If you lived near a family member who had pets and that family member was out of town for the weekend, would you be willing to stop by and feed the pets, or would you refuse?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she’s sick of being her mom’s go to cat sitter.

Let’s read the whole story.

WIBTA if I refused to feed my mom’s cats?

I (F26) live 10 minutes away from my mom (F49).

She lives alone and has this habit of going out of town for the weekend and not making arrangements for her 2 cats.

She’ll leave on a Friday night, call me, and tell me something along the lines of “Just letting you know I got to my hotel safely…OH by the way, can you feed my cats while I’m gone??”

Like she’s already gone, and I’m sure the cats are hungry considering it’s nighttime, what else am I suppose to say other than yes??

She finally told her mom how she feels about this.

She’s done this at least 4 or 5 times, and the last time I expressed that I was getting really frustrated with the less than last minute notice she needs someone.

Her response was offering to pay me to care for the cats, to which I agreed, but when she came back she said she was tight on money so she would pay me with her next pay check.

She of course did not pay me with her next paycheck.

She’s worried her mom is going to ask her to feed her cats again.

Yesterday my mom mentioned she’s going out of town this Friday for the weekend and I have a feeling she’s going to ask me to look after her cats last minute again.

I have no idea who she could ask to look after them instead of me but I’m super tempted to tell her I’m not going to be the one to do it.

On top of it being bad to ask me to take care of the cats when she’s already out of town, Im also hesitant to continue helping her because taking care of the cats isn’t as simple as running over, putting out some food, and dipping.

There’s actually a lot involved with feeding these particular cats.

1 of the 2 cats is particularly good aggressive and cat 2 has to be put in a complete separate room to be feed. You have to wait 15-30 minutes to let out cat 2 because he’s a slow eater.

The cats obviously need to be played with and socialize a little, and they get feed twice a day.

Cat 1 cant be the one to be in a separate room because he will scratch, bite, and bang on the door until you let him out. He’ll destroy the door if he has to.

“Feeding the cats” turns into a 1hour+ visit in the morning and a 1hour+ visit in the evening.

It’s even more complicated because of her 4-year-old.

I’m a single mom who works full time on the weekends so adding an additional 2 hours at my mom’s is physically long and exhausting.

In addition to the time constraints, my son is 4 years old and the food aggressive cat absolutely DOES NOT like him.

He accidentally stepped on the cat’s tail when he was 2 and the cat never let my son near him again.

This sounds pretty stressful.

My son can’t be in the same room as the “bad cat” (what my son calls cat 1) without the cat hissing, trying to scratching at him, or trying to steal his food the entire time.

It’s to the point where if the cat gets too close to my son, he starts to cry and scream “BAD CAT! BAD CAT!” While I’m there, I have to constantly keep an eye on the two.

Being at my mom’s for 2hours+ to “feed the cats” is long and stressful on an already busy weekend schedule, and I’m getting sick of her just expecting me to say yes because she’s already out of town. So Reddit, would I be a jerk if I refused to feed my mom’s cats??

Can the mom get a self cleaning litter box and an automatic feeder? Maybe the cats could stay in separate areas the whole time she’s gone. Then, nobody needs to watch the cats if it’s just for the weekend.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Boundaries are important.

This would be the perfect Christmas present!

Here’s another vote for automatic feeders.

But don’t let the cat’s starve.

She has helped her mom out long enough.

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.