Influencer Ropes Her Sister Into Watching Her Son While She Makes Content. Now, She’s ‘Frustrated’ When Sister Sets Boundaries

A woman is questioning whether she’s in the wrong for refusing to keep picking up her nephew from daycare while her sister spends more time building a social media career.

The original poster (OP) shared on Reddit that her 26-year-old sister is a single mom to a 4-year-old boy. OP, 25, recently moved back in with their parents and says that, ever since then, she’s unexpectedly become more and more responsible for her nephew.

She remembers offering to help “one time,” but says that over the last six months, childcare has essentially “been put on” her. According to OP, her sister finishes work at 6 p.m., the same time her son’s daycare closes. Lately, though, her sister has been “blowing up” on social media and has stopped coming straight from work to pick him up. Instead, she creates content after work, leaving OP and their parents to watch the child until 8 or 9 p.m.

OP added that her sister sometimes drops her son off on weekends without warning. On more than one occasion, OP has woken up, heard noise in the living room and realized her nephew was already there. Because OP works remotely full time as a graphic designer, her parents often default to asking her to take over childcare. Her boyfriend has also started to feel frustrated by how much of her time and energy is being consumed by this responsibility.

Recently, OP has started setting boundaries. When she tells her sister she can’t watch her nephew, however, her sister gets annoyed and demands to know why, pushing for explanations instead of accepting the “no.” That dynamic led OP to ask Reddit if she was wrong for insisting on those boundaries.

Many commenters agreed OP is not at fault.

One person wrote that OP should firmly protect her time: “NTA. Stop giving her details when she asks. Say you can’t, full stop. Don’t JADE: Justify your answer, Argue about your answer, Defend your answer, or Explain your answer. Tell her you’ll no longer be picking up your nephew and get out of that house as soon as possible. Even your parents are dumping the responsibility on you.”

Another commenter backed OP’s boyfriend’s reaction and stressed that she isn’t the child’s parent.

“NTA — your boyfriend is right, you are not the mom and this is not your job,” they said. “You shouldn’t have to justify why you can’t be the second parent to her child. She needs to make her schedule work around her childcare arrangements.”

They went on to point out that consistently choosing content creation over time with her son is a parenting issue: “That’s part of being a parent. Is it easy? No. Do you need help sometimes? Yes. But she should be the primary person responsible. It sounds like she hardly spends any time with her kid at all if she’s doing social media after work until 8–9 p.m. That’s basically his bedtime.”

A third commenter said it’s reasonable for OP to help occasionally, but not to treat this as a long-term obligation.

“I’ve always felt that arrangements like this should be viewed as temporary. You help out until she can make a more permanent, stable arrangement,” they wrote. “It seems like this hasn’t been discussed, and maybe should be. You have your own life and you need to live it. If your parents want to continue helping her, that’s their choice — but it is NOT your responsibility.”