The woman detailed the babysitting incident on Reddit and listed three reasons why she shouldn’t pay for a new phone
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A family looking at a phone (stock image)
A woman is facing a holiday dilemma after she and her mother-in-law are butting heads over who should foot the bill for a broken phone.
The woman explained in a post on Reddit’s popular “Am I The A——” forum that her mother-in-law had been babysitting her and her husband’s 18-month-old toddler when she gave the child her phone to watch YouTube. However, this turned out to be not the best idea.
“Our [little one] decided she was done, and threw the phone from her high chair, cracking the screen badly,” the woman wrote.
Following the incident, her mother-in-law requested that she and her husband “pay to repair her phone screen as our daughter broke it.” However, the woman refused based on three reasons including the fact that her mother-in-law was much more well off than them.
“The cost of the repair is a significant amount of money to us, but not to her. Our combined income is less than half her solo income,” she added.
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A baby holding a phone (stock image)
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She also noted they “were not the ones supervising” the child at the time and “shouldn’t be accountable.” She also said that it was her mother-in-law’s decision to give the child the phone and was “not suggested by us” and is not “something we ever do ourselves.”
The woman said her partner “suggested” his mother pay for the phone and they would “pay” her “back in installments.” However, she said her mother-in-law “refused because she thinks this is our issue to figure out.”
“I also don’t agree with us paying her back, the phone was broken due to her own negligence,” she said, before asking Reddit if she’s in the wrong.
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A broken phone screen (stock image)
Several people on Reddit sided with the woman, noting that her mother-in-law shouldn’t have given the child the phone.
One person commented that the phone is “a fragile item, not a child’s toy.” The Redditor added, “I don’t hand things to 18-month-olds that I don’t wish to see thrown … that might break or damage it.”
One person wrote, “The person supervising the child and/or the person who gave a valuable piece of electronic equipment (that was never intended for use by a small child) is 100% responsible for the damage.”
Another said that the woman’s mother-in-law “knowingly caused the situation with her poor choices. She handed the phone to your child. She should have to deal with the natural expectable consequences.”
