Teen Praised for Telling Dad She 'Didn't Sign Up' To Babysit Stepsister

A teenager has been praised online after she said she no longer wanted to babysit her stepsister who has Down syndrome.

In a post shared on the Am I The A**hole (AITA) forum on Reddit, which can be seen here, user Narrow-Syrup explained her parents would regularly make her babysit her sister who has additional needs.

According to the employment advice website Zippia, there are more than 61,725 babysitters employed in the U.S.

It added that 85.8 percent of all babysitters in the U.S. are women and 14.2 percent are men.

The Reddit user explained in the post, titled "AITA for saying I didn't sign up for the job of always being a babysitter?": "I resent it, I do. I don't resent her. I know it's not her fault. But I never wanted to do any of this stuff. I never signed up to be a babysitter but especially now, that's what I am.

"If they want to go anywhere I have to stay with my stepsister. And she's very attached to me. Like she is clingy and needy with me and I know she loves me a lot.

"She's more attached to me than she is to her brother or her mom for that matter. She will choose me over her mom in a lot of things. I'm even told to hold her hand when we're out if she doesn't want to hold her mom's hand. I hate all of it."

The Reddit user, who said she was 17, said that her dad and stepmother stopped her from making plans with friends and made her babysit three weekends in the past two months.

She said: "They are trying to add pressure for me to not just dip from their lives because it would crush my stepsister.

"The past week I had enough and I lost it when it was just me and my dad and his wife at home. They were making plans for next weekend and I told them I had never signed up for the job of always being a babysitter and that if they thought I would feel guilty for leaving it all behind then they were wrong because I can't wait to leave and I won't miss any of them when I'm gone.

"My dad started yelling at me and asking how could I be so cold and I was an a**hole for acting like being part of the family and being part of my little sister's like [it] was a chore.

"Tension has been present ever since and I see that my stepsister is really bothered by it. She started crying when she got home that day and she's cried a lot more since (more than is normal for her). I am being blamed."

Since being shared on Monday, August 29, the post has attracted some 5,900 upvotes and more than 645 comments.

Many of those who commented on the post supported the teen and were upset with how the parents had handled the situation.

One Reddit user, whose comment was upvoted more than 10,100 times, said: "NTA (not the a**hole). Children are not autonomous responsibility modules. It doesn't matter if she loves you. It doesn't matter if they expect it. You deserve a life. You have a great deal to look forward to in your future and being their auxiliary babysitter isn't it.

"Frankly, there's help for those who need a caretaker for handicapped individuals and failing that? It is the parent's responsibility. Not yours. Not a child's. Not anyone else's. Theirs. They wanted some rose-colored love story free from tedious responsibility? Screw that."

Another wrote: "NTA and you deserve your own life. You are not a parent. It is normal for siblings to leave and start their own lives. Part of raising you is supposed to be getting you ready for that."

While a third commented: "OP (original poster) had her autonomy taken away. She wasn't allowed to develop (or not) natural bonding with [her] stepsister. Her rejecting the whole family as soon as she can get away is a healthy act of self-determination."

Newsweek is unable to verify the details of this case.