'AITA for telling my sister it's her fault our family doesn't help her with her kids?'

Helicopter parents often make their children's lives worse in the process of attempting to make them better. The constant hovering, the endless rules, and the immediate sense of distrust toward other adults only isolates the kids and leaves them less prepared to tackle the chaos of the world as adults. But if you tell a helicopter parent that? Well, it's not going to go over well.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for telling her sister the truth about why the family doesn't watch her kids. She wrote:

"AITA for telling my sister it's her own fault our family doesn't help her with her kids?"

I (F21) have a sister Chloe (F32). Chloe has three kids, F8, F6 and M1. She and her husband both work and the youngest goes to daycare. Ever since the youngest was born, my sister has had a bit of a personality shift. Getting more into organic food and "holistic living" as she calls it.

Chloe and her husband started leaving the kids with our parents for the whole weekend, every weekend, so that they can get a break. My parents are doting grandparents and seemed to enjoy it but around a month ago they refused to do it anymore, their reason being that they are too tired to keep up with the kids.

They then started leaving the kids with my other sister Avery (f27) every weekend. This had a similar ending. After Avery started refusing, Chloe asked me if I could babysit the kids on the weekends. I stupidly told her yes. I only babysat for 3 Saturdays and had to call it quits because Chloe was driving me nuts. First of all, she has a very very long list of rules for the kids while they're babysat.

Some aren't so difficult to follow, like organic foods only (which is only what Chloe has in her house anyway), but others just feel silly, like no holding the baby for 'too long' and no shows or movies from Disney. There are more but this sub has a character limit. When I was babysitting, Chloe would be calling me every 30 minutes, and she gets angry if I don't answer straight away.

Every time Chloe came home, she would berate me over something, anything. Not answering the phone quick enough, letting the baby nap too long, etc. When I told Chloe I'd no longer babysit, she got upset and said no one ever wants to help her anymore and her village is disappearing.

I couldn't really pretend and I told Chloe it's her own fault, and people would be more willing to help her if she wasn't a helicopter parent. She blew up at me and said she's demanding basic respect.

Redditors were quick to give OP their thoughts.

Illustrious-Shirt569 wrote:

NTA, though she’s not a helicopter parent (since she apparently only parents 5 of 7 evenings a week and no full days), she’s an overbearing, controlling freeloader. Having kids is hard. Very hard. But expecting that everyone around you will do that hard stuff instead (and only according to your exacting rules) so you can “take a break” every single weekend is ridiculous.

Youwhooo60 wrote:

NTA. Chloe is a control freak who doesn't want to actually parent. She wants to control how her kidlets are parented. BIG difference. Tell Chloe if she wants to be respected she has to EARN it. And she can start by being RESPECTFUL. Right now all she's doing is mooching. I'd hate to be one of her kids.

Careless-Ability-748 wrote:

NTA your sister is exploiting any family member she can - leaving her kids EVERY weekend?!

Zarathecommunist wrote:

NTA. It's very nice of y'all to help her with her children but it's not your job and you don't have to take BS from her just because she's your sister. You told her the truth, just because she's unhappy with it doesn't mean she's an AH, it just means she needs to face that truth and work on the issues she's clearly dealing with.

Like her control issues and whatever weirdness she has over kids watching Disney movies [sounds like a conservative thing but maybe it's something else?]. If she wants "a village", she needs to treat her community with kindness and respect and she needs to consider their diversity and be more flexible.

ironchef8000 wrote:

You could've shortened the title to: AITA for telling my sister the truth? She's wayyyy overstayed her welcome with these kids. Free child care from family is an enormous privilege that she has grossly abused. NTA.

GreenRedCrescent wrote:

No one is ever an AH for telling the truth. If your sister wants childcare on these very specific terms, she needs to pay for it. Expecting family members to put up with this kind of behaviour with a smile is pure entitlement. NTA.

Clearly, OP is NTA, she's just the family member to lay it straight.