People are taking to social media to praise a pair of grandparents after they refused to babysit their daughter's baby for free.
Taking to Reddit's notorious 'Am I The A******?' thread, a husband recalled his and his wife's plans to decide who should look after their children, but they seemingly had a strange way of going about things.
After giving users some background information about how they decided to move into their own house after getting married as well as the distance between them and their parents, they then came to the "big question" about babysitting.
"My [mother-in-law] (67) was soon to retire the same year we were expecting, so it all worked out anyways, or so we thought," he wrote. "This was the kicker. Her dad (63)... never liked the idea of 'free handouts,' but he would help her with her financial needs. Like paying part of her college tuition, buying her a car as long as she takes care of insurance, gas, etc."
The husband agreed that this was a good mindset but also confirmed that no one really knew how much money he had, though they suspected it was "in the $150k/yr range."
"Whenever we talked to them about babysitting, they loved the idea," he continued. "Since her mom would be retiring it would work out perfectly. And they'd get to see their grandchild every day or most days.
However, soon after having the baby, the father-in-law started talking about "paying" for babysitting.
"Seeing as he wasn't fond of the free babysitting, he started to compare pricing of daycares in today's market and how much he would start charging us weekly," he wrote. "After his research, he surmised his amount to $400/wk for babysitting and $100 for weekends and we were shocked."
"We thought to ourselves, at that rate we might as well just take our baby to a daycare, and not have to drive back and forth," he added. "We weren't upset with having to pay them because we wanted to pay them, and we knew we weren't going to take advantage of the situation. We only started to get upset when he started demanding that we pay them for babysitting. And it's not like my wife and I were well off either, we make enough to live comfortably. So it became a huge discussion between us to the point where we almost decided that they weren't going to see their grandchild unless we decide to see them on the weekends."
He then questioned whether he and his wife were the a******* for expecting her parents to babysit for free.
And let's just say Reddit users weren't too forgiving with their responses.
"YTA for having assumed they would care for your children every day without compensation - and apparently having planned this long ago without actually discussing it with them," wrote one user. Living near them in the hope they’ll occasionally babysit when needed is one thing. Living near them with the expectation they’ll be unpaid full-time carers for your children is quite another."
"Yta," added another. "You aren’t entitled to free babysitting."
A third also had the same response but clarified that their reasons for stating they were the a******* were a little different.
"YTA. But not for the reason you think. You are focused on money, ignoring that the more precious resource is time. When you have been parents for 20 years, you will understand this better. Grandchildren are better than children. Why? BECAUSE THEY GO HOME. Your in-laws have done the whole married with children thing, the young'ns are all launched. They have the house to themselves again. And I'm sure they are enjoying it. Oh, but wait. Kiddo wants to pawn off HER kiddo on us and take us back to our hectic parenting days again????? OH HECK NO."
They also added that they are the a******* for assuming grandparents would volunteer for daycare duty (paid or otherwise) "just because they are the grandparents."
What do you think about the issue?
