College student refuses to watch his 14-year-old brother for 2 months unless his parents pay him $75 a day, saying he is already overwhelmed and not a 3rd parent

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Aug 4, 2026 8:30 AM EDT

Family love can get real transactional when someone decides free labor is a birthright 

A parent saying, "we raised you, so now you owe us" turns parenting into a weird little bookkeeping system where affection somehow comes with an invoice. That is especially absurd when the person being asked is a full-time college student already barely holding things together. Two months of unpaid childcare is not a small favor. It is a real job, and it lands on someone who is already maxed out.

The request also has that familiar family-chaos quality where the people making the demand act like inconvenience is the same thing as responsibility. A 14-year-old who can microwave a frozen pizza and survive the afternoon still needs actual supervision, structure, and some adult judgment in the room. Pretending that "he can technically eat and shower" means the job is covered is the kind of thinking that only works if nobody cares what happens between the first and last day.

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  • AITAH for only agreeing to watch my 14yo brother if they pay me 75$ a day?

    Young man in profile beside text reading, “I’m not watching him unless I’m paid to.”
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    Overwhelmed young man

    Representative image

  • My (65M) dad just retired, courtesy of my (51F) mom, and they want to go back to China, for 2 months.
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  • I (21M) am a full time college student who barely keeps up as it is. My mom said that she raised me so I owe this to her, but I feel like that's a bulls excuse because yeah, she did raise me but I didn't ask for that?
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  • And it makes me feel like the only reason she had me was to use it as a bartering system once I was old enough.
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  • I feel like a product instead of a person. As for what this care would entail, she said that I wouldn't have to cook for him, and I only had to be in the same house as him if he needed anything.
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  • Young man with curly hair smiles slightly outdoors against a clear blue sky.
    via Joshua katt

    Young man looking calm but resolved

    Subject is a model

  • That sounds like neglect to me. Am I crazy for saying that? He CAN cook his own meals, but if he does that, he'll probably get scurvy or some other nutrional deficiency because the only things he can cook and will eat are hot dogs, cheeseburgers, frozen pizza, and junk food.
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  • My mom said if he's late for class, he'll just miss school for that day? But I do need to go in on weekdays if they need me to be there for like, a meeting or something.
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  • I can't do that. My classes can sometimes run until 7PM and I usually don't get home til after 9PM.
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  • My mom said that with that kind of money, they could just hire a regular nanny (I doubt that they can find a nanny who will charge below minimum wage) and I said then just do that because I do NOT want to fo this.
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  • I'm already trying to separate myself from the role as 3rd parent and this is not helping.
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  • I feel like it shouldn't be my responsibility to babysit him when I've already been basically babysitting him when my parents leave for the weekend.
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  • AITAH for not watching him unless I'm paid to do so? edit; I'm going to watch my brother until the 25th to see how stressful it is, sort of as a trial period.
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  • If it's not too stressful, then I'll watch him. But I'm not a mentally stable individual, and I'm really worried that my parents are putting him in danger by leaving me in charge of him.
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  • I don't know what I'll do if I have to go to the ward or something.
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  • edit 2; more important things i forgot to add! my brother is not self sufficient imo.
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  • i mean, he can survive but I don't think thats enough. he can eat pizza and sh for 2 months and shower every 2 weeks and fail every class, but like.
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  • I don't think thats taking care of him. he's also like, hit kids in the past and said very not nice things.
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  • my mental health does get worse in the fall, right when my parents would leave. a lot of things happen in the fall.
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  • its my season of No Good Very Bad Days™M! i don't even want to have kids because im worried about passing on my sh to them, and my brother's already exhibiting some of my bad stuff and that really scares me.
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  • i do not pay rent or utilities. however, as of right now, im at my aunts house two nights a week because she lives closer to the college.
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  • that situation will continue in the fall, but I don't have my schedule yet. most of the food that i eat is food i buy myself (about 70-80%) mostly because I don't have the time to cook, not really anyways.
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  • so i wouldn't be able to cook an extra portion for him. i would if i cooked, but i usually don't.
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  • I'm like, barely making it through school as it is right now. my parents were arguing non stop until my dad gave in and quit his job.
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  • im still struggling to catch up from that because i really fell behind just from my parents arguing and my dad losing his job.
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  • i cried so many times during exam season, and my capacity for stress is clearly not very high.
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  • I've already moved downstairs (1st floor living room. its an open floor plan) because my parents are planning to move people in upstairs, so that would be 8 people in one house whenever everyone is home.
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  • god, it just occurred to me that I'd have to live with strangers for 2 months while my parents are away.
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  • both my brother and i have adhd. ive been medicated longer than he had, which is not very long actually!
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  • because my mom wouldn't get him medicated until i tried to k I myself haha. good times.
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  • great times! hes not in therapy but he should be, and my parents and i should definitely be in some kind of counseling but my mom won't go because "im not the problem so why should i go".
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  • there's also an unmentioned middle sister who's moving out because she does not want to deal with this sh.
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  • like, she's putting herself in 20k worth of debt to get out of this place. oh yeah also forgot that im at school until like, 7pm some days, so with the commute, i could be home as late as 9PM, and leaving at 8:30AM.
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  • I can't think of anything else, but ill add it if i come up with it.
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  • edit 3: my brother won't get scurvy 蒸蒸
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  • What makes it more frustrating is the way younger kids get drafted into the role of backup parent and are then supposed to feel honored by it. College already chews up time, sleep, and sanity without asking someone to also become the household safety net. Once classes, commuting, studying, and just staying functional are already eating the day, adding unpaid sibling duty on top starts looking like a way to save money by burning out the nearest available person.

    The money part is not even the weirdest part. Paying someone to watch a kid is normal. Expecting a brother to step in for free because family should automatically cancel boundaries is the part that keeps breaking down. A day rate makes more sense than vague guilt, and the whole thing probably needs to be treated less like a family favor and more like a job with terms that match the actual workload.

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family drama entitled parents brother mother siblings favoritism parenting Parenting Fail entitled people Father
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