21-year-old starts babysitting niece once a month instead of fortnightly, gets lambasted by brother: 'You're a professional victim'

No sensible parent falls out with a free babysitter.

While there are many valid reasons to stop using somebody as a childcare option, if a trustworthy adult is willing to watch your kids for no money, that is not an arrangement that you want to screw up. If that person happens to be a family member, even better—they should have more of a vested interest in your kid than a random babysitter who may not come cheap. This kind of arrangement is not a privilege that everybody gets.

At the same time, there are plenty of people whose relatives have young children who feel like they are taken for granted and mistreated when they agree to babysit for them. Many parents take this as an excuse to act out in ways they might not with a professional. It can also make them far more entitled to their time, and expect them to watch their kids even when it is inconvenient, or puts too much strain on their family members. It is not uncommon for arguments to occur because of a difference in expectations between parents and their relatives about how much childcare they are going to participate in.

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In particular, younger female relatives are often seen as an easy target when asking for babysitting, then expecting to be able to treat the babysitter however the parents want. They can also be especially indignant when these kinds of babysitters stand up for themselves and demand to be treated correctly.
In this story, a young woman and her sister agreed to babysit their brother's baby once every two weeks, once he and his fiancée returned to work. This arrangement continued for several months, until the woman's circumstances changed and she informed them that she could only babysit once a month.
Despite the fact that her sister still agreed to the original arrangement, her brother reacted angrily, leading her to cut contact with him. She found herself suffering the consequences of this, and wanted to know if she was in the wrong.
Am I wrong for telling my brother and his fiancée that I won't be babysitting for them anymore?

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