The Internet has backed a woman who refused to babysit her brother’s children so that she could stay home with her husband and spend the day by the pool instead.
In a post shared on Reddit on Monday under the username ArtisticYesterday207, a woman explained that she was never close to her older brother growing up, but since he became a father, she’s been helping him out with his children, even though she’s childless by choice and would rather not have to deal with kids.
Recently, she said he called her up on a Saturday morning, which happened to be a beautiful, sunny day, asking her to babysit his kids so his wife could go get her nails done. But the poster refused saying she had plans to spend the day by the pool with her husband.
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Her brother then told her she could go after his wife was done, and she would still have time to enjoy her day with her husband, but she said she refused.
She later received an angry text from her sister-in-law, who was cursing her for making her cancel her nail appointment, calling her immature amongst other names. Her mom also told her she could have helped since she didn’t have real plans.
While many Americans are lucky enough to have family helping them out with their childcare, others don’t, and they have to spend on nannies and babysitters. The average hourly rate for babysitters is $14.89 per hour, according to data from the career resources site Zippia.
Florence Ann Romano, a personal growth strategist and the author of Build Your Village: A Guide to Finding Joy and Community in Every Stage of Life, told Newsweek that it is nobody’s right to qualify or validate someone’s plans.
She said: “It is also not the sister’s responsibility to jump whenever her brother asks for a favor (which this is—not an obligation or her job). Moreover, her sister-in-law is completely out of bounds for even addressing her displeasure.
“The sister shouldn’t even respond to that rude and inappropriate text message. Both her brother and sister-in-law are behaving [like] little entitled brats, and those actions shouldn’t even be dignified with a response. It is neither worth the sister’s time nor owed to them.”
The post quickly went viral on Reddit, getting over 10,800 upvotes and 4,500 comments. However, it has since been deleted by the site’s spam filters and the poster’s account appears suspended. Newsweek could not verify the details of the case.
One user, Sidneyreb, commented: “[Not The A******]. Daddio can’t PARENT his children for a few hours to give his wife a little ‘me time’ so it’s OP’s fault? Tell me how much this man dislikes kids without pointing to his failure to have a good relationship with his younger sister.”
ALL_CAPS_VOICE said: “If you can’t handle 3 kids, then don’t have 3 kids. [Not The A******].” User Hausmannlife_Schweiz added: “[Not The A******]. I simply can’t understand people that have kids being so demanding that someone else watch their kids for them. It is laughable that this ‘father’ can’t be enough of a father to deal with his kids while his wife is gone for a bit. Why would anyone marry a man that helpless?”
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