There is one question every parent dreads, but every child with siblings absolutely loves to ask: “Which one of us is your favorite?”
Cue the “I love all my children equally….” speech that has been rehearsed down to the word, but sometimes us kids just know deep down in our bones, no matter what they tell us.
Unfortunately for this concerned aunt, when she tried to keep one of her nephews from feeling neglected in favor of his baby brother, her sister absolutely freaked out on her!
Was she wrong to comment on someone else’s parenting? Decide for yourself!
AITA for telling someone she needs to let someone babysit her youngest son sometimes?
My sister Laine (30f) has two sons. Jake (6) and Luke (1). She’s a single mom and the boys have two different dads and both are uninvolved.
Until Luke was born a year ago Laine and Jake had their “things” together, that mom-son time for them to just bond.
Jake loved it and when it stopped after Luke was born it really hurt his feelings.
Laine told him that mom-son time had to stop now that he had a brother who needed her time.
But she said the “mom-son” time only stopped for Jake, not for Luke!
But where the problem comes in is Laine has no problem sending Jake to me or to our parents or our grandparents while she spends mom-son time with Luke.
A few times we have offered to babysit Luke so she can have time with Jake as well and she has always said no.
And Jake was definitely not to happy about his younger brother being the only one that got to spend alone time with Mom!
In recent weeks Laine has been complaining that Jake doesn’t seem to like Luke and has shown zero interest in playing with him or interacting with him.
She told me Jake refused to sit with Luke when she asked him to so she could get some photos of them.
Another day he waited to eat his lunch until she had Luke down for a nap even though she knew he was hungry.
She told me Jake won’t even touch Luke or look at him.
When she tried gently to tell her why Jake was feeling so resentful, her sister was having none of it!
I asked her if she felt like it might be jealousy because Luke gets time with her alone when Jake doesn’t.
She said no.
I told her Jake had asked for mom-son time with her and she said no.
She told me because he’s a big boy and Luke is a baby.
I told her Jake was still her baby too and deserved her time just as much as Luke.
She asked what she would do with Luke and I told her we’d offered to babysit so she could have time with Jake.
Just like we do with Jake and did when he was a baby.
She told me it wasn’t happening.
But that refusal didn’t stop her sister from continuing to complain to her about the problem!
A few days ago she started complaining again about Jake not paying any attention to Luke and acting so resentful of him.
I told her I explained how she could help with that and she ignored me.
She told me I gave her no valid advice.
I said I had. And she ignored it.
I told her she needs to let us babysit Luke sometimes or Jake is going to continue feeling replaced and never successfully get him to bond with Luke.
She told me I had no right to tell her what to do, screw me because I’m still a kid (21), and that I don’t need to interfere in her parenting.
Why can’t her sister see her behavior is clearly having a negative effect on her oldest?
Reddit assured OP that she wasn’t in the wrong, and did not hold back one bit about their assessment of her sister’s parenting skills.
And this user said Moms like her sister only contribute to the huge crisis of toxic masculinity.
And this person said just because she was young didn’t mean her advice was any less valid.
Finally, this user said her sister is only setting her son up to be telling his own AITA story in 18 years when he’s about to move out!
He’s a big boy?
Ma’am he’s SIX YEARS OLD!
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.