When family crosses a line, sometimes the real issue isn’t the money itself but who should take responsibility.

So, what would you do if your sibling damaged something of yours and offered to “make it up to you later?”

Would you tell them to get your money ASAP, any way they could?

Or would you make it clear that you’re willing to wait, so long as they’re the ones paying you back?

In today’s story, one sibling finds herself in this exact situation and just wants her sister to take responsibility for what she did.

Here’s what happened.

AITA for requiring my sister to reimburse me (and for telling my family not to give her money to do so)

For Context: my (F25) older sister (F 29), we’ll call her Mary, is currently unemployed, although she has a part-time job at her son’s school during the school year, and she lives with our older aunt rent-free.

My parents pay the few bills that are under her name (like her phone bill). My nephew’s father (M 31, call him Jacob) also has full custody and pays all of the expenses related to their son. She does not pay child support as she does not bring in enough money.

For the long weekend, I went camping at the same campground where Jacob has a seasonal site for him and my nephew. Mary also frequently joins them out there for the weekend.

It is a nice campground and a smaller one without any rowdy college kids getting loud at 3 am, so my friends and I decided to book our own site for the weekend.

It all started when her sister decided to borrow the board without permission.

I brought my (fairly new, fairly expensive for a 25-year-old) paddleboard out with me and tied it to a tree near the shoreline with all of the other paddleboards/kayaks/large inflatables, as is common practice at this lake.

It’s a tight-knit community where people know each other and are generally respectful of other people’s belongings.

Well, yesterday, my friends and I went hiking in the morning and were gone for about 4 hours.

When we got back, Mary approached me asking if I was planning on going to the beach soon, and if I was planning on using my board.

I told her yes, and she said, “Well, about that…” and then proceeded to explain that she had taken my board out, dropped the paddle, and sunk it, and there was no way to get it.

Her sister didn’t know how to respond when it was put into perspective.

She still had the handle, so my best guess is that since she was shorter than me and the paddle was adjustable, she had changed the height and failed to properly lock the handle back into place, so it slipped out.

I asked why she took the board without permission, and she explained that she came to our site to ask, but we weren’t there, so she just assumed it was fine and did it anyway.

I asked if she would have let her 8-year-old son take someone else’s property without asking and, if not, why she didn’t hold herself to that same standard, and was met with a blank stare.

Now, she thinks she may have gone too far.

At this point, she offered to buy me a new paddle as a “Christmas gift,” and I replied that I would order a replacement paddle from the company and tell her how much it costs.

She should expect it to be around $70 (but I wasn’t sure yet, as I couldn’t look it up right away), and I expect her to pay me back once she starts working her part-time job again.

I might be the wrong simply for that, but I also took it a step beyond and contacted our parents and the older aunt that she lives with and asked that they not give her any money for this purpose as I want the reimbursement to come from HER not from THEM.

I also mentioned that I was fine waiting a month for the money, but I wanted her to be the one facing this consequence.

But now she is acting like I am being intentionally cruel, and I’m starting to feel like I went too far.

AITA?

Yikes! This whole situation sounds like a big mess.

Let’s see how Reddit readers feel about how she handled this.

This reader thinks she had no right to tell others what to do.

Here’s a look at why the sister is so careless.

For this reader, it’s not up to her to teach life lessons.

According to this person, she should just move on and let it go.

She’s not really wrong.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.