There comes a point when helping family stops being a favor and starts becoming a responsibility nobody else is willing to share.

In this story, a woman stepped in and raised her niece after CPS repeatedly removed the teenager from her mother’s care. Although no court officially placed the girl with her, she became the one providing all of the care a parent normally handles.

Meanwhile, both of the teenager’s parents remained in the picture.

The father worked but refused to contribute financially, while the mother provided no support at all. On top of that, the woman recently took on additional responsibilities caring for her own mother after a serious illness left her unable to work.

After years of carrying the financial burden alone, she finally filed for child support against both parents.

But that decision did not go over well.

Read on to see what’s happening.

AITA for filing for child support on my 17-year-old niece (against both of her parents)?

I’ve been raising my 17-year-old niece fulltime for a while now. She lives with me and doesn’t stay anywhere else except the occasional sleepover with friends.

This wasn’t a formal court ordered situation, but CPS has been involved and removed her from her mom’s care multiple times in her life.

She was unofficially placed in my care. Since then, I’ve taken on all of her da-to-day needs like housing, food, school, transportation, and all of that.

Unfortunately, her parents don’t help with her care.

Both of her parents, my brother and her mom, are alive. Neither of them provide financial support. My brother is working but has refused any help, even something small. All I’ve asked from him is $100 per week.

The only thing he has given me is silence. Yet him and his wife just got a new home. My niece’s mom is also not contributing at all, but she can’t hold down a job to save her life.

On top of that, I’m helping take care of my own mom, who recently got incredibly sick and can no longer work. Before she got sick, she actually helped financially support my niece a lot, so losing that income has made things significantly harder.

Fed up, she filed the paperwork.

Because of all of this, I recently filed for child support against both parents.

Her mom is extremely upset and says I’m a huge jerk for doing this when my niece is so close to turning 18.

She also thinks I’m only doing this to use the money to take care of my mom, which isn’t true.

Now, she feels bad.

I’m filing for disability for my mom as well, so my mom’s money will go to the appropriate things and my nieces money will go where it should too. My goal is to be able to cover household expenses more comfortably and make sure my niece has what she needs without constantly struggling.

I feel conflicted. On one hand, I feel like I shouldn’t have to force her parents to help support their own child.

On the other hand, I know there really is no other way to hold them accountable to their responsibilities.

AITA?

Yikes! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who wasn’t keen on contributing more to a coworker’s gift than originally planned.

Let’s see how the people over at Reddit feel about this whole thing.

That’s a good point.

Here’s some helpful advice.

According to this comment, the parents need a wakeup call.

Here’s someone who encourages her to file.

It’s hard to feel sorry for parents who had years to help and simply chose not to.

The niece may be close to turning 18, but that doesn’t change the fact that somebody else has been paying for everything.

Seventeen is still a child.

And if her parents didn’t want child support coming after them, they had plenty of chances to step up before it ever got to this point.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a high school student whose manager insists on scheduling them during school hours.