Taking care of and entertaining young children is a struggle for any parents, let alone a parent working from home.

Someone needs a snack during your work call, or one of your kids got their head stuck in the fence right before your manager’s meeting.

That’s why many parents invest in a babysitter on their busier weeks, or drop the kids off with grandma and grandpa for the day.

But not this user’s neighbor!

Instead, she expected OP to not only watch and take care of her kids for free during Spring Break, but since OP was a teacher, expected she would be her babysitter for the entire summer too!

Check it out!

AITA for telling my neighbor I’m not her babysitter over the summer?

I (38F) have a neighbor, we’ll call her Sara (38F). I’m married with 2 girls (8&11), she has 2 boys (8&12).

Sara is married but her husband travels a lot for work and she works from home. I am a teacher so I have school breaks and summers “off”.

Over winter break Sara’s kids kept coming over to see if my kids could play. (Play means they have been sent over because they’re annoying mom and she’s trying to work).

OP said that while her and Sara’s kids used to be close, that was no longer the case.

Backstory, the kids were friends when they were younger, but as they got older they don’t really have much in common and they’ve drifted apart.

Her kids go to a parochial school and my kids go to public school so they don’t even have teachers or classmates in common.

They don’t have a ton in common anymore and when they do play Sara’s kids fight, A LOT! (With each other & with my kids).

And the other problem with Sarah’s kids? Their attitude!

One day over winter break the younger one came to the door to see if my kids could play and I told him they didn’t want to play right now.

Sara sent me a text saying that she was on a work call and she could really use some time with the boys out of the house.

I caved and told my girls to just try and find something they could do together. 10 minutes later my oldest came upstairs crying.

She said that one of the boys made a nasty comment about how boring our house was and it was dumb that I wouldn’t let him play Xbox.

The Xbox is my husband’s and it’s in our family room where I was doing laundry and watching a show. I told the boys if they were bored they were more than welcome to leave.

But with spring break approaching, it seemed like Sarah was getting ready to dump her kids on OP.

Now it’s almost spring break and Sara just asked if I could watch the boys two days because she has 2 busy work days and I’m “off work”.

I told her no because we would be on vacation in Florida visiting family. She said ok and “jokingly” said, “I guess I’ll just hit you up in the summer”.

I replied and said that i will NOT be baby sitting her kids over the summer. True emergencies I would, of course.

I said, “I’m sorry, but just because I’m not AT school during the summer does not mean that I am your free childcare”

Yes, I don’t physically go to work over the summer, but I take online classes for my Masters and I teach online summer school. Meaning, I am also working from home.

But Sarah was less than happy with her previously free babysitting option now explicitly turning her down!

She blew up and me and told me I should help her because she’s alone a lot and now that the kids are older it’s harder to keep them entertained all day.

I told her that I didn’t care if the kids played together outside during the summer.

But I reinforced that I was not going to be a caretaker or responsible for her kids unless she was going to compensate me.

And even when OP said her kids were no longer friends, Sarah didn’t want to hear it!

I tried explaining to her that the kids do not get along the way that they used to and that my kids don’t fight with each other the way her kids fight with each other.

And finally, that my kids don’t really want them to be at our house all the time.

Now she’s furious and not speaking and her oldest told my oldest that I’m not a good person because I won’t help my neighbor.

Am I really the AH because I won’t watch her kids over the summer?

So you don’t want to deal with your own kids, but you think your neighbor with two children of her own is absolutely thrilled to watch your little goblins? I mean come on!

Reddit was definitely on OP’s side, with many saying Sarah was only taking from OP, not giving.

And this user couldn’t believe the entitlement to think that other people NEED to watch your kids.

This person said childcare is an issue for Sarah and her husband to sort out, not Sarah and OP.

Many said while emergencies are a different story, for events you can plan for, there’s no reason OP should be the one to handle her kids.

And finally, this user said even if Sarah was offering to pay OP, she was under no obligation to say yes.

Would a good neighbor send their kids over to your house everyday and just expect you to watch them?

No. Get real!

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.