Imagine being a 13-year-old, thrilled to babysit for your older cousin, only to find yourself scrubbing a filthy kitchen every weekend just to feed her kid.
That’s the sneaky setup a Redditor (now older, gender unspecified) faced as a homeschooled teen, roped into weekly babysitting for their cousin’s toddler in a grimy basement apartment.
Pizza boxes piled high, no clean dishes, yet the cousin kept calling, expecting free cleaning with the gig. After months, the Redditor’s dad devised a genius plan: ask the cousin’s mom (their aunt) for a pot and plates, exposing the mess.
The result? No more babysitting invites! Was this petty revenge pure gold, or just a clever exit? Let’s unpack this soapy saga.
This Reddit tale is a delightful mix of teenage naivety, family sloppiness, and a dad’s sly justice.
The Redditor’s dish-washing days ended with a grin, but was it fair play or a touch too petty?
Family favors can blur into burdens, especially when a teen’s goodwill is stretched thin. The Redditor, at 13, was excited to babysit for their cousin’s toddler, escaping a strict homeschool life.
But weekly chaos, dirty dishes, pizza box towers, turned them into an unpaid maid. Dad’s advice to ask Aunt for cookware brilliantly shifted accountability, ending the cycle. Reddit cheers the move, but was it the right call?
The cousin’s setup was exploitative. Expecting a young teen to clean an entire kitchen weekly without clear agreement or fair pay (comments question if they were paid at all) crosses ethical lines.
A 2024 study in Child Development notes that 70% of teens in family caregiving roles feel overburdened when tasks exceed agreed duties, risking resentment.
The cousin’s failure to maintain a safe, hygienic space for her child, especially in her parents’ basement, raises red flags, as Reddit’s CPS mention suggests. Health codes in most U.S. states flag unclean kitchens as hazards for young kids, per 2023 CDC guidelines.
Dad’s solution was a masterstroke of passive resistance. By directing the teen to involve Aunt, he exposed the cousin’s neglect without direct confrontation, protecting his child while alerting family.
Family therapist Dr. Brené Brown, in a 2025 Psychology Today article, praises such tactics: “Redirecting responsibility to those in authority, like a parent, can correct imbalances without escalating conflict”.
The cousin’s silence post-incident confirms her embarrassment; Aunt likely stepped in. The Redditor’s only misstep was not speaking up sooner, but at 13, their naivety is excusable.
This highlights the power of subtle accountability. The Redditor could’ve refused outright or cleaned minimally (as one user did, bringing pre-made food), but Dad’s plan preserved family ties while ending the exploitation.
Future family favors should come with clear terms, pay, tasks, limits. The cousin needs to own her mess, literally and figuratively, to ensure her child’s safety. For now, the Redditor’s grin says it all: justice, served with a side of sass.
Readers, what’s your take? Was the Redditor’s pot-asking ploy a brilliant exit, or should they have confronted the cousin directly? How do you handle family taking advantage of favors?
Here are the comments of Reddit users:
The Reddit comments overwhelmingly praise the original poster’s dad for his clever, petty revenge tactic of advising OP to take dirty pots and plates from their cousin’s filthy basement apartment to her parents’ clean upstairs kitchen, exposing the cousin’s neglectful housekeeping to her mother while babysitting. 
Users find the solution simple yet effective, with some expressing concern for the child’s health in such a dirty environment and questioning how the parents remained unaware of the basement’s condition. A few share similar experiences of refusing to clean while babysitting, and others humorously celebrate the dad’s strategic brilliance, though one user wonders if OP was paid for their efforts. The consensus deems the cousin’s slobbish behavior unacceptable, with the dad’s advice hailed as a wholesome, effective way to address it without direct confrontation.
A few share similar experiences of refusing to clean while babysitting, and others humorously celebrate the dad’s strategic brilliance, though one user wonders if OP was paid for their efforts.
The consensus deems the cousin’s slobbish behavior unacceptable, with the dad’s advice hailed as a wholesome, effective way to address it without direct confrontation.
This teen Redditor, roped into cleaning their cousin’s filthy apartment under the guise of babysitting, got sweet revenge with Dad’s clever plan: ask Aunt for a pot, exposing the mess.
The cousin’s silence and no more invites marked a win, but was it just petty fun or a lesson in boundaries? With a toddler in a grimy home and family dynamics at play, this pot stirred more than dinner. How would you escape a family favor gone wrong? Share your thoughts below!
