She Took The Ladder Off Her Bunk Bed So Her Niece Can’t Climb Into Bed With Her Every Night
Being a teenager already comes with enough growing pains without being asked to play stand-in parent. For one teen, sharing her bedroom with her niece has turned into a nightly battle.
Tired of losing sleep and fed up with being treated like a built-in babysitter, she finally took matters into her own hands. Now her sister is furious, and she’s wondering if protecting her space makes her selfish.
This 15-year-old girl lives at home with her parents, and not too long ago, her 24-year-old sister moved back in with her husband and two kids: a five-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.
Her sister persuaded their mom and dad to force her to share her room with the five-year-old. Her sister argued that it was cramped enough for her and her husband to share their room with the youngest, and they couldn’t put both kids in there.
“She also wanted us to switch bedrooms, too, because my bedroom is her old bedroom and a lot larger than the spare room (which was my old bedroom). My parents at least said no to that,” she explained.
“We ended up having my bed replaced with bunk beds so it wouldn’t be too crowded. I sleep on the top bunk, and my niece started in the middle of the night, climbing up into my bed to sleep with me because she was scared.”
“I guess she gets scared a lot at night, but more here and will go sleep with her parents when she’s scared. She is also too scared to go down the hallway to her parents’ room because she has to go past the big dark windows in the hallway and past the staircase, which is scary because it’s a dark hole.”
Her family attempted to brighten up the hallway with nightlights to make her niece feel better, but it actually had the opposite effect.
She’s a fairly deep sleeper, so when her niece climbed into her bed at night, she wouldn’t instantly wake up from that.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
However, her niece is sweaty, sticky, and gross, and she tends to get jolted awake because her niece is just uncomfortable to be next to.
She thought about a solution and used a screwdriver to take the ladder off the bunk beds, and her niece couldn’t manage to climb into her bed after that, as it was too high up for her to reach.
“I guess she hadn’t been sleeping well since I removed the ladder because the school got involved about her being tired all the time, and they got in trouble,” she continued.
“My sister thinks I’m being petty, and I can just suck it up and let her sleep with me if she’s scared. I still don’t want to, though.”
I think that it’s not this teenager’s job to sacrifice her rest or comfort to make up for her sister’s parenting. Helping out once in a while is one thing, but being expected to act as a co-parent every night is unfair.
If her niece is struggling that badly, the responsibility should fall on the adults in the house, not on a 15-year-old just trying to get some sleep.
What advice do you have for her?
You can read the original post below.
More About:Relationships
