I honestly have a lot of respect for this young person; using a slur is never acceptable was a pretty good level of response in the moment, and already having a practice where they will calmly but firmly call out people who say hateful things is awesome.
I also think that LW is right to be concerned that it's not always a good plan for a babysitter to undermine parental values. Even if the parents are in fact hateful homophobic bigots, telling young children that their parents are horrible people is going to have consequences. It's not just that the parents might retaliate against LW, it's that the children might themselves be hurt by such a blunt approach.
If I were answering this letter I would start with reassurance that even if their response wasn't perfect they're doing pretty well. And rather than call the little kids out for saying hateful things, I might suggest following up on the 'never use slurs' reprimand by just casually saying positive things about LGBTQ+ people around the children. That's a better way to plant a bug in those kids' ears than direct confrontation. I'm not sure it's possible to "call out" a young child anyway, it's just telling them off for bad behaviour, and the babysitter isn't their peer, they're an authority figure (albeit in a limited way).
If the babysitter gets fired for standing up for gay rights, that isn't going to help the children to learn anything. If they stick around being positive and continuing to set boundaries about using slurs, but without escalating to telling the children that they / their parents are hateful, that seems much more likely to achieve results.
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I also think that LW is right to be concerned that it's not always a good plan for a babysitter to undermine parental values. Even if the parents are in fact hateful homophobic bigots, telling young children that their parents are horrible people is going to have consequences. It's not just that the parents might retaliate against LW, it's that the children might themselves be hurt by such a blunt approach.
If I were answering this letter I would start with reassurance that even if their response wasn't perfect they're doing pretty well. And rather than call the little kids out for saying hateful things, I might suggest following up on the 'never use slurs' reprimand by just casually saying positive things about LGBTQ+ people around the children. That's a better way to than direct confrontation. I'm not sure it's possible to "call out" a young child anyway, it's just telling them off for bad behaviour, and the babysitter isn't their peer, they're an authority figure (albeit in a limited way).
If the babysitter gets fired for standing up for gay rights, that isn't going to help the children to learn anything. If they stick around being positive and continuing to set boundaries about using slurs, but without escalating to telling the children that they / their parents are hateful, that seems much more likely to achieve results.