It’s not always a good idea to let relatives move in with you because sometimes they get a little bit too comfortable and don’t want to move out.

What would you do if a relative with a child moved in with you and you didn’t think they were doing a good job parenting their child? Would you stay out of it, or would you call the relative out on their poor parenting?

In today’s story, one man is in this situation, and he’s not sure what to do about it.

Let’s read the whole story.

WIBTA For telling my sister-in-law to start parenting her child better while they live with us?

I (30M) live with my wife (30F) and daughter (7 Months) in a smallish 3 bedroom one bathroom house.

Back in November 2024, my sister-in-law(28F) and her daughter (7) made the decision to move to the city where my wife and I live.

I spoke with my wife about SIL staying with us and a family friend of ours, until she finds a home of her own, splitting her time here between our place and our friends place.

SIL seems a little bit too comfortable at their house.

SIL moved in around Christmas and well it has been difficult, she has only spent one week with the friend (SIL actually messaged my wife the first night she stayed with friend asking if she can come back to our place.).

SIL has been to maybe 10 house viewings and applied for all of them, while the rental market is also rough at the moment here and its hard to find a place (Wife and I got our new rental within a week of having to move out.), SIL rarely seems to actively be looking for a place to live.

Often its my wife pushing SIL to go to viewings and apply for rentals.

What’s more frustrating is SIL’s parenting.

All this was half expected between my wife and I, but what I was not expecting was her laziness with her own daughter.

SIL will basically tell her daughter to do something about 5 times or so, before yelling or screaming at the child in frustration.

This is because SIL will tell the daughter to do something and then go back to scrolling on her phone and not pay attention.

Here are some examples…

For example, the daughter will watch Netflix on the iPad with her headphones on when it is dinner time. So the daughter will actually just sit watching whatever show she is watching and not eat unless told to.

Sometimes the daughter will do something she shouldn’t, like kicking the drawers to our babies clothing drawers (The daughter sleeps on a mattress in the babies room while bub sleeps with my wife and I.).

SIL will yell at her to stop from the lounge room, 2 minutes later i will hear the kicking start again and SIL won’t say anything for another 2-3 minutes.

It gets even more frustrating.

To make things worse, SIL had been told they were approved for a rental and once the bond was provided, they could move in.

Unfortunately they missed out because they didn’t get the bond in time for the house.

But i found out that she is getting $1700 a fortnight! (She is unemployed on government assistance)

She has lived with us for 3 months, has not been charged board, only paid $200 for food and water a fortnight, yet somehow she couldn’t save up for the bond and wanted to go through the governments bond assistance.

The big question is about the SIL’s parenting.

My wife and I are going to sit her down to discuss a budget with her and board, but based on these last 3 months, it feels like she is going to live here longer.

As it is, My wife and I are the ones telling the daughter not to do things and I can see SIL get annoyed when we do.

Its a lot going on but I mostly don’t know if me telling her to pull her finger out and parent her daughter better is out of line or not.

So reddit WIBTA it I told my SIL to parent her daughter better so my wife and I don’t?

The SIL sounds really lazy. They need to establish some ground rules in order for her to continue living there, or to motivate her to move out.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Her parenting isn’t the real problem.

His house, his rules.

The SIL really needs to pay more attention to her daughter.

If she doesn’t like the rules, she can leave.

They’ve ignored the SIL’s lazy behavior long enough.

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.