Babysitting for family sounds simple — until the family starts treating you like staff they don’t have to respect.

When a young woman spent a year and a half babysitting her sister’s kids — including a medically complex toddler — for little pay, no notice, and regular insults, she finally said she couldn’t do it anymore.

But that’s when her sister really lost her marbles.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITAH for telling my sister I can’t babysit anymore due to her blatant disrespect?

I (21F) have been babysitting for my sister’s (37F) kids for one and a half years. She has two kids, aged 6 and 2.

Her sister has her hands full when it comes to caring for these kids.

The two-year-old has a genetic disorder and congenital heart defect. She has a G-tube, therapies three to four times a week, medications, and feeds.

The six-year-old is completely healthy, and I would drop and pick him up from school and babysit him during summer break.

Her children were never the issue. Instead, it was their disrespect.

She goes on to describe how horribly her sister has been treating her.

They would give me certain hours to babysit — for example, let’s say from 7 to 12. They’d usually be there by 2 or 3 without any notice. I would brush it off — stuff happens.

Then they began asking me to pick up either child or both with only five to ten minutes’ notice. My sister has another babysitter who coincidentally lives two houses down from me, and I’d have to drop everything I was doing to pick them up.

My sister is an APN, so I didn’t fully mind — sometimes schedules run behind.

Additionally, when I started working remotely I would still babysit from time to time.

Then came the matter of compensation.

Then she and her husband went to her work conference for three days and let me take care of both children by myself with no pay. I love my niece to death, but she’s really difficult to take care of due to her medications and feeds. That upset me intensely.

I still never said anything.

Until now.

So when her life got even busier, her sister wasn’t understanding at all.

I started a new job and went back to school. My hours aren’t insane and I’m only taking two classes, but they’re both classes I have to dedicate a minimum of 12 hours of studying or work outside of class time.

I was so thankful to stop babysitting because of her blatant disrespect. She would often call me useless, stupid, too slow, and say that I was no help.

I didn’t just babysit, either. I cleaned the house, folded the kids’ laundry, changed sheets, etc.

But the worst was yet to come.

This weekend was the final straw. She wanted me to babysit tomorrow since her husband was at a golf outing and she didn’t want to take care of her kids by herself — a very common occurrence for her.

I told her on Friday that I didn’t think I could, due to needing to prepare for an exam.

She got upset and told me off.

So she finally told her sister how she really felt.

Today, I sent her a message. In short, I told her I couldn’t babysit anymore due to being spread too thin with work and school, and that I didn’t appreciate the disrespect.

She sent me a whole paragraph saying that I didn’t deserve respect since I was getting paid, and that I always cancelled last minute and didn’t respect her.

Granted — in the last one and a half years, I cancelled twice.

The two continued to argue.

She told me last minute she had RSVPed for an event and I couldn’t babysit that day due to a family event with my boyfriend. She got upset and I offered to cancel, and she told me it was fine. The second time was for tomorrow.

She said it was very unprofessional, which I totally agreed with and apologized for, despite the inconsistencies.

She then proceeded to say I was “gaslighting” her. Once more, I apologized and said my wording might not have been the best, but my only intention was to be heard and not start an argument.

She hasn’t replied.

AITA?

What a toxic relationship.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

It’s time to acknowledge this arrangement is just plain dysfunctional.

The wrong person is apologizing here.

Her sister’s behavior also points to some inequality in her own marriage.

This is textbook gaslighting.

This woman spent a year and a half being insulted by someone who genuinely couldn’t function without her.

Her sister’s audacity was pretty impressive.

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.