44-year-old refuses to become legal guardian of friend Beth’s 17-year-old daughter Chloe after raising her for 10 years: ‘I really do want to help her, it’s just not possible for multiple reasons’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jun 18, 2026 5:00 PM EDT

Asking someone to become a legal guardian is not a favor. It is a complete life reorganization wrapped in a guilt trip and handed to someone who already gave ten years of free childcare without being asked twice.

Ten years of free childcare, zero complaints, genuine love for the kid, and the reward at the end of it is being asked to also take legal custody of a struggling teenager across state lines, which is either the most touching vote of confidence a person has ever received or the longest con in friendship history.

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  • Woman sitting with a laptop in a bright kitchen, resting her head on one hand and looking concerned.
    via Geber86

    Woman using a laptop with a concerned expression, like she's weighing a difficult decision such as the guardianship request, as shown by a model.

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

  • AITAH for telling my best friend no to becoming her 17 year old daughter’s legal guardian?

    I (44F) and my best friend Beth (44F) have been friends since 3rd grade. I basically raised her daughter Chloe. Once Beth
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  • could go back to work after having Chloe I started babysitting for her. I had just gotten divorced and was on dis ility so I didn't have a job.
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  • Also, I did this completely for free. I didn't mind, I really love kids (I have no kids of my own) and was happy I could help. I was a preschool teacher before going on dis lity.
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  • Her husband at the time worked nights so I would watch her until he would wake up. Fast forward 4 years Beth and her husband got divorced. She had
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  • to move back home with her parents, and I was also staying with my parents since I couldn't afford to live on my own so we decided to get an apartment
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  • together. I would still look after Chloe while Beth worked. I picked her up from school, made dinner, homework, got
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  • Woman sitting with a laptop in a bright kitchen, resting her hand near her temple and looking concerned.
    via Geber86

    Woman sitting with a laptop in a bright kitchen, resting her hand near her temple and looking concerned.

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

  • her bathed and in bed. During breaks and summer, I watched her all day. So basically I took care of Chloe for 10 years.
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  • In 2016 I met my now boyfriend Mark. We have been together ever since. In 2017 my parents decided to move to a different state to be closer to my
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  • younger brother who was newly married and just had a baby. Their first grandchild. After a year of really missing my family and not seeing them much I
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  • decided to make the move as well. Mark decided he wanted to move with me. We found our own apartment, and it was great being close to family again.
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  • Here's where things got crazy. After I moved Beth called me constantly asking if I would talk to Chloe on the phone and tell her she needed to mind her mother and do as she's told.
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  • Woman sitting on a mustard couch with a laptop in a bright kitchen, looking concerned
    via Geber86

    Woman sitting with a laptop and looking concerned, as shown by a model.

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

  • Beth was never good at discipline and when she was home Chloe basically did whatever she wanted. Apparently Chloe was starting
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  • to have behavioral problems after I left. Beth would call me complaining that Chloe never listens to her, always talks back and refuses to do anything. I
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  • finally told her she needed to figure something out because it's going to get worse the older she gets if nothing is done.
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  • I told Beth that I was extremely sorry she was having to go through that and I wished there was a way for me to help, and her response was "you're the one that decided to move". In the moment
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  • I thought she was telling me that it was my fault all of this was happening. I'm not sure if that's what she meant but I said nothing. Chloe's behavior from
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  • then to now just got worse and worse. Not only that but Beth ended up having a mental breakdown herself last year.
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  • So, this past weekend she called me saying she is at her wits end. Chloe refuses to go to school, (which has actually been happening for 2 years) or take
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  • any of her meds for both her diabetes and mental health. Beth says she has called everyone to try to get her daughter some help and no
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  • one will help her. I live in a state that has much better mental health resources than where she's from. So she asked if Chloe could move in with me to
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  • get the help she needed. Beth told me that Chloe listens to me and will do what I tell her to and trusts me. I told her I needed to talk to Mark first because this affects both of us.
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  • After discussing everything with Mark we decided it wasn't a good idea. Although, he did tell me that if I changed my mind he would support me in my
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  • decision. She wasn't very happy being told no and said I could be saving her daughter's life. I really do want to help her, it's just not possible for multiple reasons I won't mention here.
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  • Beth also does not seem to understand the fact that it's not as easy as she thinks to becoming a legal guardian to a
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  • child that's not yours due to the circumstances above. I forgot to mention we are neighboring states.
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  • So, AITAH for telling her no when I could be possibly saving her daughter's life?
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  • A decade of pickups, dinners, homework, bedtime routines, all unpaid, all out of love. Then the moment she builds her own life and moves closer to her own family, the friendship quietly shifts into a debt collection situation. The guilt about moving was planted early and watered often, and now it has fully bloomed into a request to take legal responsibility for a teenager with serious unmanaged medical and mental health needs.

    Nobody is arguing the kid does not deserve help. She clearly does. But there is a real confusion happening between being a caring person and being a one-woman social services department. Someone else's crisis does not automatically generate an obligation in whoever happens to be nearby and emotionally available. Proximity and history are not the same as liability.

    And “you could be saving her life”. It's a sentence engineered to make "no" feel like a moral catastrophe rather than a reasonable answer from someone with a partner, a home, a state line between them, and actual limits. Desperation and manipulation are not mutually exclusive. Both things can be true at once.

    Saying no to legal guardianship is not the same as saying no to the kid, and love is not a legal document. One person cannot be expected to absorb every problem just because she absorbed some of them before, and that a decade of showing up already counts for something even when it ends.

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