Pexels/Reddit
Being a godparent comes with plenty of meaningful responsibilities, but apparently, some people think it should also come with an open calendar and the ability to appear at a moment’s notice.
One freelancer is questioning whether she’s let down her oldest friend after refusing to cancel an important annual job to help with the birth of her friend’s second child.
The woman lives six hours away but has been eager to support her pregnant friend from the beginning. She even offered to spend a week with the family after completing a work commitment that holds considerable personal significance.
Unfortunately, her friend has a very specific vision for the birth. She wants her husband beside her at the hospital for three days while someone she trusts stays home with their four-year-old.
When the grandparents were unexpectedly removed from the childcare plan, the godmother suddenly became the preferred replacement.
And despite several other people offering to help, the expectant mother apparently decided there was only one acceptable solution.
One that required her best friend to cancel everything.
AITA for declining to cancel a contract to take care of my godchild (4 yo) during the birth of their sibling
My oldest friend is pregnant with her second child. I’m the god mother of the older one and we have a very good relationship, but I live about 6 hours away.
My friend has a hard time dealing with unpredictable situations. I offered to come and support her from the get go, but also made clear, that I have an important job right around the due date.
I’m a freelancer and that is a yearly job I’ve been doing for a long time. It’s not so much about the money anyways, but it means a lot to me and really is like a home, that exists just once a year. So in her early pregnancy I offered to come right after that job and stay for a week to support them.
How nice.
She’s been trying to plan the birth itself and struggled with the fact, that she doesn’t seem to have a network around, that she wants to trust with her kid.
She has a very specific idea of how everything should go down, she would like to get into hospital with her husband and wants him to stay with her there for three days, while the older one stays home with somebody she trusts.
While that is possible where I live, it’s not guaranteed, and maybe not ideal for the older one either.
Not at all.
Originally the grandparents were supposed to stay with the kid, but my friend just broke off contact with them. So I moved into focus.
Mind you, there are neighbours around, who offered to babysit. There is another god parent (that I had to remind her of!), that offered help. There are a bunch of friends, that might not be as close with the kid, but there’s still time to build that (3 more months now and that debate has been going on for a while…) and they could also stay with her in hospital, while her husband stays with the child for some time.
The kid is in child care, too, and there is even a professional babysitter coming around regularly. And of course, nobody knows when the kid is coming anyways.
How stressful.
I would be fine to come before or after the job, I’ve even been postponing to book my holidays, because I wanted to be flexible, and I’m not quite sure how she imagines me to get there anyways, again, I’m 6 hours away.
We couldn’t really discuss that, because after she broke off contact with the grandparents everything went really fast.
She asked me to cancel my contract with the job over the phone (offering to conver my financial loss!) and sent me a super emotionally manipulative message afterwards (some quotes: “your boss won’t be standing at your grave”, “the fortune of my family depends on you”, “your god child will be forever damaged, if you don’t come”).
Wowwww.
I told her to hold her horses and that I would take my time to think about it. She seemed to understand and told me I should take my decision freely. Which I did.
I offered to think about solutions together, but that I wouldn’t cancel my contract. She’s been blocking me for a week.
I see her despair and I feel horrible for her, I just don’t think that I’m the flying saviour. I’ve decided to drive there now, because the emergency situation is here now, not later. AITA?
The godmother has already offered considerable support, and refusing to cancel an important professional commitment doesn’t erase that. She was upfront about her availability early in the pregnancy, offered to travel six hours to help afterward and even delayed booking her own holidays to remain flexible.
Her friend’s anxiety about childbirth and childcare is understandable, particularly after losing the grandparents as an option. But insisting that one specific person must be available for an unpredictable birth creates a plan that’s fragile from the outset.
There are neighbors, another godparent, other friends and a regular babysitter who could potentially help. Her husband could also care for their older child while alternative hospital support is arranged. None of these options may match her ideal scenario, but they deserve consideration before demanding that someone else abandon an existing commitment.
Offering to reimburse the godmother’s lost income was thoughtful, but it overlooked the fact that the job matters to her for reasons beyond money.
The emotionally charged messages and subsequent blocking only make a difficult situation harder to resolve. With three months remaining, the family still has time to build a reliable childcare plan that doesn’t depend entirely on someone living six hours away.
The godmother can be supportive without becoming the family’s only contingency plan.
This person has some decent advice.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman whose family says she’s selfish for not wanting strangers living in her trailer.
This person says the friend is definitely in breakdown mode.
And this person says it can’t hurt to even contact her husband.
Being a godmother doesn’t automatically make you the emergency contact, backup childcare provider and six-hour delivery service all rolled into one.