Is it always unacceptable to pick favorites?

What would you do if your brother’s new partner expected you to choose her kids over blood relatives? One person recently shared a wild situation like this with Reddit. Here’s what happened.

AITAH for babysitting my sister’s kids but not my brother’s girlfriend’s kids?

I’m married, and both my wife and I are close with my sister’s kids, who are 6 months and 3 years old.

My wife was friends with my sister before we started dating so thats part of it.

We love spending time with them and are always happy to babysit when she needs help or she and my BIL want a date night.

Having positive influences as a kid is so important.

It is something we actually enjoy and look forward to, not just a favor.

My brother has been dating someone who has two kids, ages 6 and 8.

They are fine, but I don’t feel any real connection to them.

A bummer, but understandable.

I didn’t watch them grow up and I’m not close with them.

If I’m being honest, I find them kind of annoying and being around them feels like a chore.

My wife feels the same way.

Yikes, and that probably shines through in their behavior.

Recently my brother and his girlfriend have asked a few times if we could babysit them so they could have a date night.

We declined,I tried to be polite about it, but it caused some tension.

Their view is that I am playing favorites and that if I am willing to help with one set of kids I should be willing to help with the other.

Sadly it’s not that simple.

From my perspective it is just not the same.

My sister’s kids are my nephews and I have a real bond with them.

The lore here makes sense.

With my brother’s girlfriend’s kids I don’t.

On top of that, babysitting means giving up a weekend night, and I am just not interested in doing that for kids I don’t feel connected to and don’t enjoy watching.

It’s inevitable his perspective will ruffle feathers, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Let’s see how the Reddit community weighed in on this one.

Most comments were immediately appalled by the girlfriend’s behavior.

And called out her ulterior motives.

One person posed an obvious solution.

Another asked the important questions.

And some harsh truth was offered up.

Family shouldn’t be expected to perform free labor.

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.