Hi everyone, I’m not the best with words, English is a second language and I’m going to try my best to make sense.
I( 24F) live in a west African country, I live with my daughter (5F) , brother and sister (11M,14F) and mom and dad ( 53F, 75M).
I had my daughter at 19, and got abandoned by the dad, and most of my friends from that year. I tried having a job out of home but my mom almost cut ties with me because we have a family business I fully manage and she took it as betrayal. So now I manage the family business from marketing to sales to management to packing orders to client relations, accounting, billing…name it I do it. I also am the main household caretaker. I cook,clean, do dishes, laundry, lunch and dinner are on me, folding laundry and putting away on me, mopping and sweeping on me. All while managing the orders and making of our products, taking care of our two dogs and my daughter. I can even admit that I barely see or take care of my daughter most of the time except feeding, washing and dropping her off to school.
my sister and brother are no help, for example if I ask to set the table for dinner I can ask 10 times before they do it or before I give up and do it myself. every trhee days I find myself with the whole kitchen in the dishes because I don’t have time to wash everyday and my sister just refuses to do them every day.
so that leaves me to today. I’m on my third night without sleeping because we have two big markets coming and I’m staying up prepping + dealing with ongoing deliveries. after the truck left at 8 Am I slept until around 1pm which didn’t give me time to make a proper lunch. My parents got mad and bought lunch while I was Fighting to cook something quick. now my mom says I "decided" to not take care of them anymore and just care for me, that she’s as tired as me and I need to be more organized to be able to do everything without being tired. I broke down in tears because frankly, I’m burnt out and just depressed atp. and she got even madder calling me all sorts of names and badmouthing me with my dad.
Am I really that terrible ?
Am I an asshole for breaking down over making lunch?
Should I learn to be more organized and suck it up ?
a small edit : I already had a job once before but it didn’t work out for me , I stayed at family friend’s house for 6 months and tried to save up for rent but it was too expensive. moving out would be extremely hard on me right now in my country you have to pay you rent + 3 months of rent and rent is extremely expensive
OP, you are NTA.
What you are describing is an extremely toxic and abusive environment. You are sacrificing time with your own child because your mom can’t be bothered to help raise her own. If you can, please find a way to move out and support yourself and your daughter on your own. You clearly have some great skills to stay on top of an insane workload!
NTA. you are going above and beyond. also, you are a single, working mom living with people who do appreciate everything you do. That is Too much! it is remarkable you did not break down sooner. Either you have to set some hard boundaries, for example, I will only make lunch 2 a week or no longer cook at all. **Or** bring in a nanny- house cleaner once a week to help with duties. This will cost money but what is the price of your sanity?
NTA. You are burnt out and need help desperately. Your parents are being abusive by placing all the chores as well as business management on you. You can only do so much. Talk with them calmly, if you can, and tell them that they need to organize a household chore chart for your brother and sister. They are old enough to assume household duties and probably even do some cooking. If that doesn’t work, very quietly look into options for getting a job and childcare elsewhere, because unless your parents begin to appreciate that you are the reason their business is successful, you are wasting your talents. I know they will try to put a lot of guilt on you, but you have more than paid them back for any help they gave you with your baby and living situation. Continuing at your current state is unsustainable.
NTA
Move. Please, move. They are using you as their surrogate Mom for your siblings, and using you as a Maid to do ALL their stuff. Grow a back bone, take your daughter and get out. Let them figure their own business out.
NTA, stress is real. What exactly is every other member of the family doing while you’re being Cinderella?
NTA what exactly do your parents do? They seem to do nothing. Turn the narrative. Turn every criticism into a question about the closest person not helping. You decide what you can handle and need to prioritize, just know that every accusation is from now on a confession. Your parents make you do everything at the office and a home, they are lazy. They are not fulfilling their obligations to their family/business. Your brother is 14, why does he not have chores? Are his limbs broken or is he just useless. Your sister needs to be reminded of basics, why have your parents failed to teach her responsibility. Go hard, I bet you $10 you took all of this stuff on because no one else in that house is able to replace you and your hard work.
NTA. Sounds like you need to move out to me.
BTW, your English is excellent. You write much better than a lot of people here in the USA.
thank you that actually felt good to read
My god OP, that sounds like hell.
NTA.
As soon as a read your location and your the oldest female in your family, it was clear NTA.
Culture plays such a role in the way women are treated in their family.