In a cul-de-sac neighborhood, a woman was asked to watch her neighbor’s six kids while she was away. The woman might never expect her decision to report the situation to Child Services would lead to unexpected consequences. In October 2023, a 29-year-old woman turned to Reddit for advice because of having grappled with a moral dilemma after a fight with her 27-year-old husband.
People who live in a Cul-de-sac get to know one another, and that’s how it all started. She clarified, “People are naturally in each other’s business because everyone is too close to one another.”
The mother has long harbored misgivings about one specific neighbor—a woman who seemed unconcerned with her children’s wanderings and had a remarkable talent for convincing people to watch her kids. OP had been forced into babysitting far too frequently, even though she generally refused her neighbor’s requests.
The problematic neighbor’s subsequent knock on OP’s door was the tipping point. At first, the OP feigned to be absent in an attempt to avoid her. But the knocking kept coming, and it became impossible to ignore. The OP reluctantly opened the door.
The neighbor spoke incoherently in a hurry about leaving and coming back on Sunday. Her eldest child was seven years old, and her youngest was six months old. The neighbor persisted despite the OP’s clear refusal, pointing out a black cab that was waiting. “I attempted to hold her hand to prevent her from walking away. The OP claimed, “I told her I couldn’t, and she hurried off and got in the taxi. The OP was enraged; fury barely captured her feelings.
Her patience wore thin after forty agonizing minutes of waiting. She sent her neighbor a text message, driven by exasperation, threatening to withhold the children for 10 minutes or face repercussions from Children’s Services.
There was silence after that, except for the OP’s growing anxiety. She called her neighbor and restated her position. The neighbor said she couldn’t go back, but she was suddenly aloof and didn’t seem to care. She snidely recommended that the kids leave the kids off at Jennifer’s, an older resident of the building across from her who had health problems.
The 29-year-old was uncompromising in her warning, repeating it and threatening to involve the local police if the children weren’t collected right away. The neighbor threw obscenities at the OP and dared him to follow through in disobedience. The OP made the call that turned everything around because they felt baited. She couldn’t reverse the sequence of events she started when she called Child Services.
After the call ended, the OP told her neighbor her decision in a chilly manner. Fear took hold of the neighbor, who, midway to Blackpool, promised to exact revenge. Unfazed, the OP forwarded a terrifying video as evidence that Child Services had assumed control. Her neighbor was surprised to see that the police and social workers were also there. The argument with her spouse started because of the way the OP handled the matter. His personal foster care experiences left him scarred, and it sparked a barrage of allegations. He called her acts intentionally nasty and chastised her for not turning down the responsibility at the door.
He pointed to her that she had plenty of options, such as simply declining, going after the neighbor, or grudgingly accepting her offer to burden Jennifer. He contended that the kids wouldn’t care about it once they were with Jennifer. However, the OP refused to back down and stood by her choice. Giving the children over to a stranger, particularly an elderly mother, seemed rude and improper to her. It seemed too much to bear to burden Jennifer with six misbehaving children.
But she felt guilty about what her husband had said. She couldn’t sleep through the night because the weight of the foster care system, with all of its awful realities, suddenly became very palpable. The OP, alone and torn, considered her options. Should she swallow her pride and go back to Child Services stating that she misunderstood or overreacted?
Could she somehow make things right, and free the kids from the cruel reality of foster care? Her thoughts were filled with her husband’s severe warning, leaving her conflicted between responsibility, guilt, and the need to save those innocent souls. During this chaos, the original poster looked to Reddit for advice, acceptance, and understanding.
