hello! I am 17f, and I have a half brother who is 4 years old. Every 2nd Wednesday of every month I have to watch my brother while my step mom and dad have date night. I normally watch my brother, if I’m not at my mom’s house.
So, about 2 months ago, when I was babysitting my brother, we were playing with his marbles that he’s had since he was like 2 and a half. We were feeding the marbles to his toy puppy, and I said ‘now, do we eat marbles?’ and my brother shook his head, and i added ‘do animals eat marbles?’ and he shook his head again. Now, as the older sister that I am, I’m proud that I was able to teach him something. I then stand up to go get the pizza out of the oven to cut, etc etc… The rest of the night goes fine, and I put him to bed without any hassle. Next night though, my stepmom is standing in the living room talking to my dad while he sits in the La-z-boy. And this is pretty strange, cuz she’s normally sitting down and crafting or whatever. She looks at me, and starts scolding me on how I let my brother eat a marbles. And at this point, I am insanely confused. I tell her, ‘I told him not to eat marbles, he was perfectly fine!’ and the look she gave me just made me shiver. She looked at me like I was a monster or something, and she told me that he told her that he ate a marble… and my older sister proudness is gone at this point.
Ever since then, I haven’t been able to be in the house with my brother alone. I feel awful, because I should’ve been watching over him the entire time, and I neglected too watch him while I cut the pizza and texted my friends. I just didn’t expect it since this has been NO problem in the past. My stepmom has banned me from sitting even near my brother, and we have had many conflicts, and I just feel awful. All my friends call me the one in the wrong, so I decided to go on reddit, (idk why lol..) and ask for opinions. Am I the asshole here?
Did he eat a marble or just say he did? Like have you verified? Kids say shit
Yeah at 4 y/o his language skills might not be the best. He could’ve meant that the toy was eating the marbles or just goofing. What do you even do in that situation just monitor his poops and if he complains about stomach pain?
Also at 4, kids are just learning to say things for shock value. My 4yo has told me a number of stories that I consider to be, well… unlikely.
For instance, I don’t believe Daddy ate a poo.
Yeah my 3 y/o nephew one time he had robot babies in his tummy and they would come eat me then snuggle him in bed. It was wild because he was the sweetest kid but had the most insane stories lol
Yeah, according to my two year old, she gets to pet feral cats. Told her grandma that very proudly.
She doesn’t. Our neighborhood has a bunch of feral cats, but we don’t pet them. She did get to pet a neighbor’s *pet* cat, who is vaccinated and taken care of and decidedly NOT feral. But I guess in her world, all cats are feral cats.
Luckily my MIL is used to little kids and worked in early childhood education and was like “oh, you pet a feral cat? Yeah ok, I doubt that 🤣”
NTA. He’s four. Four is plenty old enough to know not to eat marbles. And he’s plenty old enough to be in the other room while you cut a pizza.
NTA. Why on earth did his parents buy him marbles at that age? Hugely irresponsible.
Nta. Did he even go to the doctor to see if he really ate a marble? Or was the only reaction to blame you?
It sounds like you did your best with what you knew, and now your step is going off the deep end acting like you are a threat to the kid because you took your eyes off him for a few seconds.
NTA. Whether you gave him the idea of eating the marble, despite explicitly telling him not to, is kinda besides the point. Sticking something in your mouth is pretty normal behaviour for small children, including four-year-olds.
Depending on the size, he probably shouldn’t have had marbles at four years old (almost certainly not when he first got them at 2.5yo). They’re choking hazards. If you had brought marbles home for him without checking with his parents about whether they were okay or not, you would be irresponsible. But *she approved the toys*. She is the parent, and it is absurd for her to expect to give a child an unsafe toy and then expect a 17 year old non-parent to magically prevent them from playing with it in an unsafe way.
But also… did he *actually* eat a marble? Like, did they find one in the toilet or something? Because it seems entirely likely that he’s talking about “eating marbles” the way the two of you were having the puppy “eat marbles” (i.e. in imagination only). Four year olds are not reliable literal narrators of their own actions a lot of the time.
NTA. The convo about eating marbles seems a little odd to me- and with little kids sometimes they only process the last two or three words in a sentence, making “don’t eat marbles” somewhat risky because it may have put the idea to eat marbles into his head.
I’m not convinced he swallowed a marble, for real. Did he pass it? Did your stepmom take him to the hospital and get an x ray? Kids do say weird stuffs and it’s just as possible he wanted to see her reaction when he said “I ate a marble” since he just learned humans don’t eat marbles.
Also your stepmom seems unwell. Not even letting you sit next to him? Yikes.
I hope you get the support you need.
Ah, this makes me see my mistake. Thank you for telling me, especially with my brother, he is very influenced by stuff. So that’s why I told him, ‘don’t eat marbles’. Maybe that was on my bad because I didn’t really enforce it? Ehh… idk. Thanks for the advice!!
I will also say I wasn’t told they went to the hospital for x rays, and by now, he’s surely passed it. They just said ‘your brother told me he ate a marble while you were babysitting him yesterday!’
This sort of thing can just happen. When my little sister was around 3 she was showing off a painting she had made that was covered in soup beans. She asked my mum if she could take the painting to the living room and my mother said the fateful words “yes, but don’t put any beans up your nose “
Literally seconds after this child walked out of the room she came back in with tears streaming down her face wailing “mama i put a bean up my nose “
We joke now that it’s like the idea had never crossed her mind until our mother told her not to do it.
It’s not your fault and it’s not through anything you did .
I’m going to go ahead and assume that your “perfect parent” stepmother has not had her eyes on your brother at every second of the day. I’m sure she’s used the bathroom at least right? So he could have just as easily put something in his mouth on her watch as he did yours. It can happen in 2 seconds.
Also, did he actually even eat a marble or is he just saying he did? Has she taken him to seek medical care over this? lol. I’m just curious.
Lastly, it’s pretty abusive to you and your brother both that she won’t let you near him. That’s childish and unnecessary. You didn’t and are not trying to hurt your little brother. Sounds like she needs to grow up. What is your dad saying about this?
Don’t beat yourself up.
NTA
Here’s the deal. I worked in an ER for a year. Do you know how many small children came in having eaten objects they shouldn’t have in that year? A huge number. Do you know how many of them were actively being watched by their actual parents when this happened? The vast, vast, majority.
How many times did this actually cause a problem for the kid? Once, only potentially, because the kid may or may not have eaten a toothpick (two year olds are not terribly reliable) and wood doesn’t show up on an xray, so we couldn’t verify if she’d eaten it or not. Parents couldn’t find the toothpick. Parents should not have had toothpicks around the child in the first place. Kid got a 24 hour stay in the hospital so if they had eaten a toothpick, and if perf’d something on the way out, kid was in the right place for immediate action. No, we did not call CPS on the parents, because this is utterly normal for both kids and vigilant parents, because toddlers are danger magnets.
You did nothing wrong. No one will ever know if your brother actually ate a marble. Even if he did, he’s fine. No one should have given him marbles in the first place, but that’s on his actual parents, not you.