Topical Teaching

Monica Romero says she needed a “miracle” to finish her final exam. A babysitter had cancelled on her at the last minute, and the single mom had been forced to bring her two kids to class with her.

She left them with a computer and a tablet on a couch out in the hall; but, as Romero told Buzzfeed, she was filled with “anxiety about it because I knew they weren’t going to sit still.”

“To get the test complete, it’s going to take a miracle,” the Army ROTC student at the University of Louisville thought to herself.

That “miracle,” it turned out, would come from an unlikely place: Her college professor — who also became her emergency babysitter. 

In this viral photograph snapped by classmate Victoria Henry, U.S. military history professor Dr. Daniel Krebs is pictured babysitting Romero’s young daughter and son while she finished her exam.

Romero, 28, told Buzzfeed that her 4-year-old son, Marcus, had started banging on the door in an attempt to get her attention mere moments after she started her test.

When she went to placate him, Romero says Dr. Krebs followed her out into the hall.

“I thought he was going to ask me to leave,” she said.

But instead, the professor surprised her with an unexpectedly thoughtful offer.

“Dr. Krebs said, ‘Don’t worry. Go take your test. I’ve got them,’” the mom told ABC News.