Because my daughter was sitting on the floor of a tiny storage room with the lights off.
There was no lock on the door, but that hardly mattered. She was curled into a corner, crying so hard she could barely breathe. The babysitter was standing outside telling her she could come out “when she’d learned her lesson.”
The second my daughter saw me, she launched herself into my arms.
The babysitter immediately started explaining. She said it wasn’t punishment. She called it a “calm-down space.” Said lots of childcare experts recommended quiet rooms. Said my daughter was emotional and sometimes needed time alone.
My daughter buried her face in my shoulder and screamed, “No, don’t leave me with her.”
That was all I needed to hear.
I told the babysitter to gather her things and leave. She kept arguing, saying I was misunderstanding. Then my daughter whispered that this wasn’t the first time. Sometimes the sitter would turn off the light. Sometimes she’d leave her in there while she cleaned the kitchen or talked on the phone.
Suddenly the bedwetting, the nightmares, the panic every time I picked up my keys made horrible sense.
After she left, I spent hours talking with my daughter. I learned she’d been terrified I’d be angry if I found out she’d been “bad” enough to get sent to the dark room. The sitter had convinced her it was her own fault.
For months afterward, my daughter wouldn’t close her bedroom door all the way. She wanted hall lights on at night. She’d call out just to make sure I was still there.
The hardest part wasn’t firing the babysitter.
It was realizing my daughter had been trying to tell me for weeks.
She wasn’t being clingy.
She was asking for help the only way a seven-year-old knew how.