She Ran Away From Home Because Her Parents Were Using Her As A Built-In Babysitter For Her Younger Brother
This 15-year-old girl will be a junior in high school this upcoming school year, and she also has a younger brother named Matt, who is just 3-years-old.
While she was reportedly a planned pregnancy, though, her parents did not plan to have Matt. So, they actually considered putting him up for adoption. And after her parents decided against it, they turned to her for help with childcare.
Following her mother’s maternity leave, they created a schedule detailing who would be responsible for watching her younger brother at different times.
Both of her parents have full-time jobs in the business district. So, her mom always left for work at 4:30 a.m. and woke her up on the way. Then, she would watch Matt until she needed to head to school at 7:00 a.m.
By that point, her dad would be awake and take over the childcare. And later, after she arrived home from school at 3:45 p.m., she would watch her little brother while her dad went to work until her mom got home at 6:00 p.m.
Anyway, every day for the first year of Matt’s life, this was her family’s schedule. And for a while, she was actually fine with it.
However, her mom recently shifted her work schedule and works later hours now. So, she is forced to watch Matt until he goes to sleep, and she is not even allowed to go to bed until her mom arrives home between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.
“On top of that, I do anything that needs doing at home. And I am in AP classes and have my homework to do as well,” she said.
To make matters worse, her brother is not very well-behaved, either. He has apparently suffered from health issues since birth, which cause him discomfort.
olgavolodina – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
He is also still a toddler, so his general demeanor, plus added tantrums, just make it difficult for her to get anything done.
That’s why, one week before school ended in May, she decided to talk to her mom and ask if they could hire a babysitter– mainly because she wanted to take some extracurriculars.
Her mom just claimed that they did not need to waste money on that, though, since they had her there to watch him.
Then, after her mom arrived home from work two days later, her mom even told her to ask her school if she could shorten her class load for the next school year.
That way, she could spend more time at home since, apparently, her dad also wanted to shift his work hours.
However, she honestly flat-out told her mom no. And if you could not have guessed, this just made her mom angry, and she got told that she needed to be more accepting and understanding.
“I had enough and blew up. I can’t remember what all was said, but I do remember yelling that I wasn’t my little brother’s parent,” she recalled.
Then, she stormed off to her bedroom, threw some stuff in her backpack, and ran away from home while her mom was busy with her little brother.
Now, she is safe and called her grandmother– who is estranged from her mom– to explain what was going on. Afterward, her grandma picked her up, listened to her explain the situation, and totally understood.
Her parents were not as understanding, though, and started blowing up her phone and demanding that she return home. They even claimed that she should be ashamed of herself for acting like that.
But her grandmother actually just blocked her parents’ phone numbers. Her grandma also spoke to her parents, who eventually agreed to let her stay there until she “gets her head on straight.”
Anyway, she admitted that she does feel a bit guilty for just leaving.
“But at the same time, I feel so worn out,” she vented.
Still, while some of her other family members weighed in and took her side, others claimed that she needed to just accept her duties and suck it up.
That’s why she’s been feeling conflicted ever since and has been left wondering whether running away from home was the wrong thing to do.
Is it fair that her parents are using her as a built-in babysitter? Should she have to lessen her time at school just so they don’t have to hire a different caretaker? Should she feel guilty for running away? What would you have done?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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