40-year-old stepmother asks 18-year-old to babysit 9-year-old stepbrother during her own father's memorial service: 'You lost a husband of 5 years. I lost the man who raised me my entire life. You do the math'

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Apr 15, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

Regardless of your relationship with your family members, a memorial service is no easy time, but it's especially hard when it means you have to deal with family you'd rather not see on top of everything else and are forced to have interactions with people whom you made the conscious decision to have nothing to do with years prior.

A memorial service is not the time to be babysitting your step-siblings, not when the stepparent could be looking after them. Of course, arguing over who "deserves" to attend the service more isn't something you want to get into. But unquestionably the departed's own children should be the ones with the most priority in the situation—even over their spouse. (Is that controversial?) And it's the stepmother's responsibility to look after her own kids—not her stepdaughter's. At any rate, surely there are other family members who can watch the kid during the service and both the stepmother and the daughter could attend and focus on the service unfettered. The poor girl is dealing with an uncertain future without her father and likely already dreading having anything else to do with her stepmother and stepbrother.

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