‘She acts entitled. Like she is OWED this’: Ungrateful 16-year-old niece acts out and berates her aunt, who drives her to school and supervises her when her parents are unable to, and parents refuse to discipline her

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Sep 19, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

Though parenting doesn't come with a how-to manual, it's usually commonplace to ensure your child is not making other family members' lives more difficult. Teenagers have their days, of course, but multiple weeks of a teen acting out warrant a special kind of conversation that extended family should not have to participate in. At the end of the day, if a family member is doing you, a parent, a major favor, isn't regulating your child's behavior the least you can do?

In this next story, a woman's 16-year-old niece repeatedly and constantly acts out, which causes the woman distress. No matter what the woman does, her niece finds a way to complain and ridicule whatever she's done—driving and dinner, for two—and refuses to correct her behavior. Teenage angst can only be an excuse for so long until it becomes a general behavioral issue. Why should the woman, her aunt, put up with this? She is sacrificing her time and gas money to be a punching bag for someone half her age. Scroll below to read the full story.

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  • We were all teenagers once. What was your most dreadful moment? Waking up with a zit and cursing your entire household? How about getting upset because Mom refused to stop for McDonald's on the way home?

    Those spurts of acting out probably don't compare to the niece and her behavior in this story. 

  • "She has told me shut-up, be quiet, you're stupid, the whole she-bang of an angsty teenager."
    via laurence la madeleine for Unsplash

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • "WIBTA For telling my in-laws I am going to stop taking my niece to her technical school if she doesn’t change her attitude?"

    Sorry in advance for the long post, and if this is confusing.
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  • I, 34F, have been with my husband 33M for 14 years this year. During this whole time I have been helping my MIL (67F) and FIL (63M) take care of my niece (16F). They adopted her,
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  • going through the courts and everything when she was 2 due to my SIL (39F) being ad g a ict. It use to be small things, such as taking her shopping every so often. Or taking her to
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  • school once or twice a week, but lately it's feels like my husband and I have been doing most of the work that technically her legal guardians should be doing. We
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  • have 3 children ourselves, and my husband feels like we just adopted a 4th child. I don't mind helping them out, especially because we live on their property (We do pay rent), and they help
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  • to watch our two youngest after school (They are 8 and 11), but my niece's attitude has been getting worse and worse recently, and honestly, I don't think I should have to deal with it.
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  • This year she signed up for an after school program that allows high school students to earn a technical certificate, such as Medical Assistant or CNA. It's 45
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  • minutes away from her high school, and it runs until almost 8 at night. The office I work for is 5 minutes from the after school program and they asked if I wouldn't mind bringing her home
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  • some nights, as my office allows us to work our own hours, and I can get work done while she is at the program. I said no problems, with the expectation that they would either be driving her to the program, or sharing some of the responsibility. This program
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  • started at the end of July... and I or my husband have been the only ones taking her or driving her back home. Now I still don't mind taking her home, but it gets kind of old for me to leave my office early, in the middle of my
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  • work day, to drive 45 minutes to pick her up when my in laws only live 3 minutes from the school, only to drive another 45 minutes back into town, drop her off, and then have to wait 4 hours until she gets off and drive her back. That's issue number 1. Issue number 2, her attitude.
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  • Cheezburger Image 10555422464
    via Jan Baborák for Unsplash

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • She acts ENTITLED. Like she is OWED this. She cops an attitude if I am even 1 minute late to picking her up. She cops an attitude if I don't feel like stopping at a gas station so she can pick up snacks or sodas. She
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  • cops an attitude if I don't pick up dinner for her before I pick her up from the program. She has told me shut-up, be quiet, you're stupid, the whole she-bang of an angsty teenager. I have three children myself, 1 teenager (13),
    via Pretend-Editor929
  • and my two youngest. I know that coursing hormones can make them unpredictable, but my children might cop an attitude every once in a while, but there are consequences to their actions. My niece, discipline and
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  • consequences are not even in her vocabulary. My in-laws keep apologizing for her behavior (they get the same attitude), and thanking me for what my husband and I are doing, but they are not disciplining her. Every
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  • time they "try" she throws a tantrum, and because they do not want to hear it, they end up giving her what she wants. (Ex: shutting off her phone, taking her electronics away, not allowing her to go to friend's houses/school functions like dances).
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  • This past weekend, everything came to a head, and my husband is ready to have it out with them, and honestly, so am I. Every other word out of her mouth is either shut up, or you're stupid. Her tone of voice is pure attitude. She
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  • DEMANDED to go to a football game, which originally my in-laws said no to due to her failing a class, but because of her throwing a tantrum, they let her go. Who did they ask to take her, my husband or myself. I refused,
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  • due to the attitude, but my husband ended up taking her AND picking her up. She had a dance the next evening. My in laws were unhappy because my husband and I had plans to go to a friends house (we had our own baby-sitter for our children), so
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  • they had to take her there, but then CALLED us to pick her up after the dance ended (it ended at 10). Mind you, we were at our friends house 30 minutes away from the school, while they were only 3 MINUTES AWAY. I told them they had to pick her up, which started a huge argument, but my husband and I didn't care.
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  • Today, my niece threw a tantrum because I picked her up 10 minutes late. She was not going to be late to her program, and I had parent teacher conferences for my own children that I needed to attend. She started screaming
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  • and yelling at me and berating me because she had to wait 10 minutes while I finished up with my children's teachers. My husband said he is going to tell his parents that they need to buck up and show up, as my
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  • niece is not OUR responsibility, but I'm afraid it would be too harsh, but I'm not sure I can deal with this attitude any longer, and my in-laws are not doing anything in the way of discipline.
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  • Redditors, WIBTA if I told them that I would no longer be taking her anywhere?
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  • Reinvented-Daily Drop the rope. Do nothing for them. "Hey in laws, until X learns how to be kind, appreciative and a human being, but a raging entitled brat, we can no longer support helping her with rides, classes etc. We have our own kids that she's pulling us away from and we cannot handle all of it. Her attitude is the problem and frankly we're not putting up with it anymore. Have a nice day".
    via Reinvented-Daily
  • Mugginsx33 If someone was screaming at me for being late picking them up for a valid reason when I'm doing them a favor I'd leave them there and let them figure it out. Why are you and your husband enabling this? 16 is more than old enough to know how to behave and you're just as responsible for her behavior as long as you're driving her places when she acts like this.
    via Mugginsx33
  • smurfy211 They may not enforce rules but you can. And you can set boundaries with them. You will bring her home, but they need to take her there. Be ready for them to set boundaries about your kids too and possibly your housing but it's the healthiest path forward. If she cops an attitude, dont take her. If she misses too. many classes and fails that's her fault. She'll have to learn eventually.
    via smurfy211

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family dynamics family drama entitled parents entitlement niece reddit story family feud parenting aunt entitled family reddit thread parent Reddit Parenting Fail parents entitled people Parenting FAILS
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