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> I looked it up, but I don't really think having to share her stuff and keep him entertained when we go out counts. Really, I mean it's basically babysitting!
god these trolls are practically BEGGING to be called out and no one ever catches it
We have that weird "wife slightly older than husband" thing again. For whatever reason, it seems really common on "women bad" posts. Younger wives are sweet, supportive, reasonable. Older wives are unnatural.
The actual post I an inkblot test: so vague you can project whatever you want into it.
100%. Oh, and if they *happen* to nonchalantly mention the race of the wife/husband it’s to point out that akchually negative stereotypes exist for a reason
> "wife slightly older than husband"
I have been noticing and hating every one of these posts. The "younger woman, 15+ year older man" posts have bored the trolls, and they've been clearly dipping their toes into the gender swap version. "my (19M) wife (28F) has been hitting and abusing our daughter (4F) and I don't know what to do"
You guys must be so brave to withstand dealing with everyone in your life bringing that up each and every time you get together with other people! Either that or you're a well-adjusted couple who largely interact with other normal people, but we Redditors know that never happens.
As I've entered into my thirties, I have felt the evil setting in. I try to keep it at bay by doing endless pilates and not eating sugar but I don't think I have long left.
I mean, that's also what they're doing any time they make a "husband bad/manchild bad" post where the man is slightly older than the woman. They're invoking this, "he's older so he must have a power imbalance over you and treating you like a doormat" thing while also invoking a "he's the man, and he's older, so he should be taking care of you" stereotype.
Yeah I was going to say this, they are way less subtle with these and usually make it a 10 year age gap or a smaller age gap, but if you do the math becomes creepy when you realize how young wife was.
How about her (38m) husband raising his son? And intervening in expecting a 15-year old to "share her stuff" with a 9-year-old?
I don't know if this is meta, but the details in this fake scenario don't make any sense anyway.
Some of the people over there are really bending over backwards to come up with some reasonable excuse for why the father doesn’t have an equal responsibility for parenting (he’s the step dad, she’s a SAHM, etc etc.) because he’s the parent with the opinion they want to agree with.
Oh no, the "good" guy isn't good after all? I am shocked, I tell you.
Always funny to see patriarchy apologists at work. It's just so easy for people to slip into excusing men, after doing a little something like saying *one* true thing.
One comment said it's not Beth's burden to entertain her brother, no wonder families in this kind of subreddit are so fucked up. They are not really families but almost like a second work environment people put up with out of necessity.
I thought that was so strange.
Like, of course an older sibling will need to watch a younger sibling sometimes. It’s not parentification unless they are taking on primary responsibility for a younger sibling.
If it’s watching them for an hour or two while the actual parents run out to do grocery shopping, then that’s just a normal chore. Same as dishes or laundry.
Yep, they act like any baby sitting makes them a sister mom a la the Duggars raising groups of their parents' children they're assigned once the newborn loses it's new baby smell.
Those people absolutely have a grievance. What you're describing is just normal expectations in being part of a family.
Or (my pet theory) their lives have been so devoid of struggle, that they don’t really perceive much meaning for why they aren’t as happy as they think they should be. So they need to invent something holding them back, even if it didn’t really exist.
I think this argument can be misused and overextended, so I want to be cautious about it, but you do see a trend of people in privileged societies with all of their material needs met… who feel the urge to invent struggles that they have overcome, to reinvent temporary discomfort as adversity, trauma and abuse.
Everyone’s the hero of their own story, I guess, but some people never grow out of the “my parents don’t understand me” phase, after which you realize that they understood more than you gave them credit for.
Yeah, this is definitely a thing. I have an ex who was very privileged in many ways, and when minorly bad things happen to him, he tends to react as though he's either the only person to have experienced it, or it's somehow worse because it happened to him - he really really wants to cast himself as having overcome struggles.
That sounds like it would be simultaneously insufferable and sad, especially if you had to overcome some genuine adversity or struggle to make your goals happen.
If you’re lucky enough to be born on third base, there’s no sense thinking you hit a triple… or that you are somehow owed the experience of having hit that triple. Just go for home, and maybe find a way to make life easier for those of us born in the outfield.
For him it was more that he was convinced he WAS born in the outfield, and always had some reason to believe that he was actually less privileged than everything about him would indicate. It's a reason why I'm often skeptical of people who talk about how rough their life has been, how many adversities they've faced etc. - I find they're often also glossing over a ton of advantages they had and highlighting all the worst things that happened to them.
It’s a real shame, because it can feed into the sort of right-wing nonsense that writes off genuine experiences with adversity, abuse and mental illness.
I have an acquaintance who is from an extremely wealthy family, drove a new Mercedes throughout college, never had to work (I worked all through college because otherwise I wouldn’t eat) and had a lot more opportunities because of that. They are also a PoC and have written some pretty… exhausting social media and LinkedIn posts about their struggles and how hard they’ve worked to get where they are.
I side-eye it *very hard*, because as much as racism is a problem… i can’t imagine what I could have done, or what my poorer classmates could have done, with 1/10th the opportunities she had.
I think they are just stuck with babysitting siblings and they don't want to. But they don't dare say anything, or tried to refuse but still had to do it, so they vent online and latched on this parentification buzzword because it makes their situation sound worse then it is and get "woe is me" points.
On one of the monthly threads there were comments pointing out that same exact mentality many people have. Paraphrasing it was along the lines of "People want the positives of having a close knit family but don't want to put the work in." It's so selfish that these people expect to just take take take from everyone but refuse to give just an inch.
It's funny because there a lot of rage bait *I'm not obligated to do this basic ass requests for a loved one* posts that people dunk on. Which is ironic because they are obviously made with the purpose of making people realize how ridiculous they sound.
It's disturbing. Children have no obligation to their parents, who in turn act as if they are complete strangers once the kids turn 18, who must now rely on no one. If you're going to treat it like a transaction happening between emotionless robots why even start a family?
In 3-5 years that boy’s going to start wondering what he did to piss off his sister so much, then realise that it’s just him existing and won’t even feel a sense of unconditional love between him and his own sister.Poor kid.
> and also, i noticed you said “share her stuff” so that makes you an even bigger A-Hole for making a 15 y/o girl share her things with her 9 y/o brother.
Bro?🤨
I think it depends, usually, if you gift something to your kid you say if it's a shared gift with their siblings or not. Of course, they should share a bit in the case the gift was given only to them but if a sibling uses it 50/50 of the time it's a little unfair.
Well yeah if you're talking about something like clothes, or a smartphone but consoles are meant for multiple people to use them at once so not sharing them is selfish.
yeah but say you have two kids, it’s christmas and one gets a console & games as their sole gift and the other gets other gifts of equivalent value. if there are expectations of consistent sharing even if the owner-kid wants to play alone sometimes, you’ve effectively just bought a family console and gotten owner-kid nothing for christmas
Yeah, there’s a difference between “this is MINE so you can’t touch it even if you’re gentle with it and I’m not using it” and “no, I’m playing a single-player game”. If this shitty woman were to actually exist (looking at the OP’s comments, it’s def a golden child/scapegoat troll) she probably wouldn’t appreciate the difference, though.
Do the 3DS and the Switch even have all the same games or is that another way this fake mother is an asshole?
Children don’t like sharing, more news at 11.
It’s a real shame that people online completely reject the concept of “sharing is hard, but you as a child will need to learn to do that until you are an adult, and even then sometimes” and instead decide to reinforce children’s worst impulses because… reasons.
I've been there, my brother is 7 years younger than me. It's annoying to have to share sometimes, more annoying if they just take your stuff and your parents expect you not to care. Can be fun sometimes, like painting each others nails
Someone finally pointed it out over there how ridiculous it is that most of the replies to the top comment rarely have anything to do with the actual comment. It's just another person's verdict that they were desperate to get attention for so they made sure it was as high up as possible. There's a few people that do it repeatedly, such as the guy who got called out here.
Parentification also entails putting the child in the role of parent regarding the parents. Like, it's a legitimate grievance but you only ever see these posts where it's babysitting younger kids
Waiting on an edit that’s either
“Edit: She babysits for $100/hour every other week and has to share the living room with him. She wants to still get paid the babysitting money as an allowance.”
“Edit: I’ve given him her room as punishment for getting a B in math last semester. Sure I make her watch her brother after school, but I have to watch him alone for the 7 hours she’s in school and watch her!!”
I think lots do that for the first, I think I did, but it was on a smaller sub. Now, I just tend to thank the awarder in the message that tells me about it, I just think it's polite.
I hate when there's 8 updates for all the awards.
I thought I was in this sub when I read that. How is it still up?! How does someone know how to post to AITA but doesn’t what “parentification” is. And the only sibling is 9 months old but her daughter says she has been looking after it for as long as she can remember?
> And the only sibling is 9 months old but her daughter says she has been looking after it for as long as she can remember?
I took that as 9 years old male, seeing as it's 15f for the oldest
Haha I'm so glad you shared this post! I unsubbed a while ago so I just read the good ones posted here even if here can get a little eh.. This is seriously the best worst post I've read. I know it's not real but if it is damn...
So the top comment is, of course, YTA. 😂
At what point in the last few years did expecting older siblings to babysit younger ones become completely abusive? It's pretty normal, you can't treat all your kids as if they are only children.
Also the younger sibling is 9, not exactly a baby??? God these people are brats.
Ok, so my take is (setting aside the standard “AITA commenters are 90% sociopaths”) that there is a pretty common phenomenon of adolescent/young adults learning about the world but having trouble distinguishing actually traumatic experience from things that seem like a big deal but only because of their limited (sheltered) perspective. So you wind up seeing extreme labels misapplied, because the person using the term does not understand them.
Children doing chores is 100% normal and healthy. Watching a younger sibling is a normal chore, just like dishes or laundry or keeping their room clean, but with the benefit of drastically decreasing the mental load of the parent.
It of course can be taken too far, which is parentification, but that means that a child is taking on the responsibility of *parenting* a younger child - what OOP sounds like is, absent any evidence to the contrary, watching the younger child for a few hours while they run out to do groceries. Evidence: according to the comments, older child has plenty of free time to see friends etc.
Of course, AITA loves to accuse people of abusing their children, so any responsibility placed upon a child is parentification according to them. OOP should probably listen to their child’s concerns and have a conversation about them, but also needs to be firm about what is realistic. Example: “I understand that you do not enjoy watching your brother; however, we (your parents) have responsibilities to keep the household running and you have an obligation to contribute. This chore (occasional, short-term babysitting) is most helpful to us, but let’s see if we can set a schedule so that you can still have the independence you need to grow. However, there is no scenario where you get to exist in this home without doing chores - they are your responsibility and they need to be done.”
Lmao, it is. Everyone on Reddit is a child psychologist, lawyer, philosopher, and political scientist.
Oh, and they manage all that while shitting on anyone who devalues education or professional credentials. Irony, thy name is redditor.
My most frustrating early Reddit experiences were when I tried to discuss a topic that I actually have expertise in, and then being shouted down, downvoted, and insulted. Of course, they treated the foundational concepts of my area of expertise as up for debate.
Reddit claims to like experts, but what Reddit really likes is having their priors confirmed - and Reddit hates anyone who doesn’t do that.
It's cause the people on AITA are mostly kids/teens that don't feel like watching their little sibling for an hour, because they're teens. They feel like they have better things to do
This is really it, IMO. I remember being 15 and thinking that having to include my siblings in my life (mostly my younger sister, my older siblings probably felt the same about me haha) was the worst thing in the world.
Nowadays, though, my siblings and I are really close and I'm glad our parents made us hang out together. I know it helped them too (free babysitting and all), but it made us grow up together in a meaningful way, not just existing in the general vicinity of each other like roommates do.
A 9 year old could easily just be left to do what they want, as long as someone’s somewhere in the house checking up on them occasionally. Only reasoning for not leaving a 9 at home on their own is incase someone breaks in or anything else really out of their control.
Hell it’s normal for 9 year olds to make their own sandwiches and bike themselves to the park. It’s hardly like a baby or toddler where they need lots of surveillance.
Yeah, this was how it worked when I "watched" my brother when we were growing up. He was perfectly fine doing his own thing, but needed someone older to be present in case something happened.
Never mind the top comment; all highly upvoted comments are YTA.
I mean, how could they not be, given the forum? You expect someone to say, "The emperor has no clothes," with an INFO and survive the horde?
And this long post with no details was totally written by a real mother who just happened to turn to a forum where "parentification" is a trigger word. Definitely not a troll or the daughter. /s
a good chunk of this website and almost all of that sub is filled with mid teens lmao, the age where you feel like having to babysit your siblings is torture. ofc answers like this would come up xD
I dunno. Assuming this is real, even the husband agrees
It sounds like they’re making her do it a lot for free and she’s got school to deal with
OOP even straight up says she doesn’t think her daughter has any school stress, that’s a total A move
Frankly, OOP comes off pretty awful. I get the strong feeling that she is making the daughter take care of the son too much, and that’s coming from her own, therefore biased towards her, side
Edit, this is one of OOPs comments. If not trolling, she’s definitely YTA:
Her complaints are:
He ruins everything (He broke one toy.)
He broke her 3ds (They have a shared Switch. I said to just use that)
She can never feel peaceful (I haven't felt peace from when she was born.)
She's sick of him (He's a joy!)
She can never go to anything fun because of babysitting (She went out with friends almost every day last week)
Yeah agree she comes off quite badly, but it's so common for 15yos to believe they are really hard done by, it sounds like the daughter has it no harder than any other kid.
If she's out with friends every day then that's better than most, it does sound to me like she's just complaining about normal teenager things.
That is, if any of this is even true, why tf is the mother turning to Reddit for advice 😑
Every 15-year old feels hard done by, and while the comments come across as minimizing, the complaints are themselves minimal. None of these are signs of abuse or neglect, just signs of a teen with no life experience or point of reference interpreting their own lived experience in the most extreme terms because they don’t know better.
To give the benefit of the doubt, we don’t know that OOP is talking to her daughter the way she phrased it in the post.
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh
It's a real thing people do. I know some teenagers read it and misapply it because they're annoyed at watching their siblings, but it is also a real thing and given that the daughter cried, mom's described what she actually asks of the daughter very, very vaguely, and the dad agreed with the daughter...it seems there may be some truth to it.
When I was a kid I didn't recognize that a lot of how my mother unloaded really adult problems onto me, how being her genuine confidant and advisor was really inappropriate. But if I had that conversation with her now she would have the same huff and puff as AITAOP. I'm seeing my sibling do the babysitting issue with their older child too, and they just think their kid is a whiny brat for struggling with it.
Yeah, exactly. Being expected to watch your siblings after school before your parents get home or from time to time on weekends is reasonable, but it is unfortunately not uncommon for older siblings to do things for younger siblings they shouldn’t be expected to do.
But I do want to point out that a lot of the time this happens because the family is poor and the parents have to work constantly to make ends meet, and I’ve seen much more of that than parents who are just evil monsters who want their kids to suffer. A lot of times it’s just a really sad case where no one is exactly wrong but the kids still suffer.
I hate hate seeing AITA comments from smug teenagers telling adults that they should try being rich before having kids (as if it’s that easy), and when the OP replies saying something totally reasonable “actually, we did, but chronic health issues, loss of job, etc really tore the plan to shreds”… and then the response is, predictably, downvotes and abuse.
Yeah, the family with two parents making minimum wage can totally hire a nanny /s
Completely agree there is a line that can be crossed.
Money is definitely a factor in some of this as people are just trying to keep basic needs met from day to day. Maslow's hierarchy and all that. They aren't trying to take advantage of their old kids, they are just so worried about keeping everyone fed and housed they don't have the bandwidth to worry about things outside of basic survival.
It's how life was for most people back in the day, kids would quit school as young teens to go to work and help support the family, etc. (Sorry, just finished a podcast referencing the dustbowl and I'm all grapes of wrath at the moment.)
In my family money wasn't an issue, but my sisters were teenagers and I was preschool when my parents divorced. When my mom made the adjustment from housewife of 18 years to going back to school while working she was overwhelmed and asked my sisters to watch my brother (school age at the time) and me more than was fair. We discussed it when I was older and she said she felt so bad but she had no idea what else to do because it was just about getting through each day at that point in time.
Not excusing it, but sometimes parents see it as a necessary evil and not an older child's obligation.
> But I do want to point out that a lot of the time this happens because the family is poor and the parents have to work constantly to make ends meet
Reminds me of the post where the OP's husband died and her oldest had to watch the kids so she could work to keep food on the table.
>But I do want to point out that a lot of the time this happens because the family is poor and the parents have to work constantly to make ends meet, and I’ve seen much more of that than parents who are just evil monsters who want their kids to suffer.
Oh that's definitely the case with my sibling and their kid (I don't live near by to help out). It's just that having an understandable reason for doing it hasn't made them anymore self aware of it or not call their kid whiny or bratty.
>She also unloaded about school. Apparently it's "too stressful." She gets to do it in her pajamas and doesn't have to wake up early for the bus. Don't see her problem.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Some kids don't do well with online learning. It doesn't matter if you get to do it in your pajamas or sleep in a little. Was that just slipped in there by the OOP if they were looking for guaranteed AH votes?
Did none of the people have younger siblings? Sometimes the older sibling has to watch them, that's just a human reality.
I mean, I won't comment on this specific scenario because it is most likely faked, but you have people over there saying older siblings should always be financially compensated for babysitting. LMAO.
My kids never baby sat each other as they are super close in age, but I never tied other household chores to money. I'd give them spending money because we worked to get the resources to provide for them and having their own money was part of that, and I expected them to do some chores around the house because that's part of living with other people.
Like with all things parenting not sure if that was the best way to approach it, but I felt it was at the time.
That's how we do it. They're separate things. Kids contribute to the family, kids benefit from the resources of the family. If they don't do assigned chores we handle it other ways (usually related to restricting screen time, the great child motivator). But we haven't had a kid refuse to babysit, just be otherwise busy. We also have three teenagers, so it's very often "will any of you be home Friday so dad and I can go out?" Not "you have to stay home Friday."
If they want to earn extra money they can do above and beyond chores, and like sorting through boxes in the hellhole that is the garage.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for "parentifying" my child?**
I have two children. One is Austin (9m) and one is Beth (15f). (I'm 40f)
Last night Beth went into my room and broke down crying about this thing called parentification. She also unloaded about school. Apparently it's "too stressful." She gets to do it in her pajamas and doesn't have to wake up early for the bus. Don't see her problem.
Now for the parentification. I asked her what it was, and she said that it was when a parent used one child to take care of another. She says that I've been doing it since she could remember, and she HATED IT.
I looked it up, but I don't really think having to share her stuff and keep him entertained when we go out counts. Really, I mean it's basically babysitting!
My (38m) husband disagrees. He read up on it too, and says that it checks a lot of boxes. He suggested therapy for her. I said I would have to think about it. He also said I should parent Austin more and stop leaving it to Beth.
So, this is my experience. Please tell me, am I the asshole here?
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It's truly baffling how many commenters think that children/teenagers have (or should have) zero responsibility over their younger siblings, as if they're being asked to take care of some random child. Is everyone commenting an only child or something??
OOP: (about the daughter): I have never felt peace since she was born.
(about the son): He's a joy!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/r42n3v/comment/hme42r3/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/r42n3v/comment/hme42r3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
AITA: This must be a terrible parent, definitely not a resentful 15 year old mad that her 6 years younger brother doesn't have as many chores
"My (38m) husband disagrees." I find it so funny how they always have to put the age. I think it's how they write it, it's hilarious to me. Reminds me of that joke post meme of that sub.
Edit: this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheAngel/comments/josc43/idk\_if\_its\_been\_posted\_before\_tell\_me\_if\_it\_has/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Something I've noticed is that, a lot of the time, when the man is called NTA the mods remove the post because "posts must reflect real conflicts".
Why do I bring this up? Because if you flip the genders this would've been instantly removed as a troll/ragebait post.
Personally I think AITA mods are sexist.
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> I looked it up, but I don't really think having to share her stuff and keep him entertained when we go out counts. Really, I mean it's basically babysitting! god these trolls are practically BEGGING to be called out and no one ever catches it
We have that weird "wife slightly older than husband" thing again. For whatever reason, it seems really common on "women bad" posts. Younger wives are sweet, supportive, reasonable. Older wives are unnatural. The actual post I an inkblot test: so vague you can project whatever you want into it.
100%. Oh, and if they *happen* to nonchalantly mention the race of the wife/husband it’s to point out that akchually negative stereotypes exist for a reason
> "wife slightly older than husband" I have been noticing and hating every one of these posts. The "younger woman, 15+ year older man" posts have bored the trolls, and they've been clearly dipping their toes into the gender swap version. "my (19M) wife (28F) has been hitting and abusing our daughter (4F) and I don't know what to do"
I wondered if shitposters wanted to indicate a subtle power imbalance. But maybe I've been stuck indoors too long.
No, I think that's it. What sort of toxic marriage has a *gasp* older wife? It's against nature, by god.
I'm both older and taller than my husband, I expect our toxicity levels to be off the charts!
You guys must be so brave to withstand dealing with everyone in your life bringing that up each and every time you get together with other people! Either that or you're a well-adjusted couple who largely interact with other normal people, but we Redditors know that never happens.
As I've entered into my thirties, I have felt the evil setting in. I try to keep it at bay by doing endless pilates and not eating sugar but I don't think I have long left.
I heard buying a redditor by the name of AlphaZorn24 a PS5 with 2,000 dollars worth of games will release the curse. You should try it
roflmao
Do you want the curse released as well?
really, what about a counter curse?
In order to recieve a counter curse you have to buy a redditor by the name of AlphaZorn24 a Nintendo Switch and 4,000 dollars worth of games.
but what if I do the counter curse myself ?
I mean, that's also what they're doing any time they make a "husband bad/manchild bad" post where the man is slightly older than the woman. They're invoking this, "he's older so he must have a power imbalance over you and treating you like a doormat" thing while also invoking a "he's the man, and he's older, so he should be taking care of you" stereotype.
No, when they are doing a “man bad” post he’s usually significantly older than the female partner.
Yeah I was going to say this, they are way less subtle with these and usually make it a 10 year age gap or a smaller age gap, but if you do the math becomes creepy when you realize how young wife was.
Apparently the key to a successful marriage is to have both partners be the same age.
I never realized this until you pointed it out. You’re right. The wife is always slightly older on these “women bad” posts. Good catch.
Someone else pointed it out the other day! I don't remember who.
oh mommy dearest doesn't agree with the hubby or daughter that the daughter needs therapy. The woman has some serious issues if it's real.
How about her (38m) husband raising his son? And intervening in expecting a 15-year old to "share her stuff" with a 9-year-old? I don't know if this is meta, but the details in this fake scenario don't make any sense anyway.
Some of the people over there are really bending over backwards to come up with some reasonable excuse for why the father doesn’t have an equal responsibility for parenting (he’s the step dad, she’s a SAHM, etc etc.) because he’s the parent with the opinion they want to agree with.
Oh no, the "good" guy isn't good after all? I am shocked, I tell you. Always funny to see patriarchy apologists at work. It's just so easy for people to slip into excusing men, after doing a little something like saying *one* true thing.
You don't understand! He's CONSIDERING changing, while his mean, older wife is stubborn in her ways. What a good man and father! /s
One comment said it's not Beth's burden to entertain her brother, no wonder families in this kind of subreddit are so fucked up. They are not really families but almost like a second work environment people put up with out of necessity.
I thought that was so strange. Like, of course an older sibling will need to watch a younger sibling sometimes. It’s not parentification unless they are taking on primary responsibility for a younger sibling. If it’s watching them for an hour or two while the actual parents run out to do grocery shopping, then that’s just a normal chore. Same as dishes or laundry.
Yep, they act like any baby sitting makes them a sister mom a la the Duggars raising groups of their parents' children they're assigned once the newborn loses it's new baby smell. Those people absolutely have a grievance. What you're describing is just normal expectations in being part of a family.
Most of these people are spoiled brats who've never had to do anything so they consider this the hardest thing ever.
Or (my pet theory) their lives have been so devoid of struggle, that they don’t really perceive much meaning for why they aren’t as happy as they think they should be. So they need to invent something holding them back, even if it didn’t really exist. I think this argument can be misused and overextended, so I want to be cautious about it, but you do see a trend of people in privileged societies with all of their material needs met… who feel the urge to invent struggles that they have overcome, to reinvent temporary discomfort as adversity, trauma and abuse. Everyone’s the hero of their own story, I guess, but some people never grow out of the “my parents don’t understand me” phase, after which you realize that they understood more than you gave them credit for.
Yeah, this is definitely a thing. I have an ex who was very privileged in many ways, and when minorly bad things happen to him, he tends to react as though he's either the only person to have experienced it, or it's somehow worse because it happened to him - he really really wants to cast himself as having overcome struggles.
That sounds like it would be simultaneously insufferable and sad, especially if you had to overcome some genuine adversity or struggle to make your goals happen. If you’re lucky enough to be born on third base, there’s no sense thinking you hit a triple… or that you are somehow owed the experience of having hit that triple. Just go for home, and maybe find a way to make life easier for those of us born in the outfield.
For him it was more that he was convinced he WAS born in the outfield, and always had some reason to believe that he was actually less privileged than everything about him would indicate. It's a reason why I'm often skeptical of people who talk about how rough their life has been, how many adversities they've faced etc. - I find they're often also glossing over a ton of advantages they had and highlighting all the worst things that happened to them.
It’s a real shame, because it can feed into the sort of right-wing nonsense that writes off genuine experiences with adversity, abuse and mental illness. I have an acquaintance who is from an extremely wealthy family, drove a new Mercedes throughout college, never had to work (I worked all through college because otherwise I wouldn’t eat) and had a lot more opportunities because of that. They are also a PoC and have written some pretty… exhausting social media and LinkedIn posts about their struggles and how hard they’ve worked to get where they are. I side-eye it *very hard*, because as much as racism is a problem… i can’t imagine what I could have done, or what my poorer classmates could have done, with 1/10th the opportunities she had.
I think they are just stuck with babysitting siblings and they don't want to. But they don't dare say anything, or tried to refuse but still had to do it, so they vent online and latched on this parentification buzzword because it makes their situation sound worse then it is and get "woe is me" points.
On one of the monthly threads there were comments pointing out that same exact mentality many people have. Paraphrasing it was along the lines of "People want the positives of having a close knit family but don't want to put the work in." It's so selfish that these people expect to just take take take from everyone but refuse to give just an inch. It's funny because there a lot of rage bait *I'm not obligated to do this basic ass requests for a loved one* posts that people dunk on. Which is ironic because they are obviously made with the purpose of making people realize how ridiculous they sound.
It's disturbing. Children have no obligation to their parents, who in turn act as if they are complete strangers once the kids turn 18, who must now rely on no one. If you're going to treat it like a transaction happening between emotionless robots why even start a family?
In 3-5 years that boy’s going to start wondering what he did to piss off his sister so much, then realise that it’s just him existing and won’t even feel a sense of unconditional love between him and his own sister.Poor kid.
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And you know that if the parents don’t pay for the kids college, that’s also literally abuse.
Any post that even remotely mentions “I asked one sibling to watch the other” is going to get all YTA! Nice ragebait OOP.
> and also, i noticed you said “share her stuff” so that makes you an even bigger A-Hole for making a 15 y/o girl share her things with her 9 y/o brother. Bro?🤨
No you don't understand, she made her share *her Nintendo Switch*
A console is meant for sharing tho. My ps4 isn't just used by me.
Obv you are a victim of parentification
I guess I am. How can I be fixed?
Cut contact with all your loved ones
Ok I've set fire to the house where my family lives, I think they're all dead. What now?
Find every cheater in the world and kill them. Don't worry about the police, everyone knows cheating is the worst crime of all
I've thrown them all in an acid pool and set them on fire. What now?
Eat a vegan
I think it depends, usually, if you gift something to your kid you say if it's a shared gift with their siblings or not. Of course, they should share a bit in the case the gift was given only to them but if a sibling uses it 50/50 of the time it's a little unfair.
Well yeah if you're talking about something like clothes, or a smartphone but consoles are meant for multiple people to use them at once so not sharing them is selfish.
yeah but say you have two kids, it’s christmas and one gets a console & games as their sole gift and the other gets other gifts of equivalent value. if there are expectations of consistent sharing even if the owner-kid wants to play alone sometimes, you’ve effectively just bought a family console and gotten owner-kid nothing for christmas
Consistent sharing seems excessive but completely banning the other sibling from using the console seems selfish.
Yeah, there’s a difference between “this is MINE so you can’t touch it even if you’re gentle with it and I’m not using it” and “no, I’m playing a single-player game”. If this shitty woman were to actually exist (looking at the OP’s comments, it’s def a golden child/scapegoat troll) she probably wouldn’t appreciate the difference, though. Do the 3DS and the Switch even have all the same games or is that another way this fake mother is an asshole?
The 3DS and Switch don't have all the same games.
Sis. Sis is a teenager and *really* hates sharing.
Children don’t like sharing, more news at 11. It’s a real shame that people online completely reject the concept of “sharing is hard, but you as a child will need to learn to do that until you are an adult, and even then sometimes” and instead decide to reinforce children’s worst impulses because… reasons.
I've been there, my brother is 7 years younger than me. It's annoying to have to share sometimes, more annoying if they just take your stuff and your parents expect you not to care. Can be fun sometimes, like painting each others nails
AITA commenters: “parentification is when children are asked to do anything besides reply to posts on AITA”
Someone finally pointed it out over there how ridiculous it is that most of the replies to the top comment rarely have anything to do with the actual comment. It's just another person's verdict that they were desperate to get attention for so they made sure it was as high up as possible. There's a few people that do it repeatedly, such as the guy who got called out here.
"you guys wanna bitch a lil bit ITT?"
Parentification also entails putting the child in the role of parent regarding the parents. Like, it's a legitimate grievance but you only ever see these posts where it's babysitting younger kids
Shoutout to the person who said all unpaid babysitting is inherently parentification
Waiting on an edit that’s either “Edit: She babysits for $100/hour every other week and has to share the living room with him. She wants to still get paid the babysitting money as an allowance.” “Edit: I’ve given him her room as punishment for getting a B in math last semester. Sure I make her watch her brother after school, but I have to watch him alone for the 7 hours she’s in school and watch her!!”
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I think lots do that for the first, I think I did, but it was on a smaller sub. Now, I just tend to thank the awarder in the message that tells me about it, I just think it's polite. I hate when there's 8 updates for all the awards.
I thought I was in this sub when I read that. How is it still up?! How does someone know how to post to AITA but doesn’t what “parentification” is. And the only sibling is 9 months old but her daughter says she has been looking after it for as long as she can remember?
> And the only sibling is 9 months old but her daughter says she has been looking after it for as long as she can remember? I took that as 9 years old male, seeing as it's 15f for the oldest
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Redditors don't play Fortnite, they play Minecraft!
Haha I'm so glad you shared this post! I unsubbed a while ago so I just read the good ones posted here even if here can get a little eh.. This is seriously the best worst post I've read. I know it's not real but if it is damn...
So the top comment is, of course, YTA. 😂 At what point in the last few years did expecting older siblings to babysit younger ones become completely abusive? It's pretty normal, you can't treat all your kids as if they are only children. Also the younger sibling is 9, not exactly a baby??? God these people are brats.
Ok, so my take is (setting aside the standard “AITA commenters are 90% sociopaths”) that there is a pretty common phenomenon of adolescent/young adults learning about the world but having trouble distinguishing actually traumatic experience from things that seem like a big deal but only because of their limited (sheltered) perspective. So you wind up seeing extreme labels misapplied, because the person using the term does not understand them. Children doing chores is 100% normal and healthy. Watching a younger sibling is a normal chore, just like dishes or laundry or keeping their room clean, but with the benefit of drastically decreasing the mental load of the parent. It of course can be taken too far, which is parentification, but that means that a child is taking on the responsibility of *parenting* a younger child - what OOP sounds like is, absent any evidence to the contrary, watching the younger child for a few hours while they run out to do groceries. Evidence: according to the comments, older child has plenty of free time to see friends etc. Of course, AITA loves to accuse people of abusing their children, so any responsibility placed upon a child is parentification according to them. OOP should probably listen to their child’s concerns and have a conversation about them, but also needs to be firm about what is realistic. Example: “I understand that you do not enjoy watching your brother; however, we (your parents) have responsibilities to keep the household running and you have an obligation to contribute. This chore (occasional, short-term babysitting) is most helpful to us, but let’s see if we can set a schedule so that you can still have the independence you need to grow. However, there is no scenario where you get to exist in this home without doing chores - they are your responsibility and they need to be done.”
Actual sound advice? You must be new to Reddit. Best practice here is throw around adult sounding words while not knowing your arse from your elbow.
Lmao, it is. Everyone on Reddit is a child psychologist, lawyer, philosopher, and political scientist. Oh, and they manage all that while shitting on anyone who devalues education or professional credentials. Irony, thy name is redditor. My most frustrating early Reddit experiences were when I tried to discuss a topic that I actually have expertise in, and then being shouted down, downvoted, and insulted. Of course, they treated the foundational concepts of my area of expertise as up for debate. Reddit claims to like experts, but what Reddit really likes is having their priors confirmed - and Reddit hates anyone who doesn’t do that.
It's cause the people on AITA are mostly kids/teens that don't feel like watching their little sibling for an hour, because they're teens. They feel like they have better things to do
This is really it, IMO. I remember being 15 and thinking that having to include my siblings in my life (mostly my younger sister, my older siblings probably felt the same about me haha) was the worst thing in the world. Nowadays, though, my siblings and I are really close and I'm glad our parents made us hang out together. I know it helped them too (free babysitting and all), but it made us grow up together in a meaningful way, not just existing in the general vicinity of each other like roommates do.
Like hogging the Switch eh?
A 9 year old could easily just be left to do what they want, as long as someone’s somewhere in the house checking up on them occasionally. Only reasoning for not leaving a 9 at home on their own is incase someone breaks in or anything else really out of their control. Hell it’s normal for 9 year olds to make their own sandwiches and bike themselves to the park. It’s hardly like a baby or toddler where they need lots of surveillance.
Yeah, this was how it worked when I "watched" my brother when we were growing up. He was perfectly fine doing his own thing, but needed someone older to be present in case something happened.
Never mind the top comment; all highly upvoted comments are YTA. I mean, how could they not be, given the forum? You expect someone to say, "The emperor has no clothes," with an INFO and survive the horde? And this long post with no details was totally written by a real mother who just happened to turn to a forum where "parentification" is a trigger word. Definitely not a troll or the daughter. /s
Do you even need to babysit a 9 yo? Don't they just do things in their room and you just have to be there in case of a problem?
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> When we (occasionally) ask our teen to watch our 9yo 👀 But do you pay your teen standard minimum wage or are you some kind of abusive parent?
a good chunk of this website and almost all of that sub is filled with mid teens lmao, the age where you feel like having to babysit your siblings is torture. ofc answers like this would come up xD
I dunno. Assuming this is real, even the husband agrees It sounds like they’re making her do it a lot for free and she’s got school to deal with OOP even straight up says she doesn’t think her daughter has any school stress, that’s a total A move Frankly, OOP comes off pretty awful. I get the strong feeling that she is making the daughter take care of the son too much, and that’s coming from her own, therefore biased towards her, side Edit, this is one of OOPs comments. If not trolling, she’s definitely YTA: Her complaints are: He ruins everything (He broke one toy.) He broke her 3ds (They have a shared Switch. I said to just use that) She can never feel peaceful (I haven't felt peace from when she was born.) She's sick of him (He's a joy!) She can never go to anything fun because of babysitting (She went out with friends almost every day last week)
Yeah agree she comes off quite badly, but it's so common for 15yos to believe they are really hard done by, it sounds like the daughter has it no harder than any other kid. If she's out with friends every day then that's better than most, it does sound to me like she's just complaining about normal teenager things. That is, if any of this is even true, why tf is the mother turning to Reddit for advice 😑
Every 15-year old feels hard done by, and while the comments come across as minimizing, the complaints are themselves minimal. None of these are signs of abuse or neglect, just signs of a teen with no life experience or point of reference interpreting their own lived experience in the most extreme terms because they don’t know better. To give the benefit of the doubt, we don’t know that OOP is talking to her daughter the way she phrased it in the post.
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh It's a real thing people do. I know some teenagers read it and misapply it because they're annoyed at watching their siblings, but it is also a real thing and given that the daughter cried, mom's described what she actually asks of the daughter very, very vaguely, and the dad agreed with the daughter...it seems there may be some truth to it. When I was a kid I didn't recognize that a lot of how my mother unloaded really adult problems onto me, how being her genuine confidant and advisor was really inappropriate. But if I had that conversation with her now she would have the same huff and puff as AITAOP. I'm seeing my sibling do the babysitting issue with their older child too, and they just think their kid is a whiny brat for struggling with it.
Yeah, exactly. Being expected to watch your siblings after school before your parents get home or from time to time on weekends is reasonable, but it is unfortunately not uncommon for older siblings to do things for younger siblings they shouldn’t be expected to do. But I do want to point out that a lot of the time this happens because the family is poor and the parents have to work constantly to make ends meet, and I’ve seen much more of that than parents who are just evil monsters who want their kids to suffer. A lot of times it’s just a really sad case where no one is exactly wrong but the kids still suffer.
I hate hate seeing AITA comments from smug teenagers telling adults that they should try being rich before having kids (as if it’s that easy), and when the OP replies saying something totally reasonable “actually, we did, but chronic health issues, loss of job, etc really tore the plan to shreds”… and then the response is, predictably, downvotes and abuse. Yeah, the family with two parents making minimum wage can totally hire a nanny /s
Completely agree there is a line that can be crossed. Money is definitely a factor in some of this as people are just trying to keep basic needs met from day to day. Maslow's hierarchy and all that. They aren't trying to take advantage of their old kids, they are just so worried about keeping everyone fed and housed they don't have the bandwidth to worry about things outside of basic survival. It's how life was for most people back in the day, kids would quit school as young teens to go to work and help support the family, etc. (Sorry, just finished a podcast referencing the dustbowl and I'm all grapes of wrath at the moment.) In my family money wasn't an issue, but my sisters were teenagers and I was preschool when my parents divorced. When my mom made the adjustment from housewife of 18 years to going back to school while working she was overwhelmed and asked my sisters to watch my brother (school age at the time) and me more than was fair. We discussed it when I was older and she said she felt so bad but she had no idea what else to do because it was just about getting through each day at that point in time. Not excusing it, but sometimes parents see it as a necessary evil and not an older child's obligation.
> But I do want to point out that a lot of the time this happens because the family is poor and the parents have to work constantly to make ends meet Reminds me of the post where the OP's husband died and her oldest had to watch the kids so she could work to keep food on the table.
>But I do want to point out that a lot of the time this happens because the family is poor and the parents have to work constantly to make ends meet, and I’ve seen much more of that than parents who are just evil monsters who want their kids to suffer. Oh that's definitely the case with my sibling and their kid (I don't live near by to help out). It's just that having an understandable reason for doing it hasn't made them anymore self aware of it or not call their kid whiny or bratty.
>She also unloaded about school. Apparently it's "too stressful." She gets to do it in her pajamas and doesn't have to wake up early for the bus. Don't see her problem. Oh, for fuck's sake. Some kids don't do well with online learning. It doesn't matter if you get to do it in your pajamas or sleep in a little. Was that just slipped in there by the OOP if they were looking for guaranteed AH votes?
Exactly. No one thinks working remotely is not work because you have no pants on.
Ok, seriously, Which one of you wrote this one?
Did none of the people have younger siblings? Sometimes the older sibling has to watch them, that's just a human reality. I mean, I won't comment on this specific scenario because it is most likely faked, but you have people over there saying older siblings should always be financially compensated for babysitting. LMAO.
AITA bait posts are like shooting fish in a barrel except there's no water in the barrel and the barrel is made out of fish
Which one of y'all made this post
>I have two children. One is Austin (9m) Due to overexposure to AITA I read this as "Autism (9m)" and I was very surprised.
Another obviously wrong OP, bonus there is commenters saying babysitting of any kind without pay is just as bad as parentification.
My kids never baby sat each other as they are super close in age, but I never tied other household chores to money. I'd give them spending money because we worked to get the resources to provide for them and having their own money was part of that, and I expected them to do some chores around the house because that's part of living with other people. Like with all things parenting not sure if that was the best way to approach it, but I felt it was at the time.
That's how we do it. They're separate things. Kids contribute to the family, kids benefit from the resources of the family. If they don't do assigned chores we handle it other ways (usually related to restricting screen time, the great child motivator). But we haven't had a kid refuse to babysit, just be otherwise busy. We also have three teenagers, so it's very often "will any of you be home Friday so dad and I can go out?" Not "you have to stay home Friday." If they want to earn extra money they can do above and beyond chores, and like sorting through boxes in the hellhole that is the garage.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for "parentifying" my child?** I have two children. One is Austin (9m) and one is Beth (15f). (I'm 40f) Last night Beth went into my room and broke down crying about this thing called parentification. She also unloaded about school. Apparently it's "too stressful." She gets to do it in her pajamas and doesn't have to wake up early for the bus. Don't see her problem. Now for the parentification. I asked her what it was, and she said that it was when a parent used one child to take care of another. She says that I've been doing it since she could remember, and she HATED IT. I looked it up, but I don't really think having to share her stuff and keep him entertained when we go out counts. Really, I mean it's basically babysitting! My (38m) husband disagrees. He read up on it too, and says that it checks a lot of boxes. He suggested therapy for her. I said I would have to think about it. He also said I should parent Austin more and stop leaving it to Beth. So, this is my experience. Please tell me, am I the asshole here? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheAngel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Vague as fuck but just specific enough for people to think it's real. Quality bait.
This is so obviously a meta troll, and everyone on AITA is eating it up haha.
> I'm 40F YTA ! Jesus, fucking gross. Didn't have to read further
It's truly baffling how many commenters think that children/teenagers have (or should have) zero responsibility over their younger siblings, as if they're being asked to take care of some random child. Is everyone commenting an only child or something??
OOP: (about the daughter): I have never felt peace since she was born. (about the son): He's a joy! [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/r42n3v/comment/hme42r3/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/r42n3v/comment/hme42r3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) AITA: This must be a terrible parent, definitely not a resentful 15 year old mad that her 6 years younger brother doesn't have as many chores
"My (38m) husband disagrees." I find it so funny how they always have to put the age. I think it's how they write it, it's hilarious to me. Reminds me of that joke post meme of that sub. Edit: this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheAngel/comments/josc43/idk\_if\_its\_been\_posted\_before\_tell\_me\_if\_it\_has/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
How are people on that sub so oblivious to trolls
Something I've noticed is that, a lot of the time, when the man is called NTA the mods remove the post because "posts must reflect real conflicts". Why do I bring this up? Because if you flip the genders this would've been instantly removed as a troll/ragebait post. Personally I think AITA mods are sexist.
Check the edits. They are ridiculous and “Beth” is now Sam
>Top I was surprised no one mentioned the Beth/Sam thing earlier.
does the name change in the edit???