This archive report was first published on 9 July 2020.
On a typical day, a mother hires a babysitter to watch her two little girls while she and her husband are at work. However, their arrangement took an unexpected turn when the babysitter arrived 10 minutes late one day, making the mother late for work.
Despite this, the couple decided not to act on it and let it slide without mentioning it further. But their decision would have far-reaching consequences.
According to the mother, a day later, the babysitter let her know that she had been helping her daughter on her iPad and some texts popped up between the mother and her husband. The babysitter had read all their texts for the past month, which took her about 30 minutes to scroll back as far as she had.
The mother had complained to her husband about the babysitter being late and also about her eating all their Oreos. She had never intended for the babysitter to read their private texts, and she felt violated that she had done so.
The babysitter texted the mother the night before she was supposed to watch her kids next, saying she was quitting because of the texts she had read. The mother apologized for what she said but still felt sad about it all.
She took to Reddit to ask users if she had been unreasonable, and the response was overwhelmingly that the babysitter was in the wrong for invading her privacy.
One user commented, 'You have the right to vent in private to your husband. You forgave her, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t affect your day. She violated your privacy.' Another user added, 'Reading texts that pop up is one thing, but the next step is to immediately tell the parents that those texts are popping up and the next step is to NOT VIOLATE SOMEONE'S PRIVACY BY READING TEXTS GOING BACK AN ENTIRE MONTH.'
