To say these requests are unhinged might be an understatement.
Grace Saylor recently went viral on TikTok after asking fellow caregivers to share the most jaw-dropping, “unhinged” demands they’ve gotten from parents, as originally reported by Today.com.
People ran to the comment section of Saylor’s video — which has almost 1 million views — to vent about the outlandish expectations some parents have of daycare workers.
Among the jaw-droppers:
“Mix all of their food with breastmilk (didn’t provide breastmilk),” said one person.
“I had a parent ask me to count how many string beans her child ate at lunch,” shared an employee.
“Child had digestion issues, mom asked us to chew his food for him, then feed it to him. No, no, no way,” quipped someone else.
It gets worse — and weirder:
“One time, a parent asked us to call her halfway through the day, saying her child was sick so she could leave work,” a comment read.
“We weren’t allowed to label anything with the toddler’s name because she didn’t want her to get kidnapped,” shared someone else.
“Can you serve divorce papers on my husband. I said no,” said a commenter.
“Had a parent give us a Chucky doll. Mind you, 1st day of school. Mom said if her child acted up to just show her the Chucky doll and she would stop,” another person wrote.
Saylor herself says she’s lucky — the only outbursts she deals with come from the toddlers, not the grown-ups.
As bonkers as some parents may sound, they’re often just burnt out.
According to research by OnePoll on behalf of Lightbridge Academy, the average working parent relies on six different people to raise their kid — and still feels like they need a second version of themselves to survive.
With daycare costs soaring and centers slammed by staffing shortages, many parents are fraying at the edges.
According to the survey, 53% of working parents admit stress is keeping them from being the parent they want to be.
“Working families are already walking a fine line and barriers like this can have a huge influence on their work and personal lives. While the answer is beyond an individual employer, childcare center, or family, it’s up to all of us to speak up, advocate for our needs, and communicate challenges so that each working family is empowered to choose the solution that works best for them,” said Gigi Schweikert, CEO at Lightbridge Academy, to SWNS.
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