Being the oldest child often means shouldering a fair amount of responsibility, but sometimes that responsibility can become a full-time job.

One young man watched as his parents had more and more children, all while expecting him and his other siblings to handle all of the babysitting.

So when he finally moved out in search of some well-deserved freedom, he ended up causing a domino effect with his other siblings.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for moving to avoid babysitting for my parents which prompted my siblings to do the same?

I’m (22M) the oldest brother of 9 siblings. I have 5 younger brothers and 3 sisters. My sister is 20 and my brother is 19. The youngest is 4 years old, and my other siblings range from 16 to 7.

For about as long as he can remember, his parents have always had high expectations for him.

Pretty much since I was 6, I had to take care of all my siblings. I could never go out because my parents were working and there was nobody to take care of them. I love my siblings, but I hated never having freedom.

He didn’t always trust that his parents had the family’s best interests at heart.

It used to annoy me like crazy that they would just pop one kid after another. Our house wasn’t that big, so everyone shared rooms. I never had any private space. My parents made good money, but because of so many kids, they struggled financially.

So when yet another child came, this young man decided he couldn’t take it anymore.

When my mom got pregnant again with my youngest sibling, I waited until my 18th birthday and moved out that day. I made sure I moved far too (1 hour away), so I had that excuse.

When my sister turned 18, she begged me to let her live with me, and I said yes.

This ended up influencing his other siblings to do the same.

My brother did too, eventually. My sister has already moved out, but he’s still there with me while we continue our college classes.

They saw that I limited contact with my parents to avoid getting stuck babysitting, so they wanted out too. Now my younger brother, who’s 16, is spending more time at my place because he hates it at home.

Now his parents blame him for giving his younger siblings the idea.

My parents are mad at me for dipping out on them, since that’s made my other siblings not want to be responsible for the younger ones either. My dad told me they’re hurt I “turned my back on my family” and made my siblings do the same.

He says that since I’m the older one, I have the most influence on them, and ever since I left, they followed with the same attitude.

Now this young man feels conflicted.

A part of me does feel bad that they’re having a hard time, but at the same time, I feel they brought that on themselves—just thinking they could have however many kids they wanted and expecting all of us to just live with their actions.

AITA?

Talk about a parentified child.

What did Reddit have to say?

His parents shouldn’t be forcing him to face the consequences of their decisions.

This user affirms this young man only did what he needed to do to stay sane.

This commenter can’t help but be reminded of another famous family with too many kids.

There’s a line between household chores and becoming a full-on third parent.

This young man carried more than his fair share of responsibilities for far too long.

It’s time for his parents to stop having so many kids, or at least hire a proper babysitter.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.