Uncle duties are offered, not demanded.

This man’s sister called him asking him to talk to her son, who has been acting out. However, he did not want to force the kid to talk to him if he didn’t want to. So his sister started lashing out.

Read the full story below.

AITA My sister and her nephew

I have a terrible relationship with my sister, and it’s been like this for years. My sister runs me down to anyone in the family who will listen.

I’m going to admit that I’ve not always done the best job of maintaining a relationship with her either.

My sister has an autistic son who has a lot of behavioral issues and has become physically combative with her.

Multiple times, I have received phone calls from her where she has wanted to take him to some sort of local authority and surrender her parental rights.

Lately, she has been harassing me to talk to him on the telephone in the hope that I’ll somehow convince him to behave better. She has stated repeatedly that, “He doesn’t have any male role models in his life, and he needs you.”

Whenever she asks him if he wants to talk to me, he always says no, but my nephew and I get along just fine in person.

His sister called him selfish for refusing to help.

My sister doesn’t listen to anything I have to say. I’ve stopped counting the times that she will erupt into a rage, yelling for me to shut up and cursing at me when we disagree over the phone.

Whenever I’ve tried to maintain clear boundaries, she becomes offended because she feels as though “family shouldn’t have boundaries; boundaries keep others out, and that’s not what family is about.”

I won’t force the kid to talk to me on the phone if he doesn’t want to. When I’ve stated that boundary, she accuses me of being selfish and not wanting to associate myself with my nephew.

It’s not that I don’t like the kid; I just feel as though any interaction with my sister will always wind up with her using me as a punching bag.

AITA for not wanting to talk to my nephew on the phone or having much to do with my sister at all?

Family should clearly have boundaries, in this case.

Other people in the comments have something to say.

Some wise advice from this one.

A user chimes in.

Here’s a valid observation.

This reader is piping up.

And lastly, this person makes a lot of sense.

Clearly, the kid got his behavioral issues from his mom.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.