If your stepsibling ended up in jail and your dad expected you to take in their five kids, would you feel like saying yes to such a big responsibility?
This 31-year-old woman’s 54-year-old mom and 63-year-old dad got divorced when she was in her 20s after her dad got caught cheating.
A couple of months after that, her dad got married to Lillian, who already had three kids of her own. Lillian’s oldest child was a girl named Vicky, who was a year older than she was.
She got along decently with Vicky, but she hardly interacted with her outside of the holidays they spent together. Vicky now has five kids with four different dads, and they are a 10-year-old girl, 7-year-old twin boys, a 4-year-old girl, and a 7-month-old girl.
Several weeks ago, Vicky got arrested for having substances in her car, and she was ultimately pulled over before her vehicle was searched.
“My dad asked me and my husband m(53) to take in her kids until she gets out. They had been staying with him and Lillian, but they are too active for them to care for. They both have health problems,” she explained.
“I asked why can’t Vicky’s siblings take them in, and he said they can’t afford it. Both [my husband and I] are successful in our work fields and have a house with three rooms; the two spare rooms are offices.”
“I told my dad I would talk with my husband about it, but nothing is for certain. My dad said please and that they can’t take care of them. I talked it out with my husband, we’ve never wanted kids and don’t want the responsibility at any point, so I told this to my dad, who went off on me, calling me a horrible person, saying things like I was abandoning family and responsibilities.”
Her mom and her husband have insisted that she’s not obligated to take in Vicky’s kids while she’s in jail, but many of her friends think she should step up to do this, since it will just be a temporary thing.
She’s left wondering if she’s wrong to not want to care for Vicky’s kids in her absence.
I mean, how long is Vicky going to be in jail? Depending on what the charges are, she could be rotting in there for years, meaning caring for her children might be a more long-term arrangement.
It’s perfectly acceptable for her to decline to take in the kids because five kids is an enormous amount of work, even if they are all well-behaved.
Just because she and her husband have money doesn’t mean they automatically have to be responsible for the kids; that’s not fair. Her dad is just going to have to figure it out on his own.
What do you think?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
