This SIL Demanded Her Sister Change Her Work Schedule to Drive Her Kid to School Because Walking 15 Minutes is “Too Far”

Living with your parents as an adult is a delicate dance of boundaries and rent payments. But when your older sibling and their entire family move back in due to a plumbing disaster, that delicate dance turns into a mosh pit of chaos. One 23-year-old healthcare worker on Reddit is currently living this nightmare, and her sister-in-law’s entitlement is so high it might actually need its own zip code.

Our narrator is doing everything right. She is 23, works a demanding job in healthcare with irregular shifts, pays rent to her mom, and helps with chores. Her life is busy but manageable. Then, the plumbing apocalypse hits her brother’s new house. He, his wife “Rose,” and their 6-year-old daughter move back into the family home for a month while their toilet and heating get fixed. It is a tight squeeze, but family helps family, right?

The trouble started almost immediately with the school run. Rose approached the narrator with a request. Since the hospital where the narrator works is only a five-minute drive from the niece’s school, Rose figured her sister-in-law could play taxi driver every morning. It sounds convenient on paper, but reality had other plans.

The narrator explained that she simply cannot commit to a daily 8:00 AM drop-off. She works in healthcare. Sometimes she is coming off a brutal overnight shift at 9:00 AM. Sometimes she starts way earlier. Her schedule is not a consistent 9-to-5, and she can’t just leave patients hanging because the school bell is ringing.

Rose, instead of understanding that the world doesn’t revolve around her schedule, got upset. She actually asked the narrator why she couldn’t “just explain to [her] boss” that she needs to be available for school drop-off. I am screaming. She wanted a 23-year-old to walk into a hospital and tell her superiors that she needs to restrict her availability—which would result in fewer shifts and less money—to drive a niece who has two able-bodied parents.

Here is the part where the math just does not add up. The brother works full-time and takes the car. Fine. But Rose? Rose works one shift a week. On Sundays. This means she is free Monday through Friday mornings. She has no job to rush to. She has nowhere to be.

And the school? It is a 15-minute walk from the house. Fifteen minutes. On flat ground. With safe crossings. The narrator even pulled up Google Maps to prove it. But Rose dug her heels in and insisted that 15 minutes is “too far” to walk with a 6-year-old.

I am sorry but unless that sidewalk is made of lava, a 15-minute walk is a pleasant morning stroll. It is good exercise. It is bonding time. It is literally how millions of children get to school every single day. The idea that a grown woman cannot walk a mile round-trip because it is “too far” is absolutely baffling entitlement.

The narrator stood her ground, but now the family is piling on. The mom, who used to walk the narrator to that exact same school as a kid, is playing peacemaker and saying it would be a “nice thing” to do. And the brother is calling the narrator “selfish” because their old neighbor used to do it.

Let’s be real here. The neighbor did it because she had a kid going to the same school. It was convenient. The narrator is being asked to risk her job and sleep schedule to save her sister-in-law from a mild cardio workout.

Is she the ahole? Absolutely not. Rose is perfectly capable of walking her own child to school. She just doesn’t want to. She wants the convenience of a chauffeur without the cost of an Uber. The narrator is right to protect her job and her sanity. If Rose thinks 15 minutes is a trek, she is in for a rude awakening when she realizes the world won’t carry her everywhere she wants to go.