'My brother is acting like my nephew’s dad and expects the whole family to back him up.'

"My brother is acting like my nephew’s dad and expects the whole family to back him up."

I’m (32F) and I live in a small town, work a pretty boring office job, long term boyfriend (33M), no kids. My brother “Mark” is 38M. My nephew “Eli” is 9M and he’s technically my sister’s son (30F). My sister isn’t a deadbeat or anything, she’s in his life, she pays for school stuff, clothes, all that.

But she’s always been kind of scattered and impulsive, and when Eli was around 5 she moved in with our mom for a while and Eli ended up spending a ton of time at our mom’s house. Mark lives 10 minutes away and he started doing the day to day parenting type stuff.

School pick ups, homework, dentist appts, bedtime routines. It was honestly helpful at first, because my mom is older and my sister would show up late or forget things, and Mark is the “handles business” person in our family.

The issue is that Mark now talks like he is Eli’s actual parent and everyone else is just staff. He corrects people if they call him “uncle Mark” in front of Eli. He’ll say “I’m basically his dad” and I get that he does a lot, but it creeps me out how hard he leans into it. He has rules for Eli that he expects us to enforce, even when Eli is not with him.

Like, if Eli is at our mom’s house and asks for a second cookie, Mark will text my mom about sugar and “boundaries” and act like she betrayed him. If Eli is at my place for a couple hours while my sister runs errands, Mark will ask what he ate, if he did reading, if he had screen time. If I don’t answer fast enough he gets snippy.

What pushed it over the edge happened this weekend. My sister dropped Eli at my place for the afternoon because she had a shift and my mom was out. Eli wanted to go to my boyfriend’s house because he has a dog and a little backyard and Eli is obssesed with it. I texted my sister, she said “sure, just be home by 7.” So we went, played with the dog, ate pizza, no big deal.

When I got back I had like 6 missed calls from Mark and a long text about how I had “taken Eli without checking” and how I’m “undermining the parent in charge.” I told him I DID check with Eli’s actual mom. Mark replied “I’m the one raising him, you should check with me first.

We need consistency or he’ll walk all over everyone.” Then he called my sister and apparently yelled at her too, because she texted me later saying “can you just tell him sorry so he shuts up, I can’t deal with him right now.”

Now the family is split in this stupid way. My mom says Mark is “only trying to help” and I should just keep the peace. My sister is mad but also avoids conflict, so she’ll let him steamroll her and then complain to me. Mark is acting like I’m some irresponsible teenager who snuck the kid out.

I’m sitting here like… am I crazy for thinking this is not healthy? I don’t want to start a war, but I also hate the idea that my nephew is growing up with his uncle acting like the boss of everyone, including his own mom. How do I handle this without blowing up the whole family, and without turning Eli into the rope in a tug of war?

This is what people had to say to OP:

dontwanna-cantmakeme said:

It sounds like your sister is fine with ignoring her responsibilities when it’s convenient because she knows Mark will step in. And it seems like Mark at this point has no faith in y’all’s sister to be an effective parent because he’s had to step in so many times. And when that dynamic is convenient, everyone’s fine with it, but the second it’s not convenient for the rest of the family, Mark is a problem.

And I do agree he is overstepping with his demands and assumptions, but it’s clearly been allowed to happen. This is a situation of your sister’s doing but since it’s impacting your entire family, it may be time to have a family meeting and get on the same page. That that should also mean that your sister needs to be responsible and not hand her kid off to Mark all the time.

hospicedoc said:

It sounds to me as if Mark is doing most or all of the actual parenting. He's taking on a lot of responsibility, he should also be given commensurate authority. The 'father' stuff is weird, but he's taking on a LOT more than just an 'uncle' role.

TheTurtleShepard said:

Seems like mark is acting like a parent because he is parenting that child. Even if he is not the biological parent he is the one who is showing up for the child. Now I do think things are getting kind of weird where he is correcting people who are calling him the child’s uncle and even if he is the only parent he seems to be an incredibly overbearing one

Really the person who needs to step up here is Eli’s mother. I think the only way to really correct this is to try and get everyone on the same page on who is actually responsible for Eli.

OP responded:

He does show up, yeah, but that still doesnt make him “parent in charge.” Eli has a mom. If Mark wants a say, he needs to stop policing everyone and talk to her, not bark at me .