Woman refuses to take in niece from aging grandparents; says 'put her in foster care.'

"AITA for not wanting to take in my sister's 8-year-old daughter?"

My sister went MIA (I won't be going to go into detail about that). She is not involved and gave her child up to my parents. My parents have custody of my niece and she is living with my parents who feel as though they are getting too old, enough to the point where they can barely take care of her and attend to her needs. I have two children already and don't want any more children.

My parents invited me over for a sit-down conversation. They explained to me how it is getting hard for them to care for my niece due to their age and suggested that I should take her in. I declined as they know I have two children and don't plan on having more. My parents, mostly my mother, accused me of being selfish and bringing up the fact I live in a house with 4 bedrooms.

She suggested that I should turn one of the bedrooms over for my niece. I told her that won't be happening as I don't want more children and don't want the responsibility of more kids. I suggested that they should give my niece up to foster care or try looking for my sister.

My dad agreed to making the search for my sister the first priority and if that didn't go well they'd then consider putting the child into foster care. I offered to help with the search, but as I was leaving my parents' my mother asked me if I would be able to live with myself if my niece were to get put into foster care.

I responded to her saying of course I would feel bad but more kids comes with more responsibilities and that's not something I want in my life. She proceeded to call me a selfish a%$le before walking away. I shrugged it off.

Commenters jumped on with lots of thoughts.

TimeEnvironmental687 wrote:

NTA. But personally I would never be able to sleep at night knowing that because I didn’t take in my niece or nephew they are in foster care.

Missioncivilise wrote:

All you’re going to get here are people’s personal opinions based on what they would do in your situation. I would take my niece in. My husband and I have 3 children and 7 nieces and nephews and we would take all 7 in that situation because we love them. If you don’t love this poor little girl then she’s probably better off not living with you but the thought of her going into foster care is pretty horrific.

She’s been abandoned by her mother and now she’s about to be abandoned by your parents and rejected by you. Does no one love this poor child? Extended family? Friends? Surely someone cares about her. This is heartbreaking.

Dihkal22 wrote:

YTA. In rank of core values obviously yours is null. Is it abandon your own niece to a system that is already overpopulated enough families to taking kids proven 10 times over likelihood of sexual abuse, trauma, and pipeline, straight to higher risk of so many things from addiction, teen pregnancy, prison. THIS IS A CHILD. Your own blood. I’m sure this child didn’t want to be abandoned.

So why didn't someone bring this up before this child was eight years old and has no chance of getting adopted little. Why doesn’t somebody talk to this child and ask them what they want for the rest of their life? How do you know they even want to live with you? Give them an option.

I come from one of those dysfunctional kinds of families, but not once has there been a kid that’s been put into the system in generations of other family members raising other people's kids. Whether two weeks or years, there's never has been an issue of one child not having what it needed or felt unloved.

This breakdown of family bonds, a child, a human life devalued and just discussed as typical dinner topic is sad. This is exactly what’s wrong with society today.

I hope when you’re old your children are not gonna abandon you and put you in a nursing home like 90% of families do when you happen to be inconvenienced because you need assistance or take up too much space and extra room that could be used for renting a room to provide a car payment instead and traded off like you're a thing.

This is one of the most appalling situations I've read. Just do her a favor and get your s#$t together and do it or give them a chance at life and find them at home not to foster care. If reversed and you weren’t no longer here, and your kids were left without parents, would you want your children to be put in foster care and separated and lose everything they’ve already known their whole life?

You shouldn’t take in this kid even debating it shows that you’re not capable of loving this kid. 8-year-olds are not that hard. Whatever the issue is - fix it, help financially, after school programs whatever. 8 isn’t that hard of an age nor is it long lifetime sentence like it would be with a toddler, this child has 10 years.

It will be free of you having responsibility and then that time I hope you guys prepare this child for the world so that they can be self-sufficient because they definitely deserve it with lack of safety net to ever fall back on.

Terrible_Cherry970 wrote:

NTA. As sad as it is for the poor little girl, it is not your responsibility, and your mom is being totally out of line.

Clearly, no one can agree on a verdict for this very loaded situation.