After moving to a new neighborhood, a childless couple quickly found themselves at odds with the local parents.

When a neighbor asked for free babysitting, the wife politely declined, only to face escalating demands and backlash that left her questioning her own stance.

Read on for the story!

AITA for refusing to babysit my neighbors’ children?

My husband and I (F) moved into a new neighborhood a few weeks back.

The new house is great. We have our own yard and both us and our doggies enjoy it a lot.

We’re childless and we don’t plan on having children.

We’re not comfortable around kids, especially very young ones and we have zero experience in dealing with children.

Our neighborhood is full of parents.

We’re the only childless couple.

Since we moved in, we have been friendly with our neighbors and their children, but we don’t join their activities.

Fair enough.

They have barbecue parties, swimming pool parties and they gather with their kids etc.

We don’t really like the noise of kids, so we just keep our distance.

Some have made rude comments about this saying we need to socialize more and I kept explaining that’s how we are and they need to accept it.

Anyways, yesterday one neighbor came to me asking if I could babysit her two kids (5 and 7) all day Saturday.

I politely declined explaining that I don’t feel comfortable taking care of such young children.

And even if I were, I have no time to babysit because I’m doing some freelancing in the weekend.

I don’t want to reschedule since I’m very much enjoying it and making money out of it.

And your freelancing doesn’t include lugging two kids around.

She said okay and left.

Then her husband came and demanded I explain myself.

I said I already did and he said that ‘not feeling comfortable’ isn’t a reason and I’m a woman, how can I possibly feel uncomfortable?

That annoyed me and I snapped telling him he doesn’t dictate what I’m supposed to feel and I have no obligation to watch their kids.

There are many other parents in the neighborhood that can do that or they could hire a babysitter.

He said why hire when I’m childless and available for free?

Wow.

I got really angry and screamed at him that I’m not a free babysitter just because I have no kids of my own.

Told him to never come to me with such ridiculous demands.

The neighborhood group chat blew up immediately with all sorts of bad comments about me.

They’ve been calling me a jerk for refusing to help.

When my husband came home he was shocked at their demands and wanted to go yell at them some, but I stopped him.

Now, some of the comments in the chat made me think they’re right and I am a jerk.

It’s tough raising kids.

And it’s difficult to find reliable babysitters.

So, am I a jerk for not helping the parents?

I was pretty confident I’m not wrong, but now I don’t know anymore.

Caught in a neighborhood that expects child-free couples to lend a hand, these two are standing firm on their boundaries—and getting plenty of side-eye for it.

But Reddit is on their side–a resounding NTA.

This person says she has absolutely no obligation to babysit.

This person says sure, yelling wasn’t ideal, but they started it for sure.

This person just can’t understand at all how they can demand this.

Who knew “no kids” meant “free babysitter” in neighbor-speak?

I think most parents would recognize this is an audacious move.

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.