Should kids expect their parents to be on-call babysitters when they decide to have children?

That’s the big question in this story about when expectations meet reality.

Read on to see what this dad had to say and see if you think he did anything wrong.

AITA for telling my son & DIL not to expect us to be babysitters for our grandkids?

“I’m 47 years old, and my wife is 45.

We had our son young (18 and 16), and I have to be honest: there were many years where my wife admitted to me that she wishes she terminated the pregnancy.

He spittin’ some truth!

Having kids was never her life’s dream, and having our son kept us back in life and kept us from accomplishing a lot of things we wanted to accomplish.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We love our son fully, we did everything we could to provide a warm, loving home for him. I worked hard to help put him through college with little debt.

His mom was the picture perfect wife and mother, baking cookies with him, doing art projects, attending every single basketball game, every band concert, every play.

We both did these things without ever complaining, and really cherished many of those moments.

Sounds very sweet.

Well, my son turned out to be a great young man.

He graduated with a nice science degree, met a wonderful woman who he dated for 7 years before marrying.

They have been married for two years and have decided to expand their family by having a child.

She’s pregnant, due in May.

He thought it was time to relax…

My wife and I have figured for a while that our “job” was done, and that we could finally focus on OUR lives and OUR wants and needs.

These include many things like certifications and classes, travel, hobbies. All of the things we had to put on hold while we focused on raising our son. Finally, it was OUR time.

Well, when my son and DIL were over a few weeks ago, things got hairy.

Hmmm…

They were talking about different things they were looking forward to, and my son made a joke, saying, “And of course, I’m sure we’ll look forward to dropping the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house every now and then.”

I laughed it off for a moment, but said, “I wouldn’t count on that.”

He got confused and asked what I meant, and I ended up having to tell him rather plainly that he shouldn’t expect me and his mother to act as babysitters for his grandchildren.

He was honest with him.

That we’d raised one child, and we were done and happy to focus on us, our lives, etc. My son was visibly upset by this, and said “But you’re going to be grandparents. Shouldn’t you WANT to spend time with your grandkids?”

My wife spoke up and said that yes, we would be happy to spend time with them, but that we weren’t going to be babysitters, we wouldn’t be raising them, we would spend them with the family, not just the grandkids — we would not be free daycare or babysitting, we would not be taking them on trips, spoiling them, etc.

She made a point to say, “I’m sorry if this isn’t what you expected. We will of course be a part of their lives, but we aren’t here to be taken advantage of. Your children aren’t our responsibility. We don’t have a choice if you have them or not. It’s your life and your choice, but please don’t expect us to sacrifice ours.”

Now, things are tense.

Well, it all blew up.

My son said he just assumed all parents were dying for the moment when they had grandkids, that there’s something wrong with us, he can’t believe he’d be so cold to our (not even born yet) grandchild, etc etc.

AITA?”

Here’s what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person said they’re very wrong.

Another individual agreed.

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

Another person spoke up.

Boundaries are one thing. This is something entirely different.

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.