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From Your Author
Hiya, it's Jes, again.
I'm proudly an aunt to 4 little nuggets: Three boys and a girl. While I'm not much of a kid-person myself, struggling to make jokes with kids that don't get it, and panicking when the baby in my arms cries for their mama, I have done my best to be a good aunt to them. I try my hardest to be present, offer babysitting occasionally, and I always send gifts on the kiddo's birthdays. So if my older sibling or my sister-in-law suddenly decided that I was going to be a full-time addition to the parenting squad, it would rock my world… In a bad way.
Don't get me wrong, I like spending time with my niece and nephews, but the best part about being an aunt or uncle is being able to go home to peace and quiet at the end of the day. It's that healthy separation that allows us to be clear-headed, fun, and 100% mindful when we're with the kids once again. But without that boundary line, family roles can get blurry, and the village could decide to come after you, just like the young aunt in this next story.
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Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
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20-year-old aunt refuses to be her sister's full-time babysitter, planning a vacation with friends when family turns hostile: ‘She said I’m being irresponsible, like he's my baby not hers'
Being an aunt or an uncle is the greatest. You get to play and interact with the young ones in the family, but when the tantrums start, the sleep schedules are messed up, or when your niece or nephew is going through a rebellious phase, you can pleasantly take a backseat to all of the parenting responsibility. It takes a village to raise any little one, but sometimes parents take that saying too far, expecting their family members to pick up the slack of their responsibility.
These parents were happy to let the village raise their 5-year-old son, but when the boy's aunt started getting tired of being a full-time babysitter, they doubled down and guilt-tripped her. The mom felt entitled to her services and even called the 20-year-old aunt selfish for setting healthy boundaries, but this strong-armed approach to force the aunt into babysitting her nephew more often eventually backfired, pushing her away and driving a wedge between everyone in the family.
Mom was getting too comfortable dumping her child onto her sister, and found out the hard way that you can't force someone to be an ever-present parent figure. You'll only end up losing your greatest free childcare asset in the process.
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