Abby Connolly
Sometimes, when you live with a sibling or friend who has children, you become more of a live-in nanny than a roommate.
One woman recently decided to move out of the home she shared with her sister and nephew because her sister began treating her like a free babysitter.
She’s 26, and her sister is 29-years-old and has a 9-year-old son. A little less than a year ago, she moved into the home her sister lives in with her son because she had just gone through a breakup. It was an ideal situation, as her sister needed help paying rent, and she needed a place to go.
She and her sister agreed that she’d pay 40% of their rent and utilities. While it seemed like this would be a great setup, not long after she moved in, her sister began staying out during weeknights and was hardly around on the weekends either, leaving her to look after her nephew.
At first, she thought this situation was temporary, but it only worsened. She eventually became aware that her nephew was falling behind in school, and it was up to her to help him catch up since her sister was never around for homework time.
“My sister didn’t even seem to interact with him much apart from getting him up in the morning,” she explained.
“I found out from him [that] she had been working evenings and weekends, leaving him on his own for years. It turns out she would leave him at home to do her other jobs.”
While she understood her sister’s need to pick up extra shifts to make ends meet, she didn’t expect to become one of her nephew’s primary caretakers once she moved in. These weeknights with her nephew had taken up a lot of her free time, and she felt stuck.
“It was really limiting to my life, and while I like him, I’m also resentful,” she said.
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