Family gatherings can be stressful, especially with kids involved. But all in all, they should be fun and be a time for the adults and kids to spend time together.

Let’s see what happens in this reddit story when an aunt is asked to pay her niece for playing with her toddler during family visits.

AITA for not wanting to pay my niece to hang out with my daughter during family visits?

I have two young kids—one is a 3.5 and the other is a baby who was born very premature and has some developmental delays.

As you can imagine, life is full and a bit overwhelming right now. I’ve been trying to stay connected with extended family, but a recent situation has been bothering me.

At our last family gathering, I was told that I needed to pay my niece (10 yo) $5/hour to hang out with my 3.5 yo daughter while the adults visited.

Cousins should be allowed to just play with each other, right? Now a family member wants it turned into a babysitting gig.

Not babysit—just play with her while we were all in the same space. I ended up sending money because I felt put on the spot, but I left feeling really uncomfortable.

It’s not that I don’t believe in paying kids for actual babysitting work, but this feels different. These are cousins spending time together in a shared family setting.

Now she’s feeling uncomfortable with the situation.

It makes me feel like my daughter is being treated as a burden rather than just part of the family.

Now we have another gathering coming up and I’m dreading it, because I feel like there’s this unspoken expectation that I’ll keep paying for my kid to be included.

It’s making me want to pull back from future visits altogether, which I know might cause tension.

Let’s see what reddit has to say about this scenario. Many readers have advice on this and some have even been in a similar situation.

This person has advice!

This commenter has lots of questions to ask before making a judgement.

Another redditor asking questions. Hmmm, maybe she needs to talk to her niece.

And finally, someone who has been in this situation has an opinion, woah!

Sounds like she should probably spend some time with her niece.

And as the saying goes… “cousins are childhood playmates who grow up to be forever friend!”

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.