When a child has to go through their parents breaking up, the repercussions can be detrimental to their happiness, their sense of stability, and their overall wellbeing.

But if the resulting situation is two happy parents in separate homes, rather than two unhappy parents in the same home, it generally works out best for everyone involved.

However, if they get stuck in the middle of a custody battle, or playing go-between to two emotionally immature adults, things can get all the more complicated.

Even worse, if – like the guy in this story – it becomes quite clear that only one parent truly wants to spend time with them, it can be a real mental health disaster.

Read on to find out what happened to make this guy consider cutting his mom out for good.

AITA for not babysitting so my mom can go on dates with her fiancé?

I am sixteen and male. My parents divorced when I was one.

I live with my dad and see my mom every other weekend.

Why? She moved too far for them to share me equally, so dad got custody since he was settled and wasn’t moving for unstable reasons.

Mom followed a guy to another town, a guy she wasn’t even dating seriously or long, and she moved again before I was five for another guy.

Uh-oh. Let’s see how his relationship with his mom is now.

My relationship with mom is kinda strained.

Sometimes she makes an effort to actually be a mom other than every other weekend, but it feels like she never cared as much about me as she did the guys she’s dated.

Some of those guys I stayed with when I’d go to mom’s for a weekend.

Others I never met but she talked about them all the time.

But then, things started to change.

Four years ago she started seeing this guy called Clay and now they’re engaged and living together.

When I spend weekends at my mom’s house, I sleep in the basement on the couch because Clay’s got four kids and I didn’t want to share a room with his sons who’re really young.

It bothers my mom and Clay that I wasn’t more open to being a part of the family, and mom and I fight about it at least once every two or three months when I’m there.

She doesn’t get why I’m not more invested.

I refuse to spell it out for her.

And things seem to be getting worse and worse.

Now we’re fighting about babysitting. Since her and Clay live together now, they feel like I should babysit so they can go on dates and I refuse.

Doesn’t matter if I’m there or with dad, she expects any weekend they want to do something that I will drop whatever and babysit.

When I’m at her house I avoid it by staying out late exploring where she lives and going to the gaming store for hours to look around.

When I’m with dad it’s easier to just say no way and she can’t make dad send me over to her to babysit.

Let’s see how his father has responded to this.

And it ticks him off that she expects me to drive almost three hours each way to babysit for her whenever she feels like it.

My mom said I need to accept that Clay and his kids are going to be my family, and I should try to get to know them.

She doesn’t realize once my 18th birthday comes she won’t even be my family anymore, and I plan to go NC.

AITA?

It’s absolutely clear that this mom is using her son for babysitting duties rather than making the most of his company.

She’s misguided and has become a mom for the wrong reasons. It’s no wonder he feels such negativity towards her.

Let’s see how the folks of Reddit responded to this.

This person agreed that he was doing nothing wrong by refusing to babysit.

While others also encouraged him to apply for a change in the custody agreement.

Meanwhile, this Redditor suggested spelling his refusal out in the clearest possible way.

He deserves more.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.