It’s tough having kids.

As your kids get older, though, sometimes you still have to look out for their best interests.

Well that’s exactly where this story drops us.

AITA for refusing to let my sister take my kids anymore?

My sister (21) has 2 children, aged 3 and 3.5 months, and suffers from PPD/PPA. I (30f) have a 13yo son and a 11yo daughter.

School vacation just went by and my sister had asked if both of my children could go visit her for the week. I asked the kids and they said they wanted to, so I said yes.

Every single time my daughter FaceTimed me, she had my sister’s 3yo.

The slightly odd thing is that her kids really wanted to come home.

And the sister wanted to cling onto the time still left.

I didn’t think too much of it at the time because my daughter loves this little girl very much. But by day 5, both my kids were asking me to come get them. I show up and my sister starts begging me not to take the kids until Sunday (our original agreement) because “having them here makes my anxiety go away”. I simply told her the kids wanted to come home and left.

Wait til you hear what was actually going down.

Around dinner time my daughter made a comment about how she had the 3yo the entire time she was there.

To a point where I guess my sister even asked to have the 3yo sleep with my daughter so she could get up with her in the morning so she could sleep in.

My daughter stated that the only time my sister came downstairs was to shower or make food for herself.

The rest of the time, my kids were left to fend for themselves and take care of the 3yo – including meals.

My sister’s BF lives there full time and doesn’t work either, so he never leaves.

Is your jaw resting on your foot right now?

Therefore there were TWO adults in the house and neither of them watched their kid the entire time my kids were there.

I guess there was also multiple times that my sister asked my daughter to clean the house.

I didn’t confront my sister originally because I didn’t feel there was any point to it.

But she just called my daughter about an hour ago and my daughter says to me (while still on the phone) “Auntie wants to know if I can go back over there on Friday”.

I said “absolutely not” and went back to doing dishes.

The sister couldn’t leave it at that when there’s potential unpaid child labor out there, though.

Then my daughter hands me the phone; it’s my sister asking why my daughter can’t go there Friday.

So I say “because my daughter is not your maid or nanny. You made her wake up with your kid, take care of her all day, clean your house and then put her to sleep at night. My daughter is 11. She will not be parentified.”

She let her have it.

My sister immediately starts crying and says “it wasn’t like that, she was just helping me”.

So I told her that both my kids wouldn’t lie and tell me the exact same story if it didn’t happen and that PPA/PPD is not an excuse to pawn 100% of responsibilities off on a child, especially when her BF was there full time.

Now she’s basically saying it didn’t happen like that and that my kids were just “helping” her and that she enjoyed having them there because the noise helped her not to panic.

I told her it still wasn’t happening and she called me heartless and said this is the reason women with PPD don’t ask for help.

AITA?

Let’s see what folks had to say about this ridiculous situation.

This person stated the obvious for those in the back, like the sister.

One person suggested a legit spring trip for those awesome kids.

And this commenter couldn’t believe the projection coming out of the sister.

While one person pointed out something important.

Find your own ‘help’ from now on.

We’re all good here.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.