Isn’t it  insane when siblings forget their boundaries and expect too many free favors?

This girl shares how her brother yelled at her for not babysitting his kids!

Find out how things spiraled out of control.

AITAH for telling my brother “lifes about choices, it’s not my problem that you didn’t think yours through”?

Sorry this may be long but I want to give as much context as I can. Throwaway because a few family members know my main and I only want outside opinions.

I (F27) have a younger brother James who’s 25. James and his GF Sara (F27) have a 2 year old and a 7 month old whereas I am single and child free by choice.

This is where everything gets tricky!

We only live about 5 minutes apart and have always been very close. I help them out with the kids pretty often.

Ever since their oldest was born I babysit at least one night a week, recently more, so that James and Sara can have “a night off”

I agreed because I love both of them as well as their kids and I know they’ve both been having a rough go since the youngest was born.

Sara has been going through pretty severe postpartum depression. It took the first 3 months for her to realize / admit that she wasn’t doing okay and needed some more help.

UH OH…

That’s when I started helping out significantly more.

When Sara and I hangout now it mostly consists of me going to their place to help her clean, cook, and take care of the kids, so basically babysitting but with Sara there too.

James has mentioned how hard it’s been on the relationship between the two of them because he really wants to help her he just doesn’t know how.

He is a pretty good dad and helps when he’s home but he works at least 60 hours a week if not more so most of the time everything falls to Sara who’s a stay at home mom.

She loves the kids but there’s a catch…

Anyway, I love the kids and I’m glad I can help out but it’s getting to be too much for me now. Sara brings the kids over to my house usually 3 nights a week and I go over to hers 1 or 2.

Obviously I understand it’s a lot harder on them, but they’re the parents. James could work less and they’d still be more than okay financially, and my mom offered to help them anytime they need.

The reason they’ve refused is because Sara doesn’t feel close enough to the rest of our family to be honest about her postpartum or to accept help from them, and James doesn’t want to hear the “I told you so” from our mom.

They’ve only accepted my help because Sara is my best friend and has been for years so she would’ve told me about everything whether James was involved or not.

Things weren’t working out for her…

Yesterday I mentioned to Sara that 3 days a week is definitely my maximum and I can’t continue to do 3 days every week.

It probably sounds stupid to many people but I’m child free for a reason and I didn’t plan on taking care of a baby 3 days a week for the last 2 months.

Especially since I do have a full time job of my own. Sara said “totally understandable and I appreciate any days off.” I really didn’t think anything of it, we hung out for a few more hours then I went home.

About 2 hours later I got a call from James freaking out and screaming at me.

She was not expecting that!

He screamed “I can’t believe you’d say that to Sara. You of all people know how fragile she is right now so it’s really unfair of you to make her feel guilty when asked to spend time with your nieces.”

I was shocked.

I asked him what he was talking about and if he’s lost his mind. He said Sara told him what I’d said and that I was just trying to guilt trip her into never asking for help again.

I told him that wasn’t my intention at all. I just wanted to make them aware that I couldn’t be watching the kids this much in the long term.

I’d planned on telling James the same, it just happened to come up when Sara and I were talking today. I asked him why he couldn’t work a bit less or just swallow his pride and ask mom for help.

That’s INSANE!

He said his GF being depressed wasn’t a good enough reason to ask for less hours and it would hurt his chances at a promotion.

He wouldn’t ask mom because she told him when Sara first got pregnant that he wasn’t ready, responsible, or mature enough to be a father and he wouldn’t prove her right by asking for help.

I told him I’m sorry but there’s a reason I don’t have kids of my own. I’m not interested in parenting.

I also clarified that I wasn’t telling them I’d never babysit, just that I could not continue doing it so frequently because I’m burnt out.

He’s being too unreasonable!

James was still very upset, continuously calling me selfish and saying I should be grateful to have this opportunity to spend time with his kids since I’ll “never find a man to truly love me enough to even want kids with me.”

This especially hurt because I’ve had a lot of issues with romantic relationships and a lot of insecurity about feeling like I am unlovable, which he’s aware of.

James very frequently says “life’s about choices, you’ve got to think them through” when anyone (especially me) talks or vents about frustrations in life like relationship or job issues.

So I was so frustrated and upset that I decided to throw it back at him. I told him “life’s about choices, it’s not my problem that you didn’t think yours all the way through” then hung up.

They’ve all teamed up against her!

It has now been a week since I heard from either of them. My mother and sister have told me I’m in the wrong because I don’t have kids of my own so there’s no reason I can’t watch my nieces.

I’m just so frustrated and confused. I really didn’t think this would be such a huge problem.

I do feel a bit bad about how harsh I was but I also don’t think that what I said is entirely wrong and what James said really hurt me.

He should have known that working the amount that he does would be a problem with two kids and thought of other options besides just relying on me all the time. So am I the AH?

OUCH! That must’ve hurt!

Why don’t they understand that she isn’t a full time mom?

Let’s find out how people on Reddit reacted to this one.

Exactly! This user knows this girl is definitely not at fault here!

This user thinks James has a reason behind not wanting to involve the mother.

This user knows the mum was right about the brother.

This user thinks James might be everyone’s favorite in the house!

This user understands how important boundaries are.

Somebody’s being really entitled here!

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.