'AITA for refusing to babysit my grandkids because I need to recharge?'
"AITA for refusing to babysit my grandkids because I need to recharge?"
I am in my late 50s, and in general last month with the holiday and then my job being rough the beginnings of the month I am tired. Today I able to take a half day and this weekend I plan on doing nothing. This seems to be a problem.
I got a call today asking if I could babysit the grandkids tomorrow night. They have to visit her uncle and don't want to take the kids to the nursing home. I told my DIL no. She asked why and I told her I need to recharge.
DIL asked if I truly was doing nothing and I told her yes. This started and argument where she thinks I am being selfish and I can easily do this since I am doing nothing. I told her my answer was again no.
My son is also mad at me now, and I am wondering if I should suck it up and babysit. If you have a question it has probably been answered in a comment. I have a lot of comments and I realized I am just restating the same stuff over and over. AITA?
Let's see what readers thought.
adventurous7 writes:
Mom to multiple kids here. My parents live close by. Hard NTA. I swapped kids all the time with friends when we needed a night off or to go do something. Everyone loves a date night so we'd swap kids with another set of friends who were looking for a kid free night out. It worked beautifully. Also, the teen girls around the neighborhood were great babysitters.
My parents were the pinch-hitters. They'd invite a kid over to spend the night one on one but babysitting was a different ball game. That was saved for emergencies only. They made it clear they didn't want to be the defacto babysitters, and that is fine.
NTA. You aren't the default. They need to get a file of baby sitters phone numbers going and go from there. If they don't trust teens to watch the kids then they need to find friends to swap kids with or look for local parents night out programs.'
wonderfulset9 writes:
NTA this is a visit. It’s not an emergency situation. They are not entitled to you babysitting even if they are your grandkids. You’re allowed to set boundaries.
Like I said this is a visit. They have several options. Your son can stay with the kids and let his wife visit. They can take the kids with them to visit. Or they can hire a babysitter.
They however do not demand you to keep the kids when you’re not feeling well. You may not be sick traditionally. But being ran down both emotionally and physically is still not feeling well and is unhealthy for you physically. You’re allowed to put self care above a simple visit.
iamnotpersonsorry writes:
So you do have plans—a plan to do nothing. That is just as valid a plan as anything else, so there is not a single thing to feel guilty about.
The only mistake you made was giving a reason for saying you couldn’t babysit, and now you know that in the future all you have to say is ‘no, I can’t babysit (or whatever), I have plans’. And if your son or DIL pushes to know more, tell them that your plans aren’t up for debate and they are not going to be able to argue you out of them.