Few would argue that parenting is a job—and, importantly, one of the most difficult, grueling, and not always appreciated jobs ever. That’s why many parents, desperately trying to maintain their work-life balance, are so happy when they find a family member willing to help with babysitting and whatnot.
But what often starts as an act of goodwill often turns into an “obligation”—in the eyes of parents, of course. For example, as happened to the user u/FoodLopsided9890, the author of today’s story, whose mom and stepfather had been shamelessly using her as a free babysitter since her teen years.
More info: Reddit
The author of the post is a 21-year-old woman who had been living with her parents until recently
Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
The author’s mom and her stepfather had two younger kids, so they put the burden of taking care of them onto the author’s shoulders
Image credits: FoodLopsided9890
Image credits: Tanaphong Toochinda / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
The eldest daughter did her best to take care of half-siblings, but she’s also a student and has a job, so it wasn’t easy for her to combine it all
Image credits: FoodLopsided9890
Image credits: Victoria Romulo / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
So the author finally decided to move out of her parents’ home, and one day she did it
Image credits: FoodLopsided9890
The parents got livid over her “betrayal”, and the mom even banned her from seeing the half-siblings
So now meet the Original poster (OP), a 20-year-old woman, who is in her second year at college, and has a decent job as well. So everything would be just great – except that our heroine’s mother and her stepdad have perceived her in recent years almost exclusively as a free babysitter for their 2 kids, 4 and 2 years old. Accordingly, the girl has almost no opportunity to enjoy her youth to the fullest.
Meet and hang out with friends? Great, but her parents urgently need to go somewhere for work, and there’s no one to leave the kids with. Do her hobbies? Yes, but first she needs to take her little sis to preschool, feed both siblings, and in the evening, her mom and stepfather have a romantic date, and guess who they expect to take care of the kids? Well, this has been the case literally since the moment the 4YO was born.
Over these four years, the parents regularly guilt-tripped the author, so that even after saving up money to move out, she still felt remorse for not helping her family. But common sense prevailed anyway – one fine day, when no one was home, she packed up her belongings and moved out to the new place, about 45 minutes away from her parents’ house. True, she didn’t tell anyone the new address.
Needless to say, the parents lost it completely. They didn’t want to hear that now they would have to fork out untold amounts of money for the services of a nanny, and, despite the OP’s genuine desire to help them with babysitting from time to time, the mom stopped contacting the eldest daughter and even banned her from seeing her half-siblings. So our heroine decided to take it all online, seeking public support.
Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Well, judging by expert opinions, the option that the author offered to the parents after her move looks the healthiest and most efficient. In other words, siblings should simply remain siblings, and the “child—nanny” relationship is mostly unacceptable for them. Such a situation most likely indicates the presence of some serious issues in the family.
“Older siblings should be older siblings who may occasionally provide temporary oversight. Older siblings should not be virtual stand-ins or replacements for mom and dad,” this dedicated article at Sibling Relationship Lab claims. “If your younger children are receiving more direct care and provision from older siblings than from parents, there is a problem.” In other words, everything described in our tale…
By the way, the author also notes that her stepfather is a rather toxic and narcissistic person, so perhaps her mom is under his negative influence, too. Be that as it may, almost all the commenters are quite sure that our heroine did absolutely the right thing here. “These are not your children, they are not your responsibility,” one of the responders reasonably wrote.
Some people in the comments even asked the OP to clarify whether she really doesn’t get any pay for her services – and the author confirmed that she pays for everything herself. The only thing her parents allowed her to do was not pay rent. So the folks online once again praised the girl for starting the process of separation from her parents in time. So do you, our readers, also agree with this assessment of the case?
Most commenters, however, claimed that the author did everything right, and her parents were just being toxic and entitled
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