I (21) have a mom (39) who just had my little sister (1) with my stepdad last year. I am very close with my mom and stepdad and we have a great relationship. I have my own home with my bf (24) and we both work full time at our jobs with 2 dogs. Both mine and my bf’s job allows us a 3 day weekend every week. We only work Mon.-Thurs. My moms babysitter is not reliable and they plan on switching but cannot switch until after the summer is over . It just so happens almost every time the babysitter cancels for the day, it tends to be on a Friday and I usually will tell my mom I can watch my little sister on my day off, though I don’t love it. I love my little sister but watching a one year old can be exhausting. Especially while tending dogs. Well this week, my little sister caught RSV and my parents need help with babysitting. Monday, I watched her for 7 hours on my unpaid vacation day from work, I have the whole week off it’s just all unpaid. That day, I was originally told I only had to watch my sister for 4 hours. That clearly didn’t happen. Next week, I already said I would watch her again on Friday. Well after I had watched my little sister that Monday, they also need me for Tuesday, again on my unpaid vacation day. This time I said no. It’s not that I don’t want to help them, I do. But my bf took off on Monday for us to hang out and I wasn’t home all day due to watching the baby. Now Tuesday? I feel taken advantage of as an older sister. I didn’t sign up to watch my sister all the time when they announced they were pregnant. Sometimes when I say no, my mom guilt trips me and make me feel like I am selfish and don’t want to be around my sister but that’s not the case. My life is exhausting and I need a break. I don’t think it’s selfish to not want to babysit on my days off when I am not getting paid and have my own life and priorities. So… AITA?
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I (21) have a mom (39) who just had my little sister (1) with my stepdad last year. I am very close with my mom and stepdad and we have a great relationship. I have my own home with my bf (24) and we both work full time at our jobs with 2 dogs. Both mine and my bf’s job allows us a 3 day weekend every week. We only work Mon.-Thurs. My moms babysitter is not reliable and they plan on switching but cannot switch until after the summer is over . It just so happens almost every time the babysitter cancels for the day, it tends to be on a Friday and I usually will tell my mom I can watch my little sister on my day off, though I don’t love it. I love my little sister but watching a one year old can be exhausting. Especially while tending dogs. Well this week, my little sister caught RSV and my parents need help with babysitting. Monday, I watched her for 7 hours on my unpaid vacation day from work, I have the whole week off it’s just all unpaid. That day, I was originally told I only had to watch my sister for 4 hours. That clearly didn’t happen. Next week, I already said I would watch her again on Friday. Well after I had watched my little sister that Monday, they also need me for Tuesday, again on my unpaid vacation day. This time I said no. It’s not that I don’t want to help them, I do. But my bf took off on Monday for us to hang out and I wasn’t home all day due to watching the baby. Now Tuesday? I feel taken advantage of as an older sister. I didn’t sign up to watch my sister all the time when they announced they were pregnant. Sometimes when I say no, my mom guilt trips me and make me feel like I am selfish and don’t want to be around my sister but that’s not the case. My life is exhausting and I need a break. I don’t think it’s selfish to not want to babysit on my days off when I am not getting paid and have my own life and priorities. So… AITA?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) I told my parents I would not watch my little sister even though I am off and available 2) I feel like I am being selfish when I am fully capable of watching her when they need me
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
These posts about familial responsibilities are always wild. This mob is going to tell you that you’re not the A-hole, OP, because as a mob, redditors are massively individualistic and believe they did it all themselves. It’s a massive selfdelusion, but we can leave it there.
NTA, OP, because you HAVE been helping out, you just can’t give ALL of your time to taking care of your sister. That’s a fair call. Your parents can’t claim most of your Fridays and your vacation days. Are they in need of help? Yes. But you’ve GIVEN help and have been doing so for a while.
If you want my completely unsolicited advice, my advice is that if the RSV means that your sister is banned from the sitter, you help out this week because it’s a necessity, and then tell them that you are no longer available on Fridays. Let them try to guilt you if they want, but this meets the immediate necessity, while sucking, but establishes a boundary to ensure you get your you-time moving forward.
The mob is going to tell you that you owe this sister nothing, and that’s hardly the issue here. You certainly have some obligations to your parents, and caring for your sister is an investment in your relationship with her, which is a good thing even if you never get value from it. Sure, you may have need to call on later, but a good relationship with a sibling is something that is it’s own reward, or at least, it should be. We can pretend that you’re an individual and owe nothing to nobody, but that’s not generally true, and more impotantly, ignores needs you may have in the future. Your position here is solid: you’ve MET the threshold for obligations here, and that’s where you need to stand.
NTA. You can’t pour from an empty cup, you need some you time to rest and recharge.
NTA
As you said yourself, you’ve taken care of your sister several times and you don’t mind it, but you’re an adult and you have other responsibilities, and in this situation I think your parents are taking advantage and the child is their responsibility. I would advise you to talk to them and explain that you don’t mind helping them out from time to time, but you won’t always be able to.
NTA. Stand your ground and hold up your boundaries. Every once in a while is one thing but from what I’m hearing, it’s every Friday or at least once a week. You’ve got a life to live yourself. There’s no reason that they can’t find someone else to babysit on a regular basis. I find it awfully suspicious that the babysitter is always unavailable on Friday. You’re being used and you don’t deserve the guilt trips, don’t fall for it! And they also have the option to professionally hire someone who does show up with more experience as well, and while it may cost them more, that’s their problem.
NTA. I assume you don’t live with your parents or otherwise financially depend on them, right? So you’d be perfectly free to move farther away if you got a great job offer in another city, or something like that? You can’t possibly be a reliable childcare provider for your mom and stepdad long-term, they haven’t thought this through. You weren’t part of their decision to have a baby, you aren’t part of their household, and you shouldn’t be a core part of their childcare plan.
I think you need to push through the guilt-tripping and set some hard limits with your mom on how often you’ll babysit. If you keep saying yes when she guilts you, you’re just teaching her that your “no” means “not until you make me feel guilty enough about saying no.”
Here’s a script if you want to use it: “I don’t want to be her backup childcare provider. I want to be her sister. When I watch her because I want to spend time and bond with her, we both have a great time. When I watch her because I’ve allowed myself to be guilted into canceling other plans so I can babysit, I feel resentful and it makes me less eager to spend more time with her. I’ve even thought about how nice it would be to live farther away so that I’d be unable to babysit last minute. If I keep saying yes when I really wanted to say no, the resentment is going to damage our relationship. From now on, I can babysit in one of two ways: if we make a plan at least a few days in advance that we’re both excited about, or if it’s a genuine emergency. But I can’t be your backup when the babysitter cancels. You’ll need to find another paid babysitter for that.”
NTA they are taking advantage of you, as long as you allow it they will continue to take advantage of you.
I raised 3 kids as a single parent. I always scheduled child care in advance, and always paid the sitters.
I didn’t make my situation be someone else’s problem.
(I did get free childcare when my SIL would go out together. My Bro said it was easier to take care of four rather than one, as they all kept each other busy.)
NTA – you’re not the parent, they are. They can’t expect free childcare on a whim. You have a life, a partner, a home and dogs. If they couldn’t handle having a baby, then they shouldn’t have had one.
You need to have an adult conversation with your mother about her guilt-tripping behaviours whenever you can’t babysit. She needs to respect your boundaries and recognise that you are young and have a life seperate from being her on-call childcare worker.
You are not the one who chose to have a child, so you are not the one who should be responsible for caring for it.
Your mom is the selfish one, she knows how hard it is to raise a child because she has already done it. It is horrible that she took that on again while expecting that you would take over for her.
Thank goodness you don’t live in their home anymore or you would be the full time babysitter, the heck with your life as long as your mom gets her way.
NTA. They are asking way too much of you. If someone has to stay home from work and not get paid to watch a child, it should be one of the parents, not an adult half-sibling.
NTA. Your parents and your baby sister are so lucky to have you in their life. Perhaps if your parents are the ones bearing the consequence of this, they will feel a different way about not being able to change baby sitters.
nta. You didn’t have a kid, and it’s not your job to sacrifice every weekend.
NTA. You do not owe them free childcare. The baby is their responsibility, not yours. Throw in if and when you can. That’s it.
OP when you talk to your Mom about your boundaries please ask them to look for a more reliable babysitter. One that will work 5 days a week and not call out on every Friday. That’s the solution your parents are responsible for as it’s really quite simple.
NTA. Mom’s using you for free babysitting. She isn’t concerned about the untrustworthy baby sitter she has because it is not a problem for her because she makes it your problem. Your sister has two adults who are her parents and the only solution the two of them can come up with is to dump her on you. That’s weak.
Start setting firm boundaries and don’t listen to the manipulative, guilt-tripping BS.
NTA, Your mom is grown now and needs to figure out how to take care of this baby without you.