Divorce usually puts an enormous strain on a family, especially when it involves raising teenagers at the same time. Those pressures are more obvious to relatives who are close enough to witness the day-to-day reality.

One woman recently found herself growing frustrated while visiting her father’s home. She noticed that her father is working very long hours after a surgery while trying to keep both his business and household running after a difficult divorce.

Despite all of that, she noticed her siblings act like they’re staying at a hotel.

After weeks of watching their behavior, she finally said how she felt about it, and they didn’t like it one bit.

Read the full story below.

AITAH for getting mad at my siblings and telling them my dad won’t want them around forever?

My(25f) dad is going through a divorce.

He has the kids mainly, they’re 18m(almost 19) and 17m. I think both of them are spoiled brats.

My dad runs a business out of his house and I work for him. I have helped him clean his house more in the week I have been here visiting then they seemingly have all week.

He calls and complains a LOT. He is worried about one kid in particular (18m) because of the kid’s behavior.

Originally he wasn’t allowed to discipline them because of his ex-wife always interfering.

It’s a lot. She’s worried about her dad.

Her parenting style is genuinely terrible as it usually ends with her kicking her kids out at 18 when they refuse to do chores because they weren’t told to as children for the most part.

My dad needs help. He has two jobs.

He just had surgery so he is around more and trying to reorganize the house after the divorce. Normally he works a 15-hour workday, comes home, works more at his at home job.

He is working to provide for these kids and obviously himself, he has pretty much dedicated his entire life to his family and continues to spend all of his time working.

It’s a particularly hard situation.

One is a habitual liar. Anything they can lie about, they lie about it. They pretend to have multiple personalities online. They are generally the problem child.

I don’t have kids. I don’t know if my advice is good enough. I don’t know how to kick them into gear or help my dad.

I know that when I was that age I constantly had my home threatened by my mother and eventually for want of stability I moved out on my own. (I have a different mother to them)

Things are getting worse.

Anyways, I got fed up. They came in the door, I was about 6 hours into a 10 hour work period, and all I asked was for them to cook the pork chops in the fridge because dad said it had to be cooked or it would go bad and get one of them to do it.

Note; they’ve been using and leaving dishes. I spent 2 hours doing their dishes last night.

I asked them. One said;
“I don’t know how!”
I replied, “Google it. There has to be a YouTube video. Or just fry it on the grill outside.”
He said no so I looked at the other one and the other one said
“No, I’m just going to throw in a frozen pizza. I feel lazy tonight.”

She decided to give them some tough love.

I just kind of looked at them in disbelief. The one (18m) is always lazy.

So I said, “someday, dad isn’t going to want to take care of both of you. He’s going to want you to move out.

“The more you don’t do what he asks the more likely that is to come sooner. Life is a ***** and it’s not a merciful one.”

“You guys have to learn how to cook and clean and take care of yourselves.”

17m and 18m both walked away, 18m with more attitude, because it’s not what he wanted to hear.

They continue with the same behavior, though.

18m was harassing me to come pick him up earlier like I wasn’t working nonstop. He has no concept of working. He is in school but half of his day is just nothing. It’s not realistic and I know this is stressing my dad out.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything because it’s not my place to say, but these kids are so frustrating. They treat dad like a free, all-the-time taxi.

Dad is trying to integrate them into the business so they can help him and earn a bit of money, and they don’t want anything to do with it.

He can barely even trust them because they steal from him.

AITA??

Don’t have kids, kids!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a lifeguard who told one child they were too short for the slide, but struggled to convince them to follow the rules.

What did Reddit think?

A reader shares their opinion.

Maybe she needs to stop doing so much.

“Parentified” is the word.

Another reader chimes in.

This person agrees.

Something to consider.

This conflict is about far more than chores not being done. The family doesn’t have a healthy dynamic and she’s worried about her dad’s health. This is very valid, in my opinion, and she sounds like an amazing daughter.

She spends days helping clean, work, and support her father while observing what she views as an unhealthy imbalance in the household.

From her perspective, her father has spent years sacrificing his own time and energy to provide for his children, yet receives very little recognition in return, so she feels like compensating, which is also exhausting to her.

Watching him struggle while the teenagers appeared uninterested in basic responsibilities left her increasingly frustrated, so she ended up blurting out some hurtful things, and now feels guilty about it.

I see her comments as a loving warning about adult life. They are definitely not mature enough to understand that yet, though.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a middle schooler who was totally frazzled after being left to babysit alone for 3-plus hours, and swears she’s never doing it again.