My parents take my sibling and our families to the beach every summer to spend time together which is awesome. The last two years, my younger brother and his wife haven't attended but have sent my nephew (now 3) along with my parents, daughter, husband, and I.
He's kind of a handful, but no biggie, right? The kids can play together and we've still got a good adults to kids ratio.
This year, my nephew showed up with gobs of green snot just constantly oozing out of his face and a foul disposition. Turns out, my brother has strep but somehow didn't think kids could get it even though his child was obviously sick AF.
So, both of my elderly parents are now astonishingly ill, my husband and I are awake at 3am with ungodly sore throats and body aches despite all the OTC medication and folk wisdom we can throw at it, my daughter has spent 3 days throwing up mucus and fighting off a fever, and it looks like we'll all spend the last day of our vacay at the minute clinic getting antibiotics.
I'm considering sending my younger brother an itemized bill for all the medication I had to funnel into both our kids this week, tissues for snotty noses, and the gasoline it took for me to arrive in this hellscape.
He has unequivocally ruined my vacation by dropping a disease vector with no sense of hygiene or personal space right into the middle of it.
I really feel like my brother needs some sort of real world consequence to prevent him from doing this again, and he's a person who is very attached to his bank account.
Would that make me an a**hole or am I justified in requesting compensation for sacrificing a large part of my time off to take care of his sick kid, and getting my own sick kid as a lovely parting gift?
NTA but I really doubt he would pay you. My approach would be to refuse to babysit the kid ever again.
Unfortunately, that's not much of a deterrent since we live in different states. My parents put this trip together, but were the first people to get sick, so a lot of childcare this week ended up falling to my husband and I. I doubt they'd ever agree to not bring the kid just because his parents aren't coming.
Then your parents can enjoy those trips with kid alone. Take your family elsewhere
I don't feel you are TA here at all, but i'm unsure as to whether not sending him a bill would be a good idea.
I had a similar family vacation where one of my nephews had been sick the week prior to the trip... My sister, her bf, and nephew arrived a day later 'so they wouldn't bring germs' with them. The only ones that didn't get sick with this god awful virus were my parents and my other sister's family (they all lived together).
My elderly grandparents, myself, my daughter (we lived in another state), and my uncle's family all got it. The kids were puking, my grandpa sh*t himself several times, the smell coming from what left my body into the toilet was the worst thing I've ever experienced.
It's been nearly a decade and i still haven't forgiven my sister for this. Mostly because SHE GOT SNIPPY WITH US FOR SITTING AROUND THE CONDO AND NOT OUT ENJOYING OUR VACATION, seriously wtf.
Sending her a bill would have caused a whole ruckus with the family. She never would have paid it and would have trash talked me to anyone that would listen. The drama and fall out wouldn't have been worth the point i tried to make. Instead, i hope i outlive her so i can tell the story at her funeral 😈
Hopping on the top comment to say: strep requires antibiotics! Don’t use folk wisdom or OTC medications to address it. If you know it’s strep go to a doctor immediately. If untreated strep can lead to other complications.
And obviously NTA.