I don’t have kids — my ‘mom friends’ expect me to pay for their babysitter so we can have a girls’ night out
Living childfree isn’t totally free.
A singleton says her gaggle of mom friends tried coercing her into chipping in towards their babysitting bill following a girls’ night out — after she picked up the entire dinner tab.
“I’ve had the same group of girlfriends since high school, there are five of us. Each have a kid — well, except me,” wrote the anonymous almost-stooge to Reddit’s ever-judgmental “Am I The A- -hole” community.
“We do dinner about once a month and recently the group has hired a babysitter to watch the kids while we go,” she continued. “It’s four kids, so it’s $100 for 2-3 hours.”
The non-mom went on to explain that she and her former schoolmates take turns treating one another, with a member of the quintet paying for everyone’s drinks, shared delights and entrees at each reunion.
After taking care of the bill during their most recent outing, the child-free Redditor assumed she’d adequately fulfilled her friendly duties — but her pushy pals begged to differ.
“This week, it was my turn to pay, the first time since they hired the babysitter. I paid for dinner as normal, and hugged everyone goodbye,” she said. “When I got home, I had a flurry of texts from the group saying that I owed $100. I asked what they were talking about because I had paid for dinner.”
“They said because it was my week to pay, I was also expected to pay for the babysitter because, ‘all of us get the pleasure of being out without kids,’” penned the stunned single lady, whose protests were met with a frosty retort.
“I said, ‘I don’t have kids. Why would I pay for your babysitter?,’” she recounted. “They said, ‘You get the pleasure of hanging out with us and it’s the only way we can do it kid free.’”
Unsurprisingly, social media side-eyers were none-too-pleased with the so-called pals’ sense of entitlement.
“That’s a very interesting perspective from your friends. It’s also bat s- – crazy,” said a cyber supporter in the comments. “Their kids, their expense.”
“When you have kids you take on the financial burden of caring for those kids and yep, getting a babysitter is part and parcel of that,” argued another. “You didn’t impregnate them, so it’s not your responsibility. What a ridiculous take.”
“I’m blown away by, ‘You get the pleasure of hanging with us kid free.’ Did you pay for that before they had kids?,” question an equally outraged onlooker. “This is bonkers to me!”
Bonkers, maybe. But uncommon? Not at all.
Columnist Jana Hocking has issued an unflinching reprimand to parenting couples who’ve wrongfully relied on single chums for their childcare needs.
And happily baby-free Therese Shechter, a documentarian, cinematically balked at the notion that women who don’t pursue motherhood are inherently selfish.
“When you [as a woman] push back, something is wrong with you. You’re not following the rules,” she told The Post ahead of debuting film “My So-Called Selfish Life” in 2022. “Society thinks that women need to be mothers to the exclusion of everything else and at the expense of her ambition, health, career and relationships.”
But the resolute Reddit ranter was seemingly proud of herself for pushing back on a imposition as minor as caregiver costs.
“I’m sticking to my guns and not paying, but my friends think I am being unfair for not being willing to ‘pay my share’ of the babysitting,” she said.
“What share? I have no kids to babysit!.”
