Is it okay to fire a babysitter for being consistently late, even if they have time blindness due to high-functioning autism? #Babysitting #Firing #TimeBlindness #Autism #Family
Background:
I have three kids, ages 10, 8, and 7, who need a babysitter since they are not old enough to be left alone. Our regular babysitter, who was a college student, can no longer help out. We decided to hire my 16-year-old niece, who has high-functioning autism, to babysit as a way for her to earn pocket money.
The Problem:
My niece was late to babysit last week, causing us some inconvenience, but the night went well overall. However, when she was 20 minutes late for our work function, I had to call her and cancel her babysitting duties for the day.
The Fallout:
My sister, who is my niece’s mother, is upset with me for firing my niece, citing her time blindness due to autism as the reason for her lateness. She believes it was unfair to dismiss her, and my wife thinks I may have been too harsh.
My Perspective:
While I understand my niece’s condition, I also believe it’s important for her to learn about punctuality and responsibility early on in life. I see this as a valuable learning experience for her before she enters the workforce.
Overall, I am conflicted about my decision to let her go as a babysitter. What do you think? #ParentingDilemma #FamilyConflict #PunctualityLesson
NTA- it’s unfortunate that she is unable to show up to things on time, but there are very few jobs/employers who aren’t going to have an issue with that level of tardiness. I agree with you that it’s good practical experience. It’s better to learn now that this is unacceptable in the workplace.
NTA
Time blindness is just a made up bullshit
To think about it now, maybe I could convince my wife I’m fidelity blind
NTA. If mom was so concerned, she should have made sure her daughter got there on time.
Maybe your sister could have assisted in getting your niece to her appointment on time. Niece can set reminders on her phone to help her. NTA.
If you can’t count on the person then they are of no use to you for that job.
Time blind is a new thing? Can I use that as well with my boss and not get fired? Appointments are appointments…
NTA
NTA time blindness is a ridiculous excuse. I’m aware it’s a thing and know a small amount of people that suffer from it. They set multiple alarms to get up, get ready, prep to leave, and leave. Many people function with it every day because they know and prepare themselves for each day. Simply not wanting to do it is lazy.
NTA
Part of baby sitting, or nearly any job really, is being where you are supposed to be on time. Life lesson time for your niece.
NTA. Time blindness can be assisted with phone alarms, etc. That girl will have to get to uni classes on time, not to mention her job. She should learn to compensate for this before she is out there.
NTA. “Time blindness”?!? Give me an effing break. It’s not a disorder. Your niece simply has a lack of respect for other people.
NTA, I would have done the same thing. However I would ask her to watch the kids again but only ask her to watch the kids when you are not on a time crunch, or give her a time an hour earlier and call her to remind her its time to leave. if she is late after that then just don’t use her again.
NTA – this is actually a part of life and a great learning experience. Employers will not put up with someone being perpetually late.
NTA – niece needs to take steps now to address her time blindness. She’s going to be held to punctuality standards as an adult, and she needs to know how to navigate the world before she gets thrown into it.
NTA
There’s a million devices that have alarms on them now. At 16, she should be mature enough to use at least one of them.
NTA
Alarms exist.
Her own freaking mother should have made sure she was on time.
If you do decide to give her another shot, tell her to arrive an hour earlier than necessary, that way when she’s late you won’t be late and it will be strike 3 for niece.
NTA.
Punctuality is an important point for a job, and what you said is true. It’s an experience so that when she goes to work, she won’t be late.
NTA- and I spent most of my life with undiagnosed adhd and time blindness.
Your sister needs to teach your niece how to cope with it or she is setting her up to fail at life I am by no means perfect but I have learned to build in extra time. I always round up my guess on how long something takes.
I am still usually “late” out the door. But with 15 extra minutes added in I am on time.
NTA.
Instead of complaining to you that you fired her daughter, your sister should have made sure she wasn’t late for work.
NTA. I spent years managing my time blindness on my own before I even knew what time blindness was or that I was neurodivergent. I set alarms and sometimes even “actively waited” to make sure I left on time.
It sucks but that’s what you have to do sometimes. I’m not perfect and once in a while I will mess up or run really late, but I also own up to my time blindness isn’t anyone else’s issue to manage.
I think using autism as an excuse for being time blind is immature. Just me. But it is a good lesson for her to learn albeit a hard one. Your time is just as valuable. So what would have happened if you lost your job? She certainly wouldn’t have reimbursed you for lost salary. So no, I dont think your the A-hole.
NTA you warned her and showing up on time is the first rule of working.
ROFL @ time blindness.
People are getting overwhemingly creative turning their ineptitude into a medical or psychological “condition”.
Nta the job requires you to be there at a certain time. If you miss your event because she is late then it defeats the purpose of hiring her
Time blindness sounds like a nicer way of saying they value their own time more than yours.
Time Blindness is just an excuse for people who don’t make any effort what-so-ever to address it. If she knows she’s bad at time, what does she do to compensate? Nothing? I thought so.
NTA
If she cannot reliably overcome her “time blindness” she cannot be a babysitter. Just as someone who is visually blind cannot be an Uber driver.
Excuses, excuses. I expect people to be on time. I would have fired her as well.
“Actually, sister, I didn’t ‘fire’ her, as I was never her employer. My niece is a self-employed babysitter; I was merely a contracted client. As someone with a disability, however, she is entitled to accommodations, such as an assistant to help her with her time blindness. Being underage, and you, sister, being her guardian, you are the one responsible for providing those accommodations, which you failed to do, causing her to lose her contract. I’d say you owe her quite an apology, don’t you think?” 🙃
NTA. Your niece is in for a rude awakening when she starts working in the real world if she can’t get herself together now.
NTA. It sounds like you understand that your niece has certain issues and limitations. Those issues need to be addressed, but not in a situation where others depend on it and are literally paying for the ability for one to do that job. Your niece isn’t able to properly complete the tasks needed for this job. Like any job that she is not suited for she will not be asked to continue doing it. Yes there is leeway for reasonable accommodation in certain professions, but time sensitive jobs require someone with proper time management skills, something your niece sadly does not possess. It’s not your fault or hers that she isn’t suited for the job. You can’t be expected to constantly be late because she is being coddled instead of taught to work on this issue. Her mother is not helping her issue, she’s simply enabling the behavior and doing no work to manage it. It also sounds like your niece may be ill equipped to watch children.
Nta and I don’t agree on time blindness excuses. Never heard such a thing growing up. If you’re late you’re late. To make it like it’s a permanent condition belittles truly blind people.
Having Time blindness doesn’t give you an automatic pass to be late everywhere, but it IS a reason to set up back ups like several alarms, and reminders. This is especially true for a job, where people are paying you to be on schedule. If she struggles with time, she should make a point to be early rather than late, her parents already know she has time blindness so that means they both/all failed to implement these systems for her to be on-time for her job. and Mom bears responsibility to teach her teen how to grow into a responsible adult. These are the natural consequences of their failure to plan, and it is a pretty low-stakes gig for her to learn from. Thankfully you were able to find a back up and carry on with your plans. The only bummer here is that her first “firing” was from family and it never feels good to be fired. they may both hold a grudge for a bit for not receiving special consideration. You *might* consider giving her another opportunity with some time management plans in place, but if you don’t, still, NTA.
INFO: Why doesn’t your sister drop her off? She is still at the point in life where she is developing appropriate strategies for managing her ASD, and outside reminders or supports are entirely appropriate in this situation.
NTA…my husband has time blindness. He has alarms for every single part of his day. Alarm to wake up, alarm to feed the chickens, alarm to get his stuff together to leave for work, alarm telling him it’s time to leave for work, alarms at work for things he has to do a set times, alarm for lunch, you get the idea. Is it annoying to others, I’m sure it can be but he finally feels in control of his life and has confidence that he gets things done when he needs to. About the only thing not on an alarm is when to go to the bathroom and sorry but if he can’t handle that one I know he will put alarms for that too. He loves the freedom it’s given him! Before this I had to constantly remind him of stuff.
NTA
How is she supposed to hold a real job if she can’t keep track of time? Future employers won’t give her slack because of “time blindness” so why should you? She was over 20 minutes late! Teach them young.
She was unreliable which is not what you want for a babysitter. I would have fired her as well. I would have hesitated to hire her again after the first time. She should feel lucky she got a warning.
Someone in the comments. Is “Time Blindness” a real thing or something the mom made up to enable her child?
NTA- “time blindness “ 🙄
NTA
Baby sitting isn’t a situation where time blindness accommodations are able to be made.
Time blindness is not a thing.
It’s not her *fault* she has time blindness, but it is her *responsibility* to deal with it. She can set alarms. She can write notes. She can get therapy to develop even more tools to deal with it.
Or she can not do any of those things and then not take jobs that require her to be on time to things, or deal with getting fired for being consistently late.
NTA
Nope NTA. Just like ADHD, time blindness is something that she has to come up with accommodations for herself and not expect others to bend over backwards for. Whether she actually has a real issue or not, refusing to do what she needs to in order to be on time is disrespectful to others and shows that she doesn’t value the time of others and deserves to lose her job. If someone told me that I had to accommodate their time blindness for a job, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep myself from laughing. That’s only a thing if she also misses out on things she wants to do as well. And autism is no excuse either as many of the most punctual people I know are autistic, including my oldest son. Maybe I’m showing my age, but we used to just call people with time blindness rude and unreliable.
NTA
I am speaking as a person that also has time blindness. If she accepted the job of watching your kids then she needs to have the capacity to show up on time. You hired your niece for a service and she didn’t show up to do the job. That is a justifiable reason to let someone go. Your niece needs to learn time managment and while time blindness can make this difficult it is she is now at an age where she needs to become responsible for herself and develop their own strategies to work around it. I understand your sister’s instinct to defend their autistic daughter, but she is turning a valuable lesson about what happens when you don’t follow through with your commitments into a coddle conniption that won’t help her daughter in the longrun.
INFO:
How does she get there? Walking distance, gets a ride, drives (and is it her own car or shares family car)?
Her mom is saying it’s time blindness but what does your niece actually say about why she’s late?
I have ADHD and this leads to time blindness, in order to hold down a job I have to set about 87 alarms to remind me to leave on time because in the real world no one gives a shit and won’t accommodate you for it. Punctuality is important and easily achieved if the proper tools are used.
NTA
Time blindness. A new term dreamt up by people who are LATE
get your ass up earlier. No excuses.
But that’s all ppl do today is make up excuses and new “diagnosis” to avoid having any self responsibility to the fact they’re fucking late
NTA
Time blindness ain’t a thing. Set an alarm lmao.