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It sounds like boundaries need to be placed.
By Ashley Darkwa-Anto — Last updated on Oct 29, 2023
After a fight with her daughter, a grandmother came to Reddit’s “AITA” community to ask if she was in the wrong.
For those unfamiliar with “AITA,” it’s a Reddit forum where users describe difficult circumstances and ask their fellow Redditors to judge if they handled the situation correctly or not.
This woman wondered if she was in the wrong for begging her daughter, Erica, not to have any more children.
The woman's daughter, Erica, and her husband work full-time and have two children. They are already parents to a five-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl. Because they live near each other, Erica came to her parents five years ago to ask if they would be willing to be their full-time childcare “so she could continue to work and afford their comfortable life.” The grandmother and her husband agreed since they were retired, but all they discussed was watching their grandchildren and her daughter’s expectations for taking care of them.
Everything was going well until they got to the third year of their agreement (2020) when the grandmother and her husband started to feel like they were being taken advantage of. When the COVID lockdown happened, both her daughter and son-in-law were working from home, and they expected the grandmother to take the kids all day. She pushed for splitting time since the kid’s daycare/kindergarten was closed.
They eventually agreed that the kids spent two days with their parents and three days with their grandparents, but their son-in-law wasn’t too thrilled with the arrangement and complained about it every day. Things got better once the schools opened back up.
Things took a turn for the worse during the fourth year of their agreement. In 2021, Erica didn’t want her son to go to school “in the unknown,” but the grandmother insisted he go back to school because she and her husband needed a break. She also pushed for her granddaughter to spend more time at her preschool program, but her daughter claimed it would cost too much. However, she got her daughter and son-in-law to relent with some more pushing.
The following spring, their son-in-law pushed for OP to take the kids for a week to go on vacation. When she pushed back and told him to take the kids with them, he responded, “they couldn’t afford it,” and ended up not going on vacation.
This all leads up to the problem at hand.
Recently, the woman and her daughter were having a conversation, and she mentioned that she had an OBGYN appointment and had taken some tests.
Her daughter announced that she and her husband were trying for another baby and expected the children's grandparents to be their childcare.
The woman told her daughter that “it would have been nice if she told [her] this before trying for another baby.” Erica told her that it was none of her business, but she pushed back and told her that it was if she expected her to provide five more years of babysitting.
With her youngest grandchild finally going off to school, she feels like she’s getting her days back and begs her daughter to reconsider — they won’t start over with another infant.
Erica thought it wasn’t fair for her mother to make her choose “between her dream of 3 kids and financial stability.” The grandmother argued that with “two beautiful children” and financial stability, they shouldn’t ruin what they have with another baby.
Now the woman is conflicted because she feels she may be the problem since Erica thinks her parents should’ve told her sooner, but at the same time, the woman doesn’t think she’s wrong because she and her husband never agreed to raise their kids.
Many people sided with the grandmother and decided that she was correct.
According to Fortune, over 40% of parents rely on their own parents to take care of their kids. While those who can do so are fortunate and many grandparents love spending time with their kids, it's important for families to set — and abide by — boundaries to keep their own relationships and financial wellness intact.
People on Reddit agreed that OP and her husband needed to retire and stop babysitting to show her daughter that they were serious.
Likewise, another user agreed and shared a similar story of theirs, making the point that, “[Their] policy is don’t have kids unless you can fully care for them and not take advantage of family for their care [...] Op’s daughter needs to step up and actually be there for her kids without taking advantage of the grandparents.”
Many users didn’t think it was a smart choice to do full childcare in the first place and believed that the grandmother created this environment, allowing her daughter and son-in-law to take advantage of them.
Thankfully, the woman gave an update, and everything seemed to turn out okay.
OP and her daughter had a productive conversation once they both cooled down. She expressed feeling blindsided by the announcement of another baby and feeling underappreciated given everything she’s done for her. Her daughter revealed that she’s been the one pushing for another child, while her husband is hesitant but not entirely against it.
After some more talking, her daughter agreed that she was right and planned to talk to her husband about having another baby with the caveat that the child would be in daycare full-time.
She also agreed to speak with her husband about enrolling her kids in a before/aftercare program to alleviate her parents from the responsibility of taking care of the kids.
Ashley Darkwa-Anto is a writer at YourTango who covers News & Entertainment.