'AITA for upgrading my ticket knowing that my sister expected me to help with her kids on the flight?'
"AITA for upgrading my ticket knowing that my sister expected me to help take care of her kids on the flight?"
My sister and I live in the same city, but our parents moved to another country for retirement. They flew us out for their anniversary. Our parents buy all of us tickets on the same flight. My sister has two kids - a 6 month old and a 5 year old. She is currently separated from her husband so she would have to handle 2 children by herself on a 10 hour flight. Or so I thought.
She calls me up a week or so beforehand and asks me if I will be willing to help her take care of her kids on the flight, and something about taking shifts so we can both sleep. I tell her that I wasn't comfortable with that, but she says "nephew loves you so much" so we can work something out on the flight and hangs up.
I was pissed. I didn't sign up for mid flight babysitting. I called my airline office and asked if they had any business class seats available. They said yes, and I upgraded using a mix of points + money. The upgrade cost me $50 out of pocket, the rest covered by my frequent flyer miles and it was money well spent to be able to sleep.
I get to the airport, check in and wait around for my sister to show up. She does, and I eventually tell her that I upgraded. She... didn't seem too happy. She still sends me little screenshots of how important family is and how we should care about them. I mean, the only reason why I upgraded was because she expected me to babysit. And I didn't give her a heads up.
And for everyone that said I didn't tell her I didn't want to do it: I did. I did tell her over that phone call I didn't want to do it. She does have a history of dumping her kids with me, and I didn't want to spend 10 hours on the plane with them, only to spend another week with them in a foreign country - where I did babysit them while she went sightseeing for "me time".
What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:
Zombiesquirrel57 said:
NTA. She made the decision to have the kids. She made the decision to take an international flight with them. Not your problem.
Tiredbydefault said:
NAH It’s reasonable for a family to ask for help and it’s also okay to have boundaries. It would have been nice to help your sister but you were by no means required to. It was also okay for her to feel a bit disappointed with you.
poeadam said:
YTA. This is one of those cases where sure, technically you were not required to help. They aren’t your kids after all, right? BUT, this is your sister and she obviously could have really used your help. It sounds like the only reason you didn’t help was because you just didn’t feel like it. That’s pretty lame. It is also lame to not give her any advance warning.
SunshinyPineapple said:
ESH, but you more so. Your sister shouldn't have just assumed, but if she's a single mom with 5yr old and a 6 month old who's obviously recently separated from her husband, I can forgive some scatterbrainedness. She definitely needed your help on that flight and I'm willing to bet you didn't need the full ten hours to sleep. That was pretty low OP
personofpaper said:
YTA - You're really going to sit in the confines of an airplane and pretend like your sister isn't 20' away desperately needing a hand? Come on.
And adhdandwingingit said:
YTA so originally you were planning on sitting on a 10 hour flight with your sister, and your niece and nephew just a few feet away. At some point your sister was going to struggle and you were just going to.... sit there and watch her? Do you have any idea how exhausted she must be dealing with a 6 month old and 5 year old? She had a baby SIX MONTHS AGO and now she Is separating from her husband!
This is seriously one of the most stressful periods of her life. Yes she chose to have kids but don’t you think she probably expected her husband to be there? She asked you to help. All you had to do was say no- not secretly upgrade your flight. God forbid you need help in the future. Because your sister won’t ever forget how you were not there to support her.
KYC3PO said:
INFO: does your sister do this kind of thing [volunteering, expecting, or guilt tripping you] often? I ask, because if this is a pattern with her, that's one verdict. If not, then it might be another.
OP responded:
She expects babysitting a lot, yeah. Once she dropped off nephew at my place and said she thought she asked me before. Blamed pregnancy brain that time. There are other occasions, but would rather not get into it.
docgok said:
YTA. If you didn't want to babysit, you needed to be 100% clear with your sister about that. You purposely deceived her as retaliation for asking. She hung up? Call her the fuck back; don't secretly book alternative plans and then surprise her with it at the airport. If you had shown a little backbone and said "no", she could have arranged alternative plans.
I just want to preemptively reply: your last paragraph is BS. If she thought you were going to be there, you didn't properly say "no." Don't get on the plane if it's such a big deal. You got your plane tickets for free. Explain to your parents that you would rather not get a free weeklong vacation than help take care of your nephew for a few hours.
OP responded:
I did say no. Clearly. I said no and then she goes for the "but nephew loves you so much" and "we'll figure something out on the plane". The words "I am uncomfortable" and "No" left my mouth repeatedly during that conversation.
OP shared more info. in the comments:
1.) She used to do this while she was with her husband too.
2.) I love my sister, but having to cancel plans I've made weeks in advance because she dropped off a 3 year old unannounced sucks.
-
I spend lots of time with them when they get dropped off at my door unannounced. I spent lots of time with them when we stayed under one roof during the vacation as well.