Okay, I don’t think I am the asshole but everyone is telling me I am so i need extra points of view here.
I am 17 and i just started university. My mom married ”Marcus” one month ago and she is going on her honeymoon this month. The duration is 4 days. I am the older sister, i have 2 siblings one with 12y and other with 4. And my mother told me I would have to babysit them while she and her husband are in their honeymoon.
I’ve always babysat them in the afternoon since both my mom and Marcus work. But i can only babysit them after 3pm, cause of my classes. I told them they would have to get a babysitter for the morning because the 12 is in school already but the 4 year old isn’t, and i cant just miss 4 entire days of classes to stay with him.
She said she can’t do that because they spent a lot of money on this honeymoon and the wedding and they are also paying a loan they used to buy a land to build a house. I told her, that I really can’t miss this classes, I study medicine so watching the classes is extremely important, not to mention I have practice classes which i have a limited amount of times i can’t miss. She insisted saying it was a one time thing and that “she can’t have anything”. Marcus said i had this responsibility since I’m their older sister.
I refused, and they are telling everyone about it, and everyone is taking their side. I don’t get it? Am I being selfish here? I have classes from 9am to 3pm almost everyday. The 12y enters school at 8:15 so i can drop him off. But i cant leave the 4y alone and i can’t also stay home to be with him.
Please tell me if I’m in the wrong and be brutally honest. And if you have any advice i would deeply appreciate it.
Edit: I’m not sure if everyone will see this, i dont think we can pin comments. But i talked with one of my cousins and he accepted taking care of my 4y brother during the time im in class. His wife loves kids and they dont have any yet so she said it would be a good experience! I havent told my mother so im not sure how she’ll react!
NTA
Your mother’s poor planning is not your emergency.
This is something she should have *discussed* with you, not demanded, long before the plans were set.
And of course you shouldn’t miss your classes.
Right! The 17 yr old OP is not the parent, it’s the parents job. If so many relatives feel the need to tell OP they are the asshole why can’t they help out for 4 days in the mornings?
You know it’s cause they don’t want to do that shit either.
My guess is that they all have ‘real jobs’ and can’t take time off of work … and they don’t see the hypocrisy in telling OP to miss 4 days of med school when they won’t take off work.
The best solution would be if 4 of those people piling on to OP would each take off one day to cover the morning shift with the 4 year old, OP would still be saving their mom so much money by babysitting for the other 18 hours a day during the honeymoon and nobody would be sacrificing their education or career.
Right?! Maybe if she’d talked to OP in advance, they could have worked something out together.
Something like planning the honeymoon for a time when OP is between terms and doesn’t have classes. Or like asking a supportive adult relative to stay over and do the lion’s share of looking after the kids, while OP maybe helps out after classes finish.
But just…dumping this responsibility on OP as a *fait accompli* with no discussion, no opportunity for adjustment or recognition that attending your university (medical course!) classes is important, is an absolute asshole move to make.
I tried for that to happen. I told her days i could but she completely ignored it
She is going to dump them on you. You need to make a plan.
Yes, after all the advice here which i deeply appreciate im thinking of going to a friend’s house a day before if she ends up leaving I’ll try and get them to stay with a relative who’s on my mom side. Im not sure if it will work but they’re leaving next week so we’ll see.
>Marcus said i had this responsibility since I’m their older sister.
What the hell is wrong with adults? This isn’t your responsibility and it’s your problem. They need to find an adult to help them. NTA.
Marcus doesn’t want to pay for the babysitter since none of them are “his” children. He’s going to force OP to be the parent because all he cares about is getting his “happy time” with his wife. He doesn’t care if OP is a med student or not.
Sure, honeymoon is nothing easy to organise and honeymoon is important, but your education is important too. It’s your future, and you are not a parent to be a temporary mom for your siblings, so I think that a babysitter is definitely not a bad option, especially since it’s only four days. Medicine is hard to catch up on, too. Missing even the smallest details can become a complex problem.
17 year olds arent responsible for their siblings. Their parents are.
So they organized a honeymoon but not child care…
Nta. It is not your responsibility to discard classes because your mother and Marcus are careless in their planning. You are a good sibling for offering to look after them in the evenings.
Do not give in. She’s the parent and she’s the one who should have been arranging care and not assuming you would do it. I don’t know what is wrong with the rest of your family that they agree with her disgusting behavior. That said, if she tries to do the whole,” I’m just going to leave so you have to come home” bit, feel free to tell her,” If you leave your children home expecting me to show up, I will call CPS on you.” NTA