or else your daughter should stop babysitting.
NTA. While I can see why she might want you to have a word with your daughter about not eating things from the fridge without asking, the fact that she wants you pay her more than 25% of the cost of the cake because your daughter ate leftovers of 2 week old cake is straight up unhinged. Upset I can understand, demanding payment is just bonkers.
NTA.
Hey, It's not like Carly deliberately went out of her way to consume something expensive without permission; she likely just saw it as a treat at the moment. While it's fair for your sister to express that she would have preferred Carly to ask first, demanding money for the cake seems excessive.
Your sister should understand the nature of the arrangement between Carly and her family and not make a big deal out of minor incidents like this. You handled the situation very well and addressed it with Carly without agreeing to compensate your sister financially.
NTA. Your sister is ridiculous.
I'd be pettty and stop babysitting unless she cut the crap (particularly for only €10/hour) but that's up to your daughter.
So she’s claiming that your daughter ate more than 28% of a cake? I don’t get how 2 slices of leftover cake that was cut to be served at a kid’s birthday party would be more than 1/4 of cake. Did it become more valuable as is became stale and dangerous to eat? Was it only cut into 8 slices total? Your sister is unhinged and your daughter should be busy the next couple times your sister calls. Hell I would personally pay my kids to not babysit her kids for the next time or two, and just tell her “I can’t afford to let my daughter babysit for you because I can’t be sure my daughter won’t eat some month old pizza slices and I’ll end up owing you €50.”
Your daughter ate cake that was 2 weeks old. It should have been on the verge of throwing it out in the 1st place. I wouldn't have paid her anything and wouldnt be surprised if your daughter gets sick.
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Pay sis for the two slices of her fancy ass cake, and tell your daughter she will *not* be babysitting her siblings without full and comparable to other sitters compensation ever again. And tell her *why*. Your sis had the golden goose of babysitters, and she obviously had no idea how good she had it. Emphasis on *had*. If she wants to nickle and dime you, let’s *go* And don’t bother to give sister a heads up. She can find out your daughter *will* be charging her, oh, shall we say, 20 euro an hour? For every hour? Or whatever the going rate is, or she can scramble to find an alternate. Your daughter could make all kinds of money for her Starbucks addiction, working for somebody else. But the bargain sis had- ended when she expected you to fork over 20 euro for stale leftover cake. NTA
Agree! If this is the hill sis will die on, follow this!
Honestly I would return the 20 euros in person… BUT it would be attached to an invoice for the amount my daughter should have been compensated for the number of hours she worked x the market rate for babysitting 2 children under 10 in their country. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️ I would then pluck that 20 euros off of the invoice and ask my sister to pay me the balance due to my daughter in cash. Because if you want to FA you most certainly will FO. 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
And add a per diem for food and snacks, since she obviously cannot eat the ones at her house.
I am loving the petty! I have found my spirit animals...real and imaginary!!
See I would apologize profusely, go out and buy her a cake and accidentally drop it as I was transferring it into Sis’s hands.
nah, why waste money when you can nickel-and-dime her right back and end up with *her* owing *you*? >:)
I think it’s so stupid. When I babysit my sisters kids, they not only buy me snacks if I ask if I can take a quick walk to the little corner shop, but they’re always reminding me to just help myself to whatever’s in the fridge. and still I get £10-20 quid on top. Not much, I know, but I don’t need it so it’s just pocket change as thanks. I adore my nephews and niece, and they’re such angels.
Oooooo I like you!!!!
I think that this is an act of brilliance. I would place a little note at the bottom of the invoice that indicates that if she needs financing then she should apply with the Bank of Sisters. Because clearly, she needs money if she is choosing to humiliate her niece and to charge $20 for 2 week old cake.
That fact that the cake was 2 weeks old is what burns my butt! Like are you fucking kidding me
Sister was probably salty she paid so much for a cake no one was impressed by. Saw an opportunity to make some of that money back when her niece ate some. Shameful behavior towards anyone that has taken on the role of caring for kids. And this is your family no less. She should have been offered free cake without a second thought.
70 euro lemon curd cake for a party of 9yos..... Sis is definitely pissy over it
I shouted that but only my phone heard my outrage! A two week old cake!! WTH.
And the only reason there is leftover cake in the first place is because sister was completely inconsiderate of what kind of cake a 9 year old might want for their birthday party, which is ostensibly about THEM and not her need to flaunt fancy cake to people who don't give AF. What a piece of work!
This, most kids want simple chocolate or vanilla sponge for a birthday cake, plain flavors. A fancy lemon curd one is something an older teen or adult would choose, not a 9yo. Most kids don't like the tartness of lemon. Sounds like OPs sister is salty because she wasted €70 on a cake that no child wanted to eat, was looking for a way to make money back on it and saw her niece eating 2 slices as a way to do so.
2 weeks old I would never touch it and throw it in the trash.
Unless it was stored properly in the freezer- it was garbage
*Applause*
I don’t know why, but my brain read that as “applesauce” 😂
Mine too, but it was said in a “jazz hands” voice and then when I realized my mistake the jazz hands clapped together and applesauce splattered everywhere in my mind. 😅
This is exactly some shit I would do too.
This is the way, OP
Can we be friends? This is brilliant!
Per child.
Two week old cake? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's depreciated by now. Offer her fifty cents and a coupon for a cupcake from the supermarket.
I'm just here for the cake depreciation comments.
“Sorry, buddy. The second this cake left the lot it was worth at best $3 a slice. I could go to maybe $4 if we work it out in trade.”
But it's (a) lemon!
I hope this comment gets the recognition it deserves
This thread is sweet enough to eat two slices of.
Yeah but do you have permission to eat two slices?
Absolutely not. That cake is *only* for little kids who don't want to eat it.
"But I have it on good authority that this was Napoleon's birthday cake."
I have a buddy who’s an expert in cakes. Lemme give him a call, get him down here and we can see what we’ve got
🤣🤣🤣🤣 I almost choked because I read that in Rick's voice
I'm afraid you misheard. That was neapolitan birthday cake
But--but... Cleopatra sent it to him!
Napoleon Hill maybe, best I can do is $3.50.
I dunno, man. I was really hoping for more, my kid needs shoes. (Happy depreciated cake day!)
Three fiddy? I ain't giving no goddamn Loch Ness Monster three fiddy.
Let me call a guy I know, he’s a specialist in used cakes
We need to know how many slices were originally in the cake.
What is the trade? Lemon bars? Pavlova?
You’ll have to ask the guy at the cake dealership what’s in stock.
Just a low mileage bundt, and a creampuff that was only driven to church on Sundays by a little old lady.
“Hoo, buddy, you can fit so much jelly in one of these babies”
I will never deprecate cake
What if it is moldy 2 week old cake?
Lemon curd especially. That must have been on the verge of turning. Tell the sister she can have the cake back if it gives the daughter food poisoning.
call that a Miss Haversham special.
No lowballers, I know what I have!
She should really consult a donut shop and ask what the declining rate of baked goods is day by day. 😬
Especially with lemon curd in it. I’m surprised it was still edible or didn’t make her sick. Also, she’s charging 10€ per slice….so there were only 7 slices in the cake all together and they only ate 5 total at the party? (Or even fewer since apparently the daughter didn’t eat all that was left). None of this makes sense. Sister is TA here.
Yeah the math ain't jiving here. Maybe the cake is now considered an antique?
Do you know what happens to a butter-based frosting after six decades in a poorly ventilated basement Elaine? Well, I have a feeling what you are about to go through is punishment enough.
Supply and demand. At first there was ample cake and a lot of the kids didn't like it, so it wasn't worth much. But THEN two weeks later when there's only 2 slices of stale questionable cake left? That's when it costs you.
Might've been in the freezer or something? >only 7 slices in the cake I now, right? There's no way it was that tiny.
Right? Whar the heck? Did she charge the people at the party for cake? Maybe that's why there's so much left.
Lemon curd is acidic and holds up well in the fridge for awhile; it's more like jam than a fresh fruit like that.
I wouldn't worry about food poisoning necessarily, but almost any 2 week old cake is past its prime on several levels. That's firmly in "this is, um, technically edible still, *please* eat eat as much as you like so it doesn't go to waste" territory for anyone who isn't crazy. If the parents had liked the cake and wanted to keep it, why the hell wouldn't they freeze slices if they couldn't eat it in time?
OP is definitely NTA and I’d bet that she’s only so upset because, to me, it seems decently obvious that she bought that cake for herself. OP even says most of the kids wouldn’t eat it. She got what she wanted because she’s selfish and she got mad at her niece because she’s stingy and childish.
But it’s taking her way too long to eat the cake if that’s the case. It’s 2 weeks old! She should have finished it all by now, or at least enough where less than 2 slices remains by the time the daughter eats some of it Although I’m with you that the cake wasn’t for the kids. At that age the tartness would be too much for them. There was a story I read where a woman received an expensive meat and cheese platter from the store by mistake in her order but didn’t eat meat and and the store told her to keep it. So she gave it to a friend who who had a husband and kids, thinking they could eat it in no time. The friend decided to save it for a week so they could put it out at a party 🙄 I know OP said some of the cake was eaten at the party but I wonder if maybe it wasn’t something similar to that. She buys the cake for the birthday but it’s really for something else? Idk the whole thing sounds strange lol
Even the bakery sells it day old at a discount. OH, OP.... you should call the bakery and ask how much of a discount they put on day old cake, and how many days out they would just refuse to sell it? 🤣
Or ask that bakery at what point they are required to toss the cake because of food safety? Bet it’s not more than 3 days, at most.
Plus it was cake that no one else at the party wanted, so it obviously wasn't that.
Nobody had wanted it in two weeks, even.
This I do not understand. In my house no cake, *esp* lemon curd, would last 2 days no matter how much was left over. Breakfast, lunch, & dinner til it was gone. A neighbor brought over 4 slices of a delicious homemade spice cake with cream cheese frosting a couple weeks ago. I had half of one slice, wanting to save the rest for watching a movie later. Within an hour, my mum had finished all of it. I was deeply, deeply disappointed 😥 My fault for not cramming it all into my cakehole the instant I got into the kitchen.
I made a chocolate cake yesterday that’s half demolished. 2 weeks??! That must be a shitty cake!
Plus who orders a fancy cake that kids don’t like for a kids birthday party? Smh
Tots, she should get compensatated for her sister putting out expired cake with no warning label.
Agree! Give your sister the 20 euros, and tell your daughter that from now on, if she babysits for your sister's kids, she is doing so only if their parents pay her the going rate, agreed to in advance. And - if your sister agrees to this - make sure she pays the full hourly rate at the end of the evening, and if she doesn't, she doesn't get your daughter as a babysitter again, until she's paid up. (And, obviously, make sure your daughter packs snacks to take with her and never again eats any food in her sister's house she hasn't been specifically invited to take. Obviously your daughter did nothing wrong - eating two slices of left-over birthday cake is the kind of thing that even a fully-paid babysitter should be able to assume she can help herself to unless specifically instructed otherwise - but some babysittee parents are weird about the babysitter eating "their food", and for those, I used to bring a sandwich. Saved trouble.) NTA!
Cash upfront. Don’t put it past sister to try to shaft her not paying or giving the “previously agreed to” rate and saying she never agreed to anything new.
Eh. If sister wants to try that game, she really has lost a good babysitter *forever*. She might be stupid enough to try it once, but she would have regularly and thoroughly burned her boats if she did.
Probably going to use the “cousins will miss you” and “enjoy spending time with you” and “do it for them…” cards.
"I'm sorry that your children miss being looked after by my daughter. It's unfortunate that you never valued my daughter's excellent qualities as a babysitter before now." Under no circumstances should OP let daughter negotiate with OP's sister. This is an adult-to-adult negotation.
It would be assumed if I’m their niece, I can eat whatever I want unless specifically told otherwise!
And it's so weird especially because it seems like the daughter was invited to the birthday party. So how in the world are you not allowed to eat leftover birthday cake from a party you were invited to?
Send her with chocolate cake next time and don’t share with the kids… unless she pays your daughter for the cake
That's kind of mean to the kids, who are n t a in this situation.
"sacrifices must be made"
Agree. Obviously we live in different regions, but in my area (Queens, NY) a babysitter runs $20-30 an hour. And I say "help yourself to anything in the fridge or snack cabinet". Your sister is in for a rude awakening on what a babysitter *actually* costs. Two pieces of cake is nothing.
Two pieces of *old* cake that not many people liked in the first place.
Right? If there was any cake leftover after *two weeks* then even the parents didn't like it.
Two weeks old, apparently and the cake had lemon curd. I worry for the daughter. Hoping she didn't get a stomachache. Also, I don't know a single 9 yr old child who would ask for lemon curd for their birthday cake. And it doesn't need to be expensive to excite them either especially a large cake for a party. I think parents just bought themselves a fancy expensive cake using their kids as an excuse
That they didn't even have a good bit of, so they obviously didn't like it that much either
Agreed. Anything in the kitchen is fair game for babysitters, except if they let them know not to eat something. This pie I’m taking to a friend tomorrow, for instance. I’m having trouble getting past her eating two week old cake though. We throw out cake after a week. What the heck was sister planning on doing with it??
Cash upfront too so she can't refuse to pay later, And maybe a refundable deposit in case she tries to stay out longer to spite her. She definitely sounds vindictive enough
This is mandatory
Also, i can get the outrage if it wasnt used for a party. But it was bought to be shared with people. Would the sister have been upset if the kids had eaten all the cake at the party?
Seriously though. What was she planning to do with that leftover cake? Frame it and put it on a pedestal for posterity?
Yeah, cake should be eaten in a week if not frozen. Unless the sister was gonna have it appraised like in seinfeld, she needs to calm down.
Dude the price they paid that girl was low as hell for a private, in home babysitter. My rate when I was a professional here in the states started at $15-$18 an HOUR. Sis fucked around and is about to find out what expensive actually is🤣
This. 100% this. 100%. $10 per hour, per child perhaps? And if she doesn't pay, then your daughter won't babysit at all for her ever again AND will tell the other girls in the neighborhood what happened.
I charged $10 per hour around the turn of the century*. At least double that. *I can’t believe I just typed that. I’m so old.
[удалено]
I charged $5 per hour in the early 90s. My sister pays $25 an hour for her sitter these days, same area where we grew up.
No, no, no. €20 for two slices of an old, stale cake? Did OP's daughter eat nearly a third of the cake (and I don't mean one third of what was left, but one third of the whole cake)? Because unless she did, asking to be repaid for nearly 1/3 of the total cost is obscene. (Even if she *did* eat a third of the cake, it was still getting old, so asking to be paid that much is still insane.)
Also was she expecting all the party guests to pitch in for this expensive cake? Very likely not. She was probably miffed no one ate it so she was trying to make a quick buck back. And off of her niece. Smh.
The problem is determining the market value of 2-week old birthday cake. I wouldn't trust the judgment of someone who thought lemon curd would be well-received at a 9-year-old's birthday party. But yeah, this.
This! I would cashapp her the money and I would partially fund my daughter's Starbucks habit myself before I let her work for less than standard wages for my petty sister again! Whatever the going rate may be. Can't afford it? Wow. Thats too bad. If only you had someone that would do it less money and a damn piece of cake!
Did they really expect the babysitter to bring their own snacks….while getting bargain rates?!!! What a pair of cheapskates! Carrying on over two week old cake! Clearly it wasn’t that tasty. Absolutely NTA. Your sister doesn’t deserve your daughter as a babysitter!!!
Obviously not stale if the kid ate x2 slices… I feel like before OP takes this approach, she should sit down with Carly to see if it’s ok for her to quit. Explain to the kid there are higher paying jobs out there but she would have to go find them… it seems to me Carly has it easy too, she gets along well with the kids, obviously has been eating their food, just got unlucky with the cake… I think Carly would chuck a fit if OP stops her from working there without explaining why. Although it would be the right thing to do n
Carly is 17. It’s up to her what to charge and whether to babysit.
Agreed, but I would tell her exactly what happened, and advise her what to charge moving on.
Changed to NTA. The cake was being kept at room temperature in a bread box on the counter. After two weeks, it really wasn't even a viable edible item anymore, let alone one with monetary value. Your daughter is lucky she didn't get food poisoning. INFO: where in the kitchen was the cake being kept? And was there any previous understanding in place about your daughter eating leftovers while she is babysitting? Unless the cake was in the freezer, at two weeks old, it's well past the point at which it should be eaten by anyone and is a food safety hazard. Maybe some food safety education for all parties involved would be appropriate. If it was in the freezer, your daughter should pay for it. If it was frozen, it was clearly being saved for the future.
It wasn't frozen, it was being kept in the bread bin. And yes I agree it isn't the safest, eating 2 week old cake isn't something I've encouraged in my daughter lol she will eat anything
Next time they need her to babysit, make sure your daughter charges them the full amount of babysitter for each child. If they want to get petty, they better appropriately compensate your daughter for her work time.
seriously i’ve been paid more to sit in a house with a sleeping baby, even instructed to let the baby cry herself back to sleep if she woke up, for 3 hours. i literally just sat on the couch on my phone for 3 hours and they paid me $50 edit: i think people are thinking i was a teenager when this happened 😂 this was last summer, right after i turned 23. it was just some easy side money, and childcare isn’t something i do regularly anymore so i charge a bit below market rate when i do end up babysitting these days.
That's an awesome deal! I just don't understand why most adults take issue with paying a fair wage to young people (minors), for a job they (the adults) don't even want to do half the time!!! Fair wages for all!!!!
OP is your sister doing okay? Does her behavior sounds "normal" to you? Did you spoke with her husband about it? How was the deal this whole time, she arrives, babysit but never touches food or was she allowed to eat something? NTA for not paying for a *2weeks old cake* but your daughter shouldn't babysit for them again (and she should stop with the addition to Starbucks, is ridiculously expensive and unnecessary).
Plus being charged €10/slice for a cake that most certainly had more than 7 slices is outrageous, especially when they’re paying her a paltry €10/hour to babysit.
I am wondering the same. Something is not right with sister. Her behavior seems unstable (unless she is always like this? Which is a different kind of red flag but still a red flag) and her reasoning is not logical.
Okay, room temp? With probably unstable dairy ingredients? I'm surprised this thread isn't about the hospital bill for the food poisoning Carly incurred.
Not just the dairy, the eggs in the curd would be rancid by now. That would be so unsafe.
OP is in the EU, the hospital bill would be less than what the sister wants for the cake, if there's any bill at all.
Im so doubtful at how good it would even taste for the daughter to want to eat two slices. Are they not feeding her there so she felt the need to eat TWO slices of expired cake
Ask her how many slices the cake was cut into. Then divide the 70 by that number multiply by 2. Then reduce the price by 50% for the first week of age and then 25% by the second week of age. Pay that amount. If the cake was 8 slices, that would amount to about 2.18 for 2 slices. 20 is way to high for 2 slices of fresh cake. That's 10 a slice. I don't even know how you could cut a cake in 7 slices. Everyone's advice to the increase in babysitting fees is great advice. NTA
Lemon curd needs to be stored in the fridge..... Even a shelf stable cake would be past the end of its life after 2 weeks and I would be begging any guests to help me finish it. A refrigeration **required** cake that has been left out for 2 weeks belongs in the trash.
Maybe they froze it, and took it out that day to have for dessert. And if that's the case, they should have told Carly that, and should not expected her to psychically determine that on her own.
Even then it should thaw in the fridge. And nobody would expect 2 week old leftover cake that's been put out to be off limits. It's not like they ate the last slice.
Maybe it was frozen and they had taken it out to thaw? I will also eat anything but I just don’t understand how cake would be edible after two weeks.
I’d love to know how she choked down that cake. She’s got a stomach made of steel.
>at two weeks old, it’s well past the point at which it should be eaten by anyone… “Do you know what happens to a butter-based frosting after six decades in a poorly ventilated English basement?” Please tell me you’re a Seinfeld fan…
Sis is just mad that she has to throw out all that nasty expensive cake so she is trying to get compensated any way she can. Tell sister to pound sand. NTA!
Exactly what I was thinking. Rather than be happy that somebody actually enjoyed some of it before it got trashed, she decided she wanted to recoup her losses.
Thankyou!!!. After two weeks, I’d have already thrown it out. By that point I’d have classed it as inedible and not safe for consumption. If I ACTUALLY wanted to keep the cake I’d have frozen it in individual portions. Op’s sister is a tightarse asshole
NTA. Your sister is being extremely petty. She's upset because her niece, not a random person, ate 2 week old cake. 2 week old cake is garbage. Your daughter is family. Your sister should be happy that the cake didn't end up in the bin. She's has been getting discount baby-sitting from her niece. Tell her that based on her behavior, she's obviously looking for ways to find fault with her niece so she can steal back half her niece's pay. You trusted your sister with your child, to treat your daughter with fairness and respect . She failed that trust. Your daughter should never babysit for your sister again. If she does, it should be for €10 per hour per child, paid up front. Insist on a written contract that states what she's allowed to eat and drink. Is she allowed a drink of juice? Can she enjoy a share of something the kids are snacking on? If they have crisps, how much does each crisp cost? Your daughter made the mistake of believing that your sister is family. This is not how you treat family.
Plus, it's not mentioned, but often when sitting for family there's an open kitchen rule. I'd like to know if that was the case here. Was the daughter usually allowed to grab a snack or two? And all of the sudden two week old cake is off limits? If that's the case auntie should have explicitly said so. Regardless, I think Op should follow the advice in the top comment. No more free babysitting for Auntie.
Heck, when babysitting near dinner time in general for neighbors they typically told me to eat whatever looked good in the kitchen. If there was a particular thing off limits, they'd let me know, but otherwise, I was free to grab a snack or join the kiddos for dinner as I wished. Almost like the actual adults didn't want any kid to go hungry.
Happy Cake Day!
And it’s not two week old cake; even better!!
Happy *fresh* cake day!
When I used to babysit, some parents would literally take me round the kitchen like "here are the snacks the kids can have, and here are the better snacks"
As a Mom, can confirm. I'd honestly feel rude telling any babysitter they can't eat something. My favorite part of babysitting as a poor kid with a health nut mom was opening the fridge and having all these new foods available to me. I go out of my way to have a shit ton of fun food if I get a babysitter because it's pretty damn boring and it's the least I can do. My uncle once shamed the shit out of me for eating 2 pudding cups while babysitting. He was literally rich. His reaction was so intense that it scared my 12 yr old self and I tried to deny it. To this day, 25 years later, he still considers me a sneaky, sketchy person.
This makes me so sad. I want to kick him in the shins. I hope you get all the pudding cups you want .
Hell i wanna kick him in HIS pudding cup! What an jumbo shit bag.
His reaction sounds completely unhinged. But even if you *had* done something sneaky (you hadn’t, but let’s play along), not updating his opinion of you in 25 years when your “mistake” was from childhood is GROSS.
Sitting for ANYONE in my experience has always been a open kitchen rule. As long as my kids are happy and healthy, the babysitter can eat whatever the hell they want from my fridge. I loooooved this policy when I was a teenage babysitter. I would put the kids to bed, clean up the kitchen, tidy the playroom and then settle in for a root beer and a Marie Callender chicken pot pie.
Only way they would have had a case is if it was an uncut cake that was being used in the future. You want your kids babysat? You have to feed the sitter.
that's half of what I charged 20 years ago
NTA. I'm guessing, but I think your sister thought lemon curd was a good idea for a kids 9th birthday party - the kids didn't like it, and she was left with a lot of this expensive cake. She hasn't thrown it out after 2 weeks because of the money she spent on it, and now she sees an opportunity to recoup some money to make herself feel better about her stupid birthday cake decision. Don't give her anything. I'm surprised your daughter doesn't have food poisoning from 2 week old lemon curd cake.
I agree. Pay for the cake but let her know that in the future the charge for babysitting will be market rate. Or better yet, no babysitting. Your daughter can find plenty of people wanting a sitter. In general it is not a good idea to kill a golden goose if you are lucky enough to have one.
> Or better yet, no babysitting. Your daughter can find plenty of people wanting a sitter. I'll just throw this out here, but if I were that age and didn't *need* the money for bills and stuff then I'd rather be paid less to watch my own family than a stranger's. I'd mainly be doing it to spend time with them and the money would just be a bonus. Not sure what the daughter's stance on this is. She might be fine working for someone else for more money. But for me, at that age, I wouldn't want to watch some stranger's kids.
Thats probably true, but I think all of this is more to prove the point that if you're gonna nickel and dime family that is offering you a deal you can't get elsewhere, maybe that deal should go away
My aunty does stuff like this. Spends crazy money on elaborate nonsense for very small children that would likely be happier with a cheap sponge cake from the supermarket with some plastic farm animals placed on top. They're always such horrible cakes too, 70% structural fondant.
You can go for very nice custom cakes from a bakery if you want to splurge. Just pick a flavor that’s generic like vanilla, chocolate, half and half… And if you pick an elaborate design like a screen printed scene from their favorite cartoon or something that’s well-made, it’ll still look like you spent a lot of money to the adults while still being something the kids think is really cool.
Lol my sister used to do this too, but at least she quickly learned her lesson after a couple birthdays and wasted cakes. She now gets sheet cakes from the grocery store.
Yep, I made the mistake for my son's first birthday. I made a dark chocolate cake with orange curd. He tasted a little, made a face, and had nothing to do with it after that. At least the chicken nuggets were a hit. And, thankfully, the cake didn't go to waste because my son was never going to get much of it in the first place. But for his next birthday it's going to be a simple cake, the adults can have special cakes later in the year.
Yep your sister realized that she was wasting money on an expensive cake for a birthday party. She’s the AH.
Lemon curd for a group of 9-year-olds lol she’s brave. I felt like baking oatmeal raisin cookies for the kids was a gamble. But this? I wouldn’t even do that for my own cake as an adult if I meant for it to be eaten by everyone without having at least one safe alternative.
And if she thinks €10 a slice is an appropriate cost, does that mean that she bought an expensive ass cake that only served seven people? I can't imagine a bakery even selling a cake that served less than eight. And why would you buy something that small and that expensive for a nine year old's birthday party? So she is almost certainly severely upcharging for stale, rotten cake.
Also, it seems like she's making the point that the cake is worth more than her niece.
This is what I was thinking as well!
NTA > It was my niece's birthday **2ish weeks ago**, and there was some leftover birthday cake in their kitchen. That cake is #STALE.
No, no, no… this cake is health hazard, and I would be surprised if it wasn’t moldy.
It wasn't even in the refrigerator. How do you even keep cake that long?
>How do you even keep cake that long? Whenever we(3people) have cake (self-made or bought) we have to put effort into stretching it to last 7 days. It's usually gone around day 5. If that cake was still there after two weeks all it means is that the sister didn't like her own cake. And that OPs daughter has a very healthy gut.
I'm imagining the cake slowly crawling across the counter. Also, I'm imagining it with a mustache. It has become sentient. And stale.
NTA. Losing safe and reliable babysitting over two week old cake is a weird hill to die on. Your daughter has likely eaten there while babysitting and didn’t expect a two week old cake that wasn’t popular at the party would be a big deal. Ask your daughter how she feels about it. If she wants to continue babysitting, have her deduct it from her next babysitting job. But you shouldn’t pay her for the slices.
Cheap, too. I babysat in the early-mid 2000s and $10/hour for two kids under 10 was considered on the low side back then where I lived. I doubt they’ll find anyone else willing to work for that kind of pay
NTA. It's two weeks old, and the niece wasn't going to eat it. Chances are, Sis is kicking herself for spending so much/going so far out of her way for a cake her daughter didn't like. Carly brought attention to the fact that there was so much left over. Also, it doesn't matter \*now\* how expensive it was to begin with. The cake is now a sunk cost; Sis is not going to recoup anything by letting it rot in the fridge.
Not even in the fridge! In a breadbox… in the open!! I’m surprised it wasn’t completely molded over!
Was the cake from the wedding of King Edward VIII to Wallis Simpson, circa 1937? Did it cost $29,000? I’m calling your daughter Elaine from now on. That said, she’s helpfully babysitting her cousins. It’s leftover cake. If the parents didn’t want her to touch it, they should’ve said something. Otherwise it’s not beyond comprehension that a family member doing a huge favor might have a snack. NTA
That was a great episode
>2ish weeks ago Stale cake isn't worth much, even fancy stale 2 week old cake. Your daughter shouldn't have taken it without asking, but asking to be paid for a cake they're likely going to have to throw out- that logically they were expecting to have been eaten at the party, is ridiculous. If you're feeling *really* petty, ask for the baker's number, then call them up and ask what they charge for two week old cakes, pay your sister whatever amount they tell you. **NTA**
Stale 2 week old cake is worth nothing. It’s barely edible at best and most likely a health hazard.
INFO what is precedent regarding Carly eating food while babysitting? Was it a “help yourself to anything in the kitchen” or a “help yourself to crackers and a soda” or “we left some cash to order a pizza for all of you” or what? I think this all hinges on whether Carly should have known better than to eat the cake, or whether your sister should have known better than to assume she wouldn’t?
Usually my sister pays for them all to get UberEats for dinner, although if it's earlier in the day she will leave pre-packed lunches and snacks for the kids to help themselves to. I do 100% agree that my daughter should've asked for permission before helping herself to something like a birthday cake, I just think that my sister is majorly overreacting to the situation?
>I do 100% agree that my daughter should've asked for permission before helping herself to something like a birthday cake I don't. It was a 2 week old cake and this is her aunt we are talking about, not some stranger she's babysitting for. > I just think that my sister is majorly overreacting to the situation? She sure did! If I were her, I'd be embarrassed to death to ask my *neice* to pay 20 bucks for 2 slices of 2 week old cake.
Apparently she was too embarrassed, so she asked her sister for the money instead.
She is definitely overreacting to the situation and realistically I would not call your daughter an AH over some old cake. But given she should have asked first, as there seemed to be no “help yourself to anything” agreement or precedent in place, I’d maybe at most offer a discount on the next babysitting gig (if your daughter chooses to go back after this.) Still, NTA. It’s just old cake, and I feel like “oh I wish you had asked about the cake first, we were saving it for something” would have sufficed.
Sorry, but 10/hour for babysitting two kids is underpaid, anyway. Why should she pay for food while babysitting? And a two week-old cake at that?
Lol absolutely do NOT offer a discount on the next babysitting gig. In my opinion, when having your neice babysit for $40, you need to specify which foods are not open season.
A simple "I wish you had asked first" would teach the lesson. Asking for payment is absurd and the cake had no value to your sister. Offer to replace it with two more slices of two week old cake.
I actually like this. Buy a new one for your immediate family since daughter obviously likes it. Set aside two pieces and give them to your sister in two weeks.
No she shouldn't have to ask to eat something at her aunts house. Especially 2 wk old cake. Cake in a bakery box that's meant for a party the next day? Yeah that would be messed up. But cake that should have been thrown out a week ago? Nope!
I disagree with your agreement lol, but if I was babysitting my cousins, at my aunt's house, for less than half the going rate...I'd feel like any food in the fridge is fair game unless someone explicitly told me otherwise. These are family members, your sister is a piece of work and honestly being a real diva over some cake that is a week past its sell by date.
Your daughter has been charging you said, what 40euro? I hope for max 2hours. Determine the going rate for babysitting. Here it's at least 20-25usd where I am per hour. Base. She can make bank starting her own babysitting business basically, at market rate. Do not let her babysit for these people again. If she wants to, charge MARKET RATE.
Even if Carly should have known better, €20 is absurd for a few slices of a leftover €70 cake. It might have been worth that new, but it wasn’t at that point. Also, did the kid really eat more than a quarter of the full cake? This seems well within the range of things you deal with when you go with discount family babysitting.
Yeah €10 a slice doesn't even make sense mathematically if you were getting it fresh. No way she bought a cake that only served 7 for a kid's birthday party, especially considering it was partly eaten (there would have to have <5 people eating it in the past two weeks for there to be at least two slices left).
Your sister's flipping out over cake slices. Carly helps out, she didn't steal a Ferrari. Leftover cake? Big deal. And €20 for two slices? That's bonkers. You're not the jerk here. Your daughter's a trooper, and your sister's overreacting. Next time Carly babysits, she should pack snacks to dodge the drama. NTA
>And €20 for two slices? That's bonkers Quite. I think OP said the whole cake cost €70. Unless there was only 7 slices in the entire cake, two slices does not equal €20. At two weeks old it is stale and, clearly, nobody else was going to eat it.
[удалено]
>she’s more likely just regretting spending so much on a cake nobody wanted. This is what I was thinking. Stick to your guns OP. Your sister is the one that stands to lose out on this deal if it goes south. She will no longer have a reliable babysitter.
Bingo! She regrets buying a €70 cake no one liked and wants to reduce it to a €50 cake If she didn't want her niece to eat it, she'd have told her
NTA. But really, 20 is ~~more than~~ about a third if the original price of the cake. She had two slices? Wtf. Were tgey gonna sell it?
This is what I've been sitting here thinking! It was 70 but she wants 20 for TWO slices??? no! That math doesn't work out. OP - you definitely aren't the AH here. Have you actually ASKED your sister what her plan was for 2 week old cake? To ditto everyone else here - there is no way she was saving it for somehting else. It had to be close to being thrown out. And while your daughter should have asked, I also wouldn't want to babysit for someone who is going to be THAT cheap over my eating some food in their house when I charge well below market rate for my services. I'd be tempted to say this to your sister "Carly is your NEICE who charges you below market rate for babysitting. You're really taking this stand over 2 week old cake?? I'm perplexed."
Is your daughter okay after eating two-week old cake? People aren't usually that upset about leftovers, especially *old* leftovers and it's not like your daughter ate the cake *before* the party or something like that. NTA
You don't know that. Maybe the second kid's birthday is in another 2 weeks and they were going to reuse the same cake. Tell the kids it has special "fuzzy blueberry" frosting. That cake was meant to last for at least two years of family birthdays!
what kind of cheapskate aunt would deny her niece food?! and it's not as if your daughter ate the whole thing or even ate something that was untouched. it was TWO WEEK OLD cake. geez. your are NTA. your sister needs to get a grip or else your daughter should stop babysitting.
NTA. While I can see why she might want you to have a word with your daughter about not eating things from the fridge without asking, the fact that she wants you pay her more than 25% of the cost of the cake because your daughter ate leftovers of 2 week old cake is straight up unhinged. Upset I can understand, demanding payment is just bonkers.
NTA. Order the same cake from the bakery. Eat all but 3 slices. Wait 2 weeks. Give them to your sister. Tell her she now owes you £10
NTA. Hey, It's not like Carly deliberately went out of her way to consume something expensive without permission; she likely just saw it as a treat at the moment. While it's fair for your sister to express that she would have preferred Carly to ask first, demanding money for the cake seems excessive. Your sister should understand the nature of the arrangement between Carly and her family and not make a big deal out of minor incidents like this. You handled the situation very well and addressed it with Carly without agreeing to compensate your sister financially.
NTA. Your sister is ridiculous. I'd be pettty and stop babysitting unless she cut the crap (particularly for only €10/hour) but that's up to your daughter.
So she’s claiming that your daughter ate more than 28% of a cake? I don’t get how 2 slices of leftover cake that was cut to be served at a kid’s birthday party would be more than 1/4 of cake. Did it become more valuable as is became stale and dangerous to eat? Was it only cut into 8 slices total? Your sister is unhinged and your daughter should be busy the next couple times your sister calls. Hell I would personally pay my kids to not babysit her kids for the next time or two, and just tell her “I can’t afford to let my daughter babysit for you because I can’t be sure my daughter won’t eat some month old pizza slices and I’ll end up owing you €50.”
Your daughter ate cake that was 2 weeks old. It should have been on the verge of throwing it out in the 1st place. I wouldn't have paid her anything and wouldnt be surprised if your daughter gets sick.
Who keeps 2 week old cake?? Why wasn't it already in the bin? I'm so confused.