Neighbor Expects Woman to Watch Her Kids and Drive Them to School Daily, but She Refuses
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Neighborly favors can become enormous commitments when childcare suddenly enters the equation.
One woman is asked to watch two children before and after school every weekday, plus weekends, without being paid.
The request effectively turns her into a second parent, even though the families are not especially close and the kids are not friends.
Check out the culmination of this crazy request.
AITA for not helping my neighbor with her kids after her husband left her
My husband and I (late 20s M and F) have lived next to Jack and Jill for two years.
We have a son who’s six years old.
They have two kids who are a similar age, but a little bit older.
All the kids go to the same elementary school, and I used to see Jack in the car rider line.
This woman would hear their neighbors fight loudly.
Our neighborhood is relatively close to the school, so the school bus does not pick up here. We have to walk or drive our kids to school.
Jack and Jill have constantly had loud fights ever since they moved here.
And by fights, I mostly mean Jill would scream at Jack and kick him out of the house on a weekly basis.
During the last fight, the male neighbor packed up all his stuff and left for good.
Normally, he would sleep in his car and come back inside in the morning after she leaves for work.
Jill works as a CNA at a nearby hospital, the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift.
Jack worked from home, like I do, which let him take the kids to school.
Well, after this last fight, Jack packed up all his stuff and left. He flew back home to his mother in a different country.
Now, the female neighbor asked her if she could look after her children while she goes to work.
Jill recently came to me saying that she has no one to watch her kids from roughly 5 a.m. to 7 p.m.
She asked if she could send them over in the morning, have me watch them and feed them breakfast and then take them to school and then later pick them up, feed them dinner, and watch them till she gets off work.
She told her no, and asked if she was willing to pay.
I explained to her that this is not something I’m really interested in, being expected to be a second parent basically to two kids.
I asked how much she was willing to pay.
And she said she expected me to do it for free.
Since she has no friends and no one else to ask, she also asked if I would watch them on the weekends, so she could pick up extra shifts, otherwise, she won’t be able to pay the rent.
She refused, but her husband thinks she should have agreed.
I told her absolutely not and that she’s insane basically to think I’d agree to something so unreasonable, especially when we aren’t even friends and our kids aren’t friends either.
My husband thinks I was a jerk and that we could offer to at least help sometimes for the kids’ sake.
My stance is that we both know she wouldn’t do the same for us if the roles were reversed since Jill isn’t really a nice person.
AITA for not helping my neighbor with her kids after her husband left?
If her husband thinks they should help, let him babysit the kids!
Let’s find out what others have to say about this on Reddit.
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Do not budge, says this person.
This person makes a valid point.
Here’s another honest opinion from this person.
This user thinks this is too big of a favor to ask.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who stops helping his neighbors out with his snowplow after they complain about his farm.
Finally, short and straightforward.
She refused to take on hours of daily childcare, meals, school transportation, and weekend coverage for free.
Commenters overwhelmingly backed her, calling the request far beyond a normal neighborly favor and closer to an unpaid full-time job.
Helping a neighbor is one thing; demanding to open a daycare PRO BONO is another.
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