She’s Done Providing Free Childcare For Her Sister — But One Financial Change Could Make Paid Babysitting Work
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Helping family with childcare can become complicated once transportation costs and household finances enter the arrangement.
In this story, a disabled older sister agreed to weekend babysitting expecting payment, but the parents now say they cannot afford it.
Rather than simply withdrawing her help, she is considering pressuring them to charge their employed, live-in mother-in-law rent.
See whether that boundary reaches one household too far.
AITAH If I put my foot down to my sister abt her lazy MIL?
My (late 20’s) little sister (early 20’s) has a couple kids but she and her husband work full time so she sometimes needs childcare.
I agreed to watch her kids on the weekends under the impression that I’d be getting paid so that I could get to her place without help (I am disabled and don’t drive, I rely totally on my family if I don’t have money for Uber).
I’ve been really lucky that my family CAN help but I feel guilty that they feel obligated to me and I have no way to pay them back.
She’s not getting paid.
Unfortunately my sister and her husband don’t have the funds for that, but her MIL lives with them, works fulltime, and doesn’t contribute ANY money into the house.
Would it be a jerk move to pressure my sister and bil to tell her she needs to start paying rent or a bill so that they can 1. afford to live and 2. afford to pay me?
It might be better just to refuse to babysit. Let the MIL babysit since she lives there.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.
This person thinks the MIL should help out.
This person suggests not mentioning the situation with the MIL.
Here’s another similar comment.
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She needs to be honest about needing a ride.
OP reasonably needs transportation money to provide childcare, but deciding how her sister manages another adult’s contributions is not really her call.
A cleaner boundary would be refusing unpaid babysitting and letting the parents choose between charging rent, finding different childcare, or arranging another solution.
Family budgeting gets weird fast when the unpaid babysitter starts auditing the employed roommate.
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