Family expectations can clash with personal principles, especially when cultural norms are involved.

One woman is facing backlash for wanting to adopt her brother’s child differently than her family expects.

Take a look at the story…

AITA for refusing to raise my brothers child for him?

I need to provide a little context:

I was adopted by the people I consider my real parents when I was 7.

My biological father is my adopted mother’s brother, and she adopted my sister and me from him because he’s a nut job.

We were all raised with the knowledge that we were adopted.

If I’m being honest, the notion of adoption isn’t really a thing in my culture as biological parenthood is very important.

Families will just take in a child from an incompetent relative and raise them alongside their own children, but the child is always aware of who their biological parents are.

Wow.

The biological parents are usually involved as well but aren’t the child’s primary guardians and the child usually goes back to their biological parents once they’re more stable.

My younger brother (17M) is a little sh*t and he got his ex girlfriend pregnant. Furthermore, he cheated on her and she wants nothing to do with him.

She figured out she was pregnant too late to get an abortion in our state and her parents won’t let her travel to get one.

She wants nothing to do with my brother and our family and I can’t blame the poor girl.

This has all the makings for a really bad outcome.

Initially, my mother was going to take the baby and raise it, but obviously, considering how things are done in my culture, my mother was expecting my brothers ex to be involved.

Even when my mother promised that she’d let her sign over parental responsibility and move on, she just didn’t seem genuine about it.

The ex girlfriend decided to just speak to an adoption agency and adopt the baby out externally which upset my mom as you probably guessed why: blood is very important to her.

My husband and I have been struggling to conceive so I offered to take the baby.

It’s a win-win!

But I explained that I would only do it if it was a real adoption, not like how my culture does it where I’d just be raising the baby for my brother.

I made it clear that the baby wasn’t a toy to be passed around and that I wouldn’t be giving the child back when my brother finally gets his crap together in 15 years.

My brothers ex was happy with this arrangement and we’ve been in the process of getting paperwork started.

Could it be? A happy ending?

Everyone in the family is pissed.

They think I’m being unnecessary difficult by going against our cultural conventions just because i’m infertile and want a baby.

My mother thinks that I’m being selfish because I was basically raised in the way I’m refusing to raise this child in and i’m being hypocritical.

Yikes.

She thinks I should raise the kid with the knowledge of who their real parents are (which is something i’d share with them anyway when the time is right) and give my brother an opportunity to learn to be a father.

I don’t think i’m the AH but given the cultural perspective and the nature of my own upbringing, i’m starting to think i may be being a bit hypocritical.

She was willing to put her life on hold to raise a family member’s child and still gets flack! How does that happen?

Reddit was really, not surprisingly, not super into passing around a baby either.

This person is glad she’s keeping the baby’s interest in mind.

Seriously, where is bad when she’s just offering the baby a home full of love?

Yep, definitely nothing wrong here.

Looks like setting boundaries for the baby ruffled some family feathers.

But the poster has the baby’s best interests at heart.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.