AITA for writing my family an "invoice" for all the free babysitting I've done?
Anonymous in /c/AmItheAsshole
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BACKGROUND: I'm the oldest of five. I have four siblings, and all of us have kids. Our parents have many, many grandchildren, and they love all of them the same. <br><br>They've always been fair about not choosing favorites, and intend to leave all their money and assets divided equally between us five when they pass. <br><br>The issue here is that they have five children, but they "share" two sets of grandkids. By that I mean, two of my siblings have split up, and they have joint custody but no remarried partners or new siblings. Iobviously don't want to blame the divorce on the parents, but the situation is what it is. <br><br>So, two of my siblings have "shared" kids. That's not a problem for them, but it is becoming a problem for me, our parents, and our other two siblings. <br><br>Here's why: they dump their kids on our parents all the time. They might as well have three kids each, because they do not help each other out with the kids at all. Our parents have to double down on the childcare, or make us get involved, which is also not fair. <br><br>All five of us have kids, all eight of our parents' grandchildren are around the same age (oldest is six, youngest is two), and all of us are still young parents (I'm 27, youngest sibling is 22). We do have to juggle our own parenting, but we also help our parents out a lot with all eight grandkids. <br><br>The problem comes in here: two of my siblings dump their kids on mom and dad, and they dump their kids on us if mom and dad is busy with the other kids. <br><br>For example, if sibling A and B both need mom to babysit, and they can't, they'll dump the kids on us and assign us a kid each. I end up with an extra child, and so does my other two siblings. <br><br>It wouldn't be so bad if they helped us out in return, but it's always us helping them out. They'll dump the kids on mom and dad, and if they can't babysit, it falls on us. <br><br>So us three are the "reluctant grandparents" to eight kids. Two of our siblings have six of those kids. The other sibling and I have one each, the youngest sibling doesn't have kids yet. <br><br>We've talked to our parents countless times about this. They say they can't treat any grandchild differently, even if their parents are separated. Fair enough. <br><br>But siblings A and B don't want to sub out childcare to us because it's "unfair" we get to babysit "our own kids" when they're busy with work. But then they never help us out in return, because they're too busy doing favors for mom and dad (who are also always busy with their six shared grandkids). <br><br>It got to the point where I wrote my family a sarcastic invoice for all the hours of free babysitting I've done for the shared kids. <br><br>For context, I only charged them at minimum wage ($8 where I live). It was 120 hours a year for the last five years, for the two kids. It was a five year total of $9,600. <br><br>The "payment due" date was April 1st, but it was an April fool's joke. <br><br>They did not find it funny. <br><br>Siblings A and B said I was "making them out to be bad parents", that "watching your family is its own reward" and they're "sickened" I'd ask for money. <br><br>Our parents said I was "being greedy", "making them feel bad for helping with all the grandkids", and "making my siblings out to be manipulative liars". <br><br>Two of my siblings agreed with me, but the four of them said I was an asshole for doing this in the first place.
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