If I Hire You to Take Care of My Children, I Can Be as 'Crazy' as I Please

— -- (Editor's note. This story originally appeared on Babble.com. It has been reprinted here with permission. Disney is the parent company of both ABC News and Babble.)

Parenting is a 24/7 gig … even when you aren’t directly attending to child-rearing tasks, you’re still on-call. It’s exhausting. Which is why it’s important to get breaks from time to time — and that’s where babysitters come in.

My husband and I are lucky enough to have two sets of grandparents who live nearby and love to babysit, so we’ve never had to hire a sitter. That said, if I were to hire someone to watch my children, my standards would definitely be high … as I’m sure most parents’ would be. Leaving someone in charge of your most precious treasures (your children) is something not to be taken lightly. As parents, we want to leave our children with someone who will be responsible, caring and gentle. But sometimes that’s not what you get.

Recently I read a thread on Reddit with the heading: “I feel babysitter was negligent. Am I being crazy?” You can read the entire post if you’d like, but the gist was that a mom hired a babysitter (with great references and a background check from an agency) to care for her 6-month-old while she and her husband attended an event. Earlier that day she was feeling a bit nervous and had a couple of nanny cams installed and once they were out she checked on them. Long story short, the sitter allowed her baby to cry alone in his room for 30-40 minutes before even attempting to comfort him and was generally a little rough and not particularly gentle with him. The woman and her husband ended up heading home and relieving the sitter instead of going on their date. They didn’t confront her at the time because she was worried that maybe she was overreacting or being a little “crazy.”

Here is my take on the situation, as well as my opinion when it comes to sitters in general: If you are paying someone to care for your children, then you can be as “crazy” as you damn well please.

I spent a good chunk of my teenage years as well as a lot of time during college and early adulthood taking on babysitting side gigs. There were always some children and families that I enjoyed more than others … typically the ones who were a bit more laid back. But, still … I also babysat for plenty of families where the parents were super intense and of the “helicopter” variety and even when I felt like they were over-the-top or disagreed with some of their parenting approaches, I still respected them as their child’s parent and did my very best to enforce their rules and philosophies.

I don’t care who you are, but even as a 14-year-old babysitting the neighbor kids, I never would’ve left a crying child alone in a room. Sometimes soothing techniques don’t work — which is no fault of the babysitter — and as a parent, I completely understand that. The problem isn’t that the child cried for an extended period of time, but that the sitter made no effort to attend to him.

As a former babysitter myself, here are a few things that you can (and should) expect from your babysitter:

1. Attending to your children’s basic needs

Giving your kids food, water, diaper changes, clean clothes, etc … these are all basic things that all sitters can handle. But, remember that comforting an emotional child also falls on the basic needs spectrum. Your sitter will only have to deal with a crying baby for a couple of hours, so there’s really no reason for them to let your baby “cry it out.” As a parent, that should be your decision alone and unless you specifically tell your sitter that it’s OK to leave your child to cry, then it’s not.

2. Engaging your children

I’m not saying that you should expect your babysitter to be Martha Stewart incarnate with fancy craft projects (although, that would definitely increase the tip), but talking with your children, playing with toys or games, etc. should definitely be expected. There’s no need for a sitter to be constantly entertaining “bored” children, but keeping them simply engaged is a reasonable expectation.

3. Focusing on your children

Once the kids are in bed, the babysitter is free to raid the fridge, text their boyfriend, read a magazine … but until then, your kids should be their first priority and it’s perfectly acceptable to expect that they won’t be playing on their cellphone and ignoring your kids all night. Any babysitter worth their salt should be more than just a warm body to make sure the kids stay alive.

When hiring a sitter, be clear and upfront about your expectations from the beginning and everyone will be happier for it. And at the end of the day, trust your gut. If something doesn’t feel right, then don’t be embarrassed to say so. These are your kids and it’s your job to protect them … even if you come across as being a little “crazy.”