It’s hard to say ‘no’ when your family asks for help. However, there’s always a limit to someone’s generosity. You can’t keep saying ‘yes’ every single time they need a hand—you have your own life to live as well, and you can’t sacrifice all of your plans, hopes, and dreams. Sometimes, enough is enough.

Redditor u/ThrowAwayUncle44 shared how he got into a huge argument with his brother and sister-in-law after refusing to look after his nephew anymore. The entire situation blew up. Scroll down for the full story, as well as the OP’s update.

Bored Panda reached out to u/ThrowAwayUncle44 and he was kind enough to answer a few of our questions and share some advice for anyone who’s ever stuck in a similar situation as he was. You’ll find our full interview with the author of the post below.

Helping out your family is one thing, but nobody wants to be an unpaid babysitter for their relatives all the time

Image credits: samer daboul (not the actual photo)

One man opened up about how his family reacted after he chose a trip with his partner over taking care of his nephew

Image credits: vadymvdrobot (not the actual photo)

Image credits: nd3000 (not the actual photo)

Image credits: ThrowAwayUncle44

The uncle later gave an update about how the situation escalated further

Image credits: InnaVlasova (not the actual photo)

Image credits: ThrowAwayUncle44

The family was appalled when the uncle pushed back against their demands

Image credits: Iakobchuk (not the actual photo)

Bored Panda wanted to get to know the post author’s thoughts on boundaries, how the internet reacted to his story, and how he’d go about helping someone who ever has to deal with something similar.

“The comments helped me reaffirm what I sort of already knew for a long time about my family. I don’t really talk about my family much in real life so for a long time it was just what I was thinking vs what they were telling me. Seeing hundreds of comments all aligned with what I was feeling helped me realize that it wasn’t just in my head and this was definitely not normal,” u/ThrowAwayUncle44 opened up to Bored Panda how the members of the AITA subreddit helped him quite a bit.

Meanwhile, we were curious as to why the redditor’s family had such a hard time accepting the boundaries that he tried to establish. “I think it just comes down to favoritism. My older brother was my parent’s favorite no doubt about that and he was pretty much always prioritized over me,” he explained.

“I wanted to go to school in the US which my parents disapproved of while my brother did all his education in our home country. They refused to pay for my education and I pretty much had to finance everything myself via working and scholarships. My best guess is that they resent me for getting out of their control,” the OP said.

Meanwhile, here’s his advice for someone who might be in his shoes: “I can say without a doubt is try to recognize that you are being manipulated and put your foot down as soon as possible. The longer you keep giving in, the more they will make you believe that doing favors for them is an obligation and you’ll hesitate setting boundaries because of guilt.”

The argument that followed the redditor’s proclamation that he’d like to go on a trip with his girlfriend instead of taking care of his nephew was of epic proportions. Everyone said a lot of mean things they probably regretted. And the OP’s family accused him of not pulling his own weight. There were some suggestions thrown about that he should be sacrificing everything for his family.

However, his family seemed to think that he was their go-to babysitter, at their beck and call whenever they needed his help. It seems unfair to dump such a huge responsibility on a close family member, especially when they don’t seem particularly thrilled about being a nanny. The entire situation raises a lot of questions about why the kid’s parents aren’t looking after him more… and why all the other family members aren’t stepping in to volunteer and help.

The vast majority of the redditors who read the story thought that the OP was clearly in the right. Meanwhile, in an update, the redditor shared how he apologized to his family. However, his relatives didn’t apologize back. It seemed like the only thing that they cared about was whether or not he’d be their babysitter again.

Establishing clear boundaries is essential for healthy familial relationships

Image credits: gpointstudio (not the actual photo)

There seem to be two main issues at work here. The first has to do with setting boundaries with family members and how they’re struggling to accept this new reality. The second appears to be linked to something that can cause arguments in any family—money.

When it comes to setting boundaries, there’s no alternative to good communication. Everyone needs to set expectations and be on the same page. It’s essential that you don’t take a relative’s willingness to help for granted. Asking for a spot of help from time to time is fine. But turning babysitting into an annoying and challenging part-time job is probably not the best way to get on someone’s good side.

Living without any boundaries means living at your expense. They’re essential for healthy and thriving relationships, whether they’re familial or romantic. It’s not selfish to have boundaries. Quite the opposite. If you don’t communicate and enforce them, then you’ll start resenting those who cross them.

It’s fine to make your boundaries more flexible the closer you are to someone else as you look for compromises (you care about these people, after all), but it would be a mistake to do whatever someone else tells you to, whenever they tell you to, just because you’re related to them. Being a family member doesn’t mean giving up your entire identity.

Some families see each relative’s time and money as shared resources

Image credits: ollinka (not the actual photo)

The second issue at play here is a bit more subtle. From redditor u/ThrowAwayUncle44’s posts, it appears that he’s doing pretty well, financially. He’s able to take monthly trips with his girlfriend. And his relatives even mentioned that he should pay for his nephew’s daycare, as well as some other expenses.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help your family members financially—plenty of people would do just that. The problem, however, is that there’s an expectation that the OP has to do these things. It’s expected of him. His family seems to view his resources as theirs. It’s not really a gift if someone demands something from you, now is it?

As we’ve covered on Bored Panda before, when someone gets rich, their family, friends, and acquaintances will start doing mental calculations on what they can ask of you. If you don’t comply with their wishes, they might start resenting you. Your best approaches are to practice stealth wealth (live an outwardly middle-class lifestyle) or explain that you’ve got your money set to be donated to charities that you care about. If there’s any money left over after that, you can give it to your nearest and dearest as you please, without any expectations or strings attached.

The author of the post shared some more details in the comments

The readers gave the man some spot-on advice. Here’s what they had to say

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