Grandma refuses to watch grandkids over the summer after their mom makes one too many demands without a single thank you: ‘We are rewarding her bad behavior'

Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor

May 13, 2026 2:00 PM EDT

Part of a grandparent's "duty" is to be there for the grandchildren when their parents need help.

It's a big part of what soon-to-be grandparents wait for the most. They want the enjoyment of spending quality time with their grandkids, without the additional commitments of actually raising them. They know they must be there for their kids, the new parents who will definitely need a helping hand and sage advice every once in a while, and they are willing to step up and become the best grandparents in the world.

However, even the best grandparents in the world have a limit to what they can do, especially if their own kids are constantly judging their grandparenting skills, as the daughter in the story does to her own mother.

This mother, who is also a 53-year-old grandmother with a full-time job, clearly has her hands full. She works as a college professor during the school year, and spends her free time either taking care of her three grandchildren or training and professionally developing in her career.

Her daughter, the three kids' mother, is a stay-at-home mom with no other responsibilities, yet she still finds many excuses to drop her kids off at their grandparents whenever she feels like it. She doesn't care that her mother has a job or if her dad is not feeling well; when she asks them to babysit, they must comply.

Last time she did so was on Mother's Day. She didn't call her mother to wish her a Happy Mother's Day; she called because she wanted to ask them to watch her kids one day a week during the summer. This request (or should we say demand) was the last straw for the overworked grandma, who, for once, decided to refuse her daughter, as much as it pained her to do so.

Her husband thinks they should still agree, for the sake of the grandkids, but she refuses to let her daughter take advantage of them any further without a single thank you in return…

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via Christian Buehner

Middle-aged woman looking at the camera.
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AITAH for refusing to watch my grandkids on my summer break?

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Grandparents with Grandchildren.
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