Adult Son Cares For The Elderly Family Cat While His Parents Are Away For A Month – But Now They’ve Returned, They’ve Decided They’re Not Going To Pay Him The Agreed Amount After All
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When you get a pet, there are certain things that you have to accept. First is that you are that pet’s everything. That means that when the pet needs feeding, you are there to do it – or at least you’ve made arrangements for your pet to be fed. If it’s a dog that needs walking, you need to walk them, even when you might not be feeling up to it. But more than that, when the pet is sick or if it has additional needs, it’s down to you to take care of it – from cleaning up any mess they’ve made to paying for and administering their medication. Ideally, you’ll have been paying insurance for them too, in case they need any expensive treatments.
And the adult child in this story is well aware of all of this, since he is regularly relied on to care for his parents’ elderly cat while they are away. This is no small task, since the cat has additional needs and requirements, hence he as agreed to care for the cost for a small daily fee. But after caring for the cat for over a month, his parents returned – but they had a reason prepared for why they wouldn’t be paying him.
Read on to find out why.
AITA for cancelling my phone plan and Spotify off my dad’s account after he weaselled out of paying me fairly for cat sitting?
Recently, my parents asked me to cat sit for their elderly, deaf cat while they were away. It’s not a light job, twice-daily visits, pilling her meds, scooping litter, getting mail.
We’d previously agreed on a day rate ($25/day, and I have this in writing from earlier this year). This time around I did 32.5 days total.
After the job, I called my mom to Venmo me for the days I’d done. That’s when I found out my dad had apparently decided, without ever telling me, that I shouldn’t be paid at all this time because “they pay for my phone and Spotify.”
He was supposed to bring this up with me directly (his words to my mom), but texted me about availability beforehand without mentioning it, and just never said anything until I asked to get paid.
Let’s see how this adult child responded to this.
I felt like this was disrespectful, so I quietly moved my phone number and cancelled Spotify off his account without saying anything, and started my own plans.
He found out and asked to get a beer to talk. I agreed.
In the conversation, he led with blaming “crossed wires” between him and my mom, then got surprised/defensive that I’d already cancelled everything, then couldn’t remember that I’d offered years ago to pay for these things myself specifically so it wouldn’t be held over me later, and couldn’t remember the $25/day rate even though it’s in writing.
When I said it felt disrespectful that nobody talked to me directly, he told me my feelings weren’t valid, and kept interrupting me when I tried to respond. I called it out twice.
He said “it’s a two way street,” I said it’s not a street until you meet me in the middle, he kept arguing, so I got up, thanked him for part of a beer, and left.
And his dad really didn’t like that.
As I walked away he used this warning tone with my name and said “you’ll regret this,” same thing he used to do when I was a kid.
My mom, when I told her about it separately, immediately acknowledged the feeling without any pushback. She’s hoping the three of us can sit down and talk it out.
I don’t think that’s productive right now, my dad doesn’t have a track record of admitting fault or processing emotions, and I don’t see this going differently without him doing real work first.
Was I wrong for cutting the financial cords quietly instead of confronting him first, and for not being interested in a sit-down that I don’t think will change anything?
AITA?
This guy is right, dad is clearly not going to hear him out so why bother?
It’s great that his mom actually listened and showed a modicum of empathy, something that dad apparently doesn’t have.
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Clearly it was time to cut those strings, if dad is going to behave like this.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.
This person thought that this was really going to cost the dad.
While others questioned his ‘parenting’.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who can’t complete her work-from-home duties because her mom’s houseguest won’t stop talking.
Meanwhile, this Redditor encouraged him to stay resolute on being paid.
You can’t just regress on a financial agreement because you changed your mind. This kind of shifting of goalposts is totally unfair for the person who was expecting to be paid, since they might not have done the work had they known they were apparently doing it for free. And caring for someone’s pet twice a day for over a month is a massive commitment – not to mention the fact that the amount the parents were paying was way below what they’d pay a professional cat sitter. Really, the dad should be considering the amount he owed his kid a bargain.
But when you have a parent who behaves like this, it seems like only their opinion is valid, and dad’s opinion now is that he shouldn’t have to pay, for some arbitrary reasons he’s made up in his head. This is really unfair – but not as unfair as refusing to hear out his kid, and invalidating his emotions. It’s no wonder the guy walked out, after cancelling the Spotify and phone payments – after all, you wouldn’t want to owe this dad anything.
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