A North Carolina stepmom was at work when she randomly happened to check her nanny cam. Unfortunately, she was greeted by a distressing scene that left her wanting to kick the babysitter’s backside. She’s since shared the disturbing footage as a warning to other parents. Be forewarned, it’s hard to watch.
Laura Oglesby, a North Carolina stepmom, was at work when she decided to check in on her 2-year-old stepson during a break, according to Newsner. However, nothing could have prepared her for the sight that would greet her when she flipped on the nanny cam. Rather than seeing a happy toddler being cared for by an attentive babysitter, the concerned parent was instead left horrified by what was playing out in her home while she was away.
As Oglesby flipped on the nanny cam, she immediately heard her stepson, Declan, screaming out as he sat in his highchair. It turns out, the boy had every reason to protest as his stepmom witnessed the boy’s nanny, Lauren Rowe, force-feeding the 2-year-old while pinning the boy’s arms down. As Rowe shoved spoonfuls of pot pie in his mouth, Declan shrieked. “NO!” he protested as he cried out for his parents and tried to resist Rowe, but the nanny was undeterred.
“We are learning today,” Rowe screamed at the crying boy, according to the NY Post. “You need to learn that you need to eat your food, and then we can be all done,” she added, telling him repeatedly to “eat his food” as he sobbed for his parents. Rowe is also heard and seen in the footage, talking to someone on the phone. “If we didn’t control our 2-year-old, he would walk all over us,” she tells the person on the line.
The shocking footage immediately angered Laura Oglesby and her husband, Max, and rightfully so. “I wanted to kick her (bleep), I wanted to come here and pin her down and I wanted to put food in her mouth,” Oglesby recalled, but since she and Max were about an hour’s drive away from the house, the North Carolina couple was forced to call Declan’s birth mother, who reportedly lived close by. Heartbroken and concerned, they asked the boy’s mom to go get their son as they drove home.
When they reached Declan, Max said his son’s arms were bruised after his hands were held down. Armed with the video evidence of the traumatic ordeal, Laura and Max Oglesby alerted the authorities. Lauren Rowe was arrested by the New Bern police department and charged with misdemeanor child abuse. Of course, she was fired as well with Laura sending the now-former nanny a strongly worded text message.
“You are no longer needed to nanny for us, and my suggestion is that you don’t nanny at all until you learn how to patiently handle children,” the distraught stepmom wrote. “The way you handled Declan tonight in the high chair trying to force-feed him is textbook child abuse… You broke a mother’s heart tonight.”
Laura Oglesby also took to Facebook to explain that she was “emotionally drained by this whole experience,” but added that their “main goal now is to make sure this sticks to her like glue so she can’t ever do this sort of thing to a child, dog, or person in general ever again.” In hopes of doing just that, the couple decided to share the video so others would see what Lauren Rowe is capable of doing.
“We put it out there because if people didn’t know, they would still hire her,” Max told the Sun Journal. According to the Daily Mail, the video the devastated dad and his wife shared of the incident was just “a small clip of the two hours [Rowe] spent doing this to our son,” Max revealed. “And I wasn’t there,” Max added. “S*** hurts.”
Because of what Lauren Rowe did to their 2-year-old son, Max and Laura Oglesby will now find it hard to trust a stranger with their child. “You don’t expect it to happen to yours,” the father admitted. “She was recommended to my wife on a Facebook group for New Bern moms. She’s got a check on freaking care.com. I feel like we took the right steps,” he added. “We are heartbroken for our son and furious that this happened.”
These parents made the tough decision that many are faced with and hired a nanny so both parents could work — a common theme in America today. Sadly, they put their trust in an unworthy person. We are thankful, however, that they had extra measures in place in hopes of protecting their son. Although they weren’t able to stop the incident that occurred, the nanny cam came in handy, ensuring it won’t happen again. We shudder to think just how bad the abuse may have become if Lauren Rowe wasn’t caught on camera.
