Woman refuses to babysit 5 yo nephew; 'My sister has raised an absolute monster.' UPDATED 2X

When this woman refuses to babysit her nephew, she asks the internet:

"My (23F) sister (30F) is upset I babysit my friends' (23M and 22F) baby over her nightmare kid. How can I get my family to understand that her kid is a nightmare?"

I'm a 23 year old childfree woman (idk if this is needed for the story), and my sister is 30 with a 4 year old son. She's a single mom, ex-husband is not in the picture and has no contact with her or the kid. I'm gonna get straight to the point, that kid is a nightmare to be around.

It's not his fault, it's my sister's fault. He very clearly has behavioral and mental health disorders, even at his young age. However, my sister was and is very ablest and refuses to accept that her son has problems. she's created a monster.

The kid screams bloody murder whenever something doesn't slightly go his way, screams and cries when he's overwhelmed, has meltdowns to certain sounds and textures.

Like I said, I don't blame the kid for these issues, but my sister refusing to get him treatment or help makes the kid a nightmare to be around. So, as a result I don't babysit the kid when my sister asks (more like demands) I do so. This causes a lot of fights between us and our family.

I have a friend, 23 M, who's married to a wonderful lady age 22 and they have a baby boy together who just turned 1. Yes they got married and had him young, but it's not my place to judge them.

This past weekend they asked me to babysit for them, and I agreed for a few reasons. Their kid is calm, well behaved, and a general good kid/toddler/baby to be around. I love babysitting him. Also, they asked me nicely and understood that I might say no because I'm childfree. They were polite about their request.

A thing about me is that if you ask me to do something politely, even if it's something I wouldn't usually agree to, I'd probably do it because you were nice and polite. So for these reasons, I happily agreed to babysit the boy.

My sister also asked me to babysit her son that day so she could have a day to herself, and I refused and told her I was already babysitting for my friends. She was pissed, to say the least. She said a few comments about how I was an ass and not a good sister, but I thought she dropped it after that.

This past weekend, while I was watching the baby, my sister started banging on my door. I looked through the window and saw that she had her kid and a care bag with her, and I knew she was trying to drop him off and make me babysit.

She was banging on the door, yelling at me and calling me heartless and a baby hater (while I was holding a baby, ironic) and that I better open up and do my sisterly duties. I put the baby in a different room to keep him from getting scared by the noise, and told my sister through the window to leave, or I would call the cops.

She started cursing for a solid five minutes before she finally left. I had the whole thing on my doorbell camera and sent it to the family group chat. Surprisingly, my whole family is on my sister's side.

She keeps arguing with me about how I'd rather babysit a kid not even related to me over my nephew. I reminded her that her kid is a nightmare to be around, but she keeps saying that for family you help out.

My sister has been cold since, and keeps sending me text messages to provoke me into arguing with her more. She's also started saying some pretty ablest and nasty things towards my friend's wife.

My friend's wife is on the spectrum and has BPD and my sister keeps saying that she should have been sterilized and never should have passed her issues to her kid (btw, her kid has shown none of the signs that autistic infants usually show so idk what my sister is on).

I will admit that I do feel a bit guilty because I never consider babysitting my nephew, but I jumped at the opportunity to babysit my friend's kid. My sister, dad (66), mom (64) and brother (33) are all calling me an asshole and saying that I'm just using the CF label to avoid family responsibility.

I need advice on how to get my family to see my perspective on this. How can I explain to them that the issue isn't the idea of babysitting, but it's the behavior of the kid?

UPDATE 1:

Relevant Comments (there were lots but I tried to include a sampling):

Commenter: Just ignore your sister maybe even block her. She isn't entitled to you as a babysitter. As for your family, black kettle them, "So when are you babysitting sister kiddo since family should care for family?"

OOP: My brother (33, which I should have mentioned) has a wife and kids so he can't babysit, and my parents are in their early/mid 60s (also probably should have mentioned) and claim to be too old to do so. I'm the youngest and was a "whoops" baby my parents had in their 40s by chance.

Because of my young age and the fact I'm not married and don't have kids, they keep saying I'm the perfect person to babysit because I have "nothing" to do, not even taking into consideration that I have a job and friends of my own.

Why can't your brother take care of him if he already has experience with his own kids?

OOP: In the words of my family "he already has his own family responsibility, you have none".

Yes, that's pretty much always their response to when I ask why can't my brother babysit the kid. My brother also deep down knows the kid is a nightmare, even as much as he tries to ignore it along with my sister and parents.

(to a different commenter): His kids don't like spending time with her kid because he's had violent meltdowns and hurt them before. The kids avoid that boy like the plague. I don't blame any of the kids in that situation.

My sister's son clearly has behavioral and/or mental issues that cause him to react violently to overstimulation, which is not his fault. He needs help so he can develop ways of controlling his meltdowns (idk if that's the right phrase) and keep his emotions in check.

My brother's kids, while mature for their age, are kids and don't fully understand why he acts the way he does, and therefore harbor resentment and dislike towards him. I feel bad for all the kids involved, nobody is winning.

Mute the group chat and contact experts for advice for your nephew: I've muted the group chat, and I know this is a me issue, but I can't help but check on it every few hours and feel bad about causing a fight. I'm soft, I know.

As for my nephew, I don't mean to sound rude but what good would that do? Yes I can have an expert weigh in their opinion, but at the end of the day my sister won't get him help so what would be the point? Once again, I don't mean to be rude.

Commenter (part of a longer comment): If she plans to send her child to public school, her neglect will become extremely obvious when he is unable to manage himself and she tells mandated reporters she refuses to get him the help he needs.

OOP: This issue already came up. He's close to turning 5, and last school year he was supposed to be in preschool. He was enrolled, and of course the workers/teachers noticed his issues right away and tried to convince my sister to sign him up for the SPED program in the preschool and for behavioral therapy.

She outright refused, went off on them and pulled her kid from the program. He's going to start kindergarten in the fall, and my sister said if they "insult" her son she'll pull him out and homeschool him.

I feel bad for my nephew, because it's not his fault he was born with these issues that cause him to act out when he gets overwhelmed. I sincerely hope my sister wakes up and gets him help, or that once he grows up he'll get help himself.

Commenter: You need to be honest with your family about what a nightmare the child is. Ask them to babysit if they disagree then block the idiots.

OOP: They know the child is a nightmare. They keep trying to pretend he's not and ignore the issue, but they know. They don't want to piss my sister off by mentioning it, as she goes nuclear with insults and fights whenever someone brings it up.

I love my family, I love my nephew, and I love my sister but it is so wrong to just ignore the issues he has. He needs help. There is something wrong in his head. I'm not saying that to be mean, or cruel or ablest in ANY form but it's the truth.

OOP responds to a longer comment:

OOP: I really hope I wasn't offensive with my wording. It feels... Wrong (?) to say "this kid has things wrong with him in the head" or "he's messed up in the head", but I genuinely don't know how else to describe it.

I really don't phrase it that way to be mean or ablest or any kind of ist or phobic, but that's the only way I can think of to describe it without an diagnosis.

I don't know how much help CPS would be. We live in a small town in the south, I don't even know if CPS has an office down in our town/district. The nearest town over is a rundown city with a high crime rate, child abandonment rate, and drug use rate, so I can imagine that the CPS offices there are probably overwhelmed.

"Sounds like she has mental health issues too."

I don't want to speculate, but I don't think she does. I think she's just ablest towards mental health disorders specifically. I'm not saying that mentally ill people can't also be prejudiced twords others with disorders and mental illnesses, but she doesn't show any signs of having any mental illness so I don't think she has any.

I could always be wrong, as I'm not a therapist or doctor, but this is just my perspective from growing up with her.

Commenter: Maybe when he's too much for everyone else in your family, and she really has no help at all, she will take steps to get her son the guidance he needs.

OOP: My parents used to try and tell her this when he was smaller toddler and showing these behaviors. They were more tame them and have escalated as he got older. She blew up, said that if they kept insulting her kid she wouldn't let them see him again.

Obviously I can't imagine the position that put my parents in. They love their children and grandchildren, so I can imagine a threat like that would make them cave.

The sister's point of view: The problem is, my sister doesn't want him to be diagnosed with anything.

She has this belief that kids are over diagnosed as a way for pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to get more money out of parents and insurance companies.

And I agree to an extent that we do have an issue of overmedicalization in our country and that we tend to slap pills and medication over the problem rather than find a way to actually resolve it, HOWEVER that doesn't mean I think that medication isn't the solution in some cases.

I don't know what would help my nephew, but I'm pretty sure that doing nothing is worse for him.

OOP's family and their views:

My parents and brother don't share the same beliefs about mental illness that she does, and I was in no way raised in anyway that could even remotely cause that belief. I'm still shocked, angry and horrified she said that about my friend's wife. I almost feel like I need to address in itself.

She literally said my friend should be sterilized and prevented from having kids because she has a mental illness. I can't even wrap my mind around how cruel someone can be to say that a woman who's always wanted to be a mom and is a great mom should be sterilized simply because she has a mental illness.

A few last clarifications from OOP:

My sister makes enough money to live comfortably with her and her son. Hiring a sitter would put a bit of a strain on that. They're in that financial bracket where they are comfortable, but they can't afford expensive things or afford to pay for extra things. I guess you could say they are lower-middle class?

According to them, they are. [parents being too old] My mom retired early from a state job and has a part time easy job, and my dad is still working a different state job for a few more years.

My sister's ex isn't the dad. My sister has red-brown hair. Her husband had brown hair. Kid came out with a very light blonde hair. My family didn't see this as odd because I have a very light, white looking blonde hair color and one of my nieces also has blonde hair, so we just figured my sister carried the recessive gene.

Husband wasn't suspicious of anything either, until sister broke down in a panic at the blonde hair and confessed that while they had been a short break after a fight, she had slept around a bit.

Husband left because he didn't agree to opening the marriage during the break, and didn't sign the birth certificate. Sister has no idea who the father is and has no way to get in contact with any of the guys she slept with.

MAJOR UPDATE 3 DAYS LATER:

So... Sh& has hit the fan.

My original post was about 3 days ago, and ever since that post my sister's behavior escalated. I tried to talk to her about getting help for my nephew, and she kept screaming at me everytime I brought it up. She said a lot of derogatory terms towards people with mental illnesses and mental disabilities, terms I won't repeat here.

That wasn't the only escalation. She was at my door several times a day starting 2 days ago (the day after I made my original post). Banging on my door, screaming, crying, cursing, the works.

She brought my nephew each time and he always looked so confused and defeated. He was too tired to react or meltdown like he normally does around loud noises, and it broke my heart to see that on my doorbell camera.

I wasn't at my house. I was crashing with my friend and his wife. I took the advice of a commenter who said to put some physical distance between me and my sister. They said I was free to stay as long as I wanted as long as I helped out with some house chores and childcare while I stayed, which I thought was more than fair.

So I'm staying in their guest room currently. I'm still with them, even though my sister isn't much of a problem.

Many will be glad to know, that my sister won't have parental rights over my nephew soon. She dropped him off at a safe haven site in the middle of the night. (Totally a fun phone call to wake up to at 2 in the morning. ) And my nephew is currently with my parents.

Social services placed him with my parents, and he's set to have mandatory therapy. In my state (don't know if it's different in others) if a child is abandoned in anyway, safe haven or not, a physical and mental health examine is done. Other than being a little bit underweight, my nephew was physically health.

He wasn't being physically abused like a few people were worried. But it was obvious he needed mental health, so he'll be starting therapy sessions soon, as mandated by a case worker.

We are not looking for my sister. After she dropped her son off, she left. She had quit her job a few weeks back, sold her car, and even her house a few weeks ago and had been renting a place, so this was planned.

In my personal opinion, she planned to abandon her son the day I was babysitting my friend's baby, which is why she had such a nuclear reaction.

She did leave a note, saying she can't do it anymore, she met someone, and that she doesn't want to be a mom to my nephew anymore. In her note she said she deserves a normal kid, and not a burden like my nephew.

I seriously hope that my sister doesn't have anymore kids with this mystery person she's referencing, but it seems like she's running off to start a new life and family. She still has 30 days to reclaim rights over my nephew, but it doesn't look like she'll do that. Time will tell.

Like I said, I'm still with my friends because I was worried my sister would do something. My parents and brother have also been blowing up my phone and coming to my house, switching between apologies and blaming me for this.

They think that maybe if I babysat that day, she wouldn't have done this, but I think she wanted me to babysit so she could do this. I'm not mad at them for blaming me, I understand that my sister is still their family and they're rightfully in shock and want someone to blame. They're human, and I know humans can be cruel sometimes while going through shock and grief.

So, yeah, that's life right now. I'm currently sitting on the couch with my friend's baby while my friend is at work and his wife does a quick grocery run. She was going to take the baby, but I insisted on watching him so she didn't have to hassle with the car seat in the very stormy weather we have in our area right now.

This update is all over the place, I feel like I'm rambling. There's still a lot of unknown stuff regarding my sister and nephew, but for now this is the update. I don't know if I'll post more regarding this situation. My friend's wife is telling me I should relax and just not think about anything relating to this until I'm more level headed, but I don't think that's possible.