Woman slammed as 'bad aunt' for refusing to ever babysit, even during emergency

2 October 2020, 10:15 | Updated: 2 October 2020, 10:29

One Reddit user has said she is too busy to ever babysit her nephew.

A woman has reached out for advice, after she refused to ever babysit her nephew.

Posting her story on Reddit, the anonymous user said she previously explained to her brother that she would only look after his son in a ‘medical emergency’.

She wrote: “I work 60-100 hours a week, so if anyone needs time off, it’s me.”

Despite her rules, the woman said she was asked to babysit her nephew when she was supposed to be on an important work retreat, so she said no.

She said: “Everyone is expected to go [on the retreat], and it’s frowned upon if you miss it.

“They wanted to go on a date. I said no, I have an important work event. They continued to nag me about how they haven’t gone on a date for so long.”

The night before her work event, her brother called to say his friend Mike had been in a car accident and asked her to babysit for a few hours.

After ‘reluctantly agreeing,’ the woman said the couple assured her they would be back by 7am the next morning so she could go on her retreat, but they didn’t return for two days.

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For weeks afterwards, the Reddit user’s brother and sister-in-law asked her to babysit regularly, saying they were visiting Mike in hospital.

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However, two months later she ran into Mike, who said he had never been in an accident.

It turns out the pair had been lying so they could go on date nights, with the woman explaining: “They claimed I gave them no choice since I would never help them out when they needed time together because parenting was so stressful and difficult.”

She then added: “I made it clear that after this incident, I would never babysit for them again, and I’ve stuck to that.”

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However, recently the woman was asked to babysit again after her brother claimed his wife's relative was in the hospital, even showing proof of the emergency.

But the woman wasn’t having any of it and refused to help them out, writing: “They said I was a bad aunt, needed to get over my grudge!”

And it seems as though readers are divided over the argument, with many agreeing that the brother never should have lied.

One person slammed: “[They] didn't just cry wolf once, [they] kept an ongoing chorus for months. Never babysit again. Ever. I don't care if they are the ones in the hospital themselves,” one person wrote.

Another agreed: “Not for them to decide, it's for you, and I find it hard when they obviously don't think they did anything wrong nor tried to apologise and make amends.”

While a third added: “Dumping your child for two freaking DAYS with someone is not even going on a ‘date night'."

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