Caretaking is a big point of contention among families. We see drama surrounding it all the time on the Reddit “Am I The A—hole” subreddit. There are questions over who should be paid, which family members are (or aren’t) allowed to babysit, and then there’s the matter of whose rules should be followed.
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Now Reddit is weighing in on if family members are required to help each other with the kids. And so a woman looked to the internet to find out if she is an a—hole for not babysitting her brother’s kids. At the top of the post, she shared that she has chosen not to have kids. Her brother — who she was “never very close” with — has three kids under the age of 5 and is “always asking for help” with them.
“Saturday was a beautiful day,” she said, getting into the story. “My husband and I had plans to spend the day in our pool. At 10 a.m., [my brother] calls me and asks me to come over and help with the kids for an hour or two because his wife is going to get her nails done.”
This woman said no, telling him that she had plans for a pool day, and so the drama began.
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Her Brother’s Reaction
Image Credit: Adobe Stock The woman who originally posted (the “OP”) said her brother “had a fit” and told her she could come help and then go home and spend time at the pool.
“Which is true,” OP said. “He only lives about 15 mins from me, but honestly I just didn’t want to have to spend the morning with his kids and was really not in the mood to babysit. So I again said no, hung up, and had a nice day with my husband.”
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Her Sister-In-Law’s Reaction
Image Credit: Adobe Stock OP then got a “nasty” text from her SIL about the situation.
“She was pissed she has to cancel her nail appointment,” OP said. “She pretty much called me an immature POS for not helping.”
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Reddit’s Reaction
Image Credit: Adobe Stock More than 4.4K followers are wondering WTAF and agree that OP is not the a—hole here. In fact, there’s a different villain entirely.
OP’s brother!
“Daddio can’t PARENT his children for a few hours to give his wife a little ‘me time’ so it’s OP’s fault?” the top comment (with 21K upvotes!) said.
“I couldn’t believe the SIL CANCELLED her appointment! What the hell?! I read this not realizing that the outcome could be that because it’s totally unreasonable that the guy can’t parent his kids for a couple of hours alone. Can it be that he’s managed to father three kids and done no solo parenting? What a terrible partner.”
“Did I read this correctly? A 40-year-old parent can’t keep his own kids alive for a few hours, and a third party is somehow to blame?”
“You should get him a $2 sympathy card and just write ‘welcome to parenthood’ in it,” one person suggested. “And add a gift bag full of condoms with it,” another said.
“Gotta love the entitlement of asking you to ‘drop everything’ without notice, on the assumption that SIL could go and have some ‘self-care’ time at the expense of yours. Next time, don’t tell him what your plans are, go full on Phoebe [Buffay from Friends] and say, ‘I wish I could help, but I don’t want to.’”
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