A
male
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:My brother and sister and law has two children: a neice who just turn two years old and a nephew who will turn one year old in September.The problem is that my brother and sister-in-law always want me to babysit. My parents and my sister-in-law's parents are trying to talk me into babysitting. I am single male and I am 26 years old. I used to babysit all the time and I do love them. I would babysit them at least five nights a week so my brother could do homework for college and my sister-in-law could prepare for work (she is a school teacher). And the main reason I babysit is that I still lived at home and my parents could ask me to babysit and it was easy for them to pressure me to babysit (instead of paying rent in cash, I would pay rent by babysitting).But after I realize how hard it is too babysit two babies, I decided I was not ready to do that anymore so I moved out of my parents house. It cost me money, but I enjoy living on my own. And now my parents, brother, sister-in-law and sister-in-law's parents are mad that I do not have time to babysit anymore. Most of the time they ask me too babysit, I am at work. My view is if the babies are not mine, they are not my problem. I love them, but I need to start living my life. They even had the nerve to say "the only thing you do all day is sleep". Yeah, I sleep all day becuase I work during the night.How do I get my family that they need to stop expecting me to babysit all the time? It has gotten to the point that I refuse to answer my phone when I see their phone number on my caller i.d.
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female
reader, RedAthena +, writes (3 August 2011):
 Wow. I would like to shake your hand for being responsible to move out on your own and send a message to your family that you an adult and THEIR children are NOT YOUR children.
You are 26 and entitled to your own life. Just keep ignoring their rants, enjoy your family and young ones just for the relationship with them, and manage your life.
You can not STOP them from expecting/asking. They may just be pretty selfish people. Maybe they will learn how to managed their lives like plenty of OTHER parents do.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (3 August 2011): You need to tell them that they decided to have kids, so they have to deal with the responsibility of them. Not your problem. Tell them you work all night and need sleep during the day, not look after children. I'm sure you love them, but that doesn't mean you have to drop what you are doing and watch them because the parents have work to do. Well to bad for them they should have thought about that before they had children. And that's exactly what you need to say. Honestly if they can't get over it and they stay mad, well then so be it. There really is nothing you can do. They can either accept that you are living on your own and working full time or they can continue to pout. I bet they'll continue to pout, but hopefully they come around and find a different babysitter.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (3 August 2011): You're absolutely right, it isn't fair for you to be expected to be on call all the time for childcare duties - a responsibility that, indeed, isn't even yours! I think that's one of the difficult balances to keep within a family: you have a moral obligation to them, but there's a limit. No matter how much you love them, you can't give so much of your time that your own life ends up neglected.
Tell your family gently but firmly that you simply don't have the time to look after the little ones as regularly as you did before. You're hardly making excuses - it's a *fact* that you're working now. You're young, you're living independently, you need to focus on yourself. It doesn't make you selfish (I'm sure you'd still be happy to do the odd evening as a favour if you're free), only sensible. Of course it'll be a bit of an inconvenience for your family to make alternative babysitting arrangements, but they can hardly blame you for that. Don't worry. They'll come to terms with it soon enough! Good luck and take care :)
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