Quite a few people have likely been in a position where they were left with someone else’s kid to look after, whether they liked it or not; and chances are, that happened during a family gathering.

Family get-togethers are where the redditor u/TheLegendaryHaggis would always have to watch over someone’s child. To make matters worse, the parents wouldn’t ask her to do it; they would just leave the little one with her, that is until she decided to leave herself. Scroll down for the full story.

Bored Panda has reached out to the OP and she was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. You will find her thoughts in the text below.

Some parents tend to use relatives as a free-of-charge nanny service

Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)

This redditor would repeatedly be left with her relatives’ children to look after

Image credits: Nicole Michalou (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Antoni Shkraba (not the actual photo)

Image credits: TheLegendaryHaggis

The OP wasn’t sure why it was her the parents would leave their children with

Image credits: Nataliya Vaitkevich (not the actual photo)

In a recent interview with Bored Panda, the OP shared that she was very disappointed to realize that she was only invited to family events and parties to look after the children while the parents mingled with other guests.

“This left me with the unwanted responsibility of looking after other people’s children, which prevented me from enjoying the events like every other guest or family member. I love the kids—cousins, nieces, and nephews—as they are family but it’s a bit unfair to be expected to be their babysitter every time I get invited to a party or an event.”

“I couldn’t leave a baby, toddler, or child unattended because if there was an accident and the parent left the child with me, they would blame me,” the redditor pointed out, adding that she’s not quite sure why the parents would choose her to watch over the children. She speculated, though, that it might have been related to some of her personal qualities, as the OP admitted she used to be a people pleaser back then.

“At the time, I assumed it was because I was an only child and female without kids of my own that they thought I would love to play nanny for them,” she added, wondering why it was that the parents would choose her. “However, this is just an assumption since we can never know what people are thinking.”

Parents turning to relatives for help with child care is not unheard of

Image credits: Kampus Production (not the actual photo)

Quite a few of us have likely walked a mile in Sara’s shoes at least once or twice; I know I have. In situations as such, parents often choose to leave their child with a relative as they get a chance to socialize with other grown-ups. It might not always be the case, but for some moms and dads, an opportunity like this does not come up often.

“Adults need breaks from caregiving so they can rest and refuel and then return to their children with a restored distress tolerance tank,” family therapist Larisa Garski told the Insider, adding that only in comparatively recent times parenting began to be treated as a solo or a two-person activity.

The author of Act Natural: A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting, Jennifer Traig, suggested that the verb to parent itself only came about in the ‘70s. “Before that, they reared their children, but mostly they left that in fact to other people—to staff, to older siblings, to other relatives,” she told CBC. “A parent’s job was to have the kids, not necessarily to raise them.”

Nowadays parenting might be viewed in a different way, but it’s not at all odd for parents to ask for help from relatives or look for a babysitter to watch over their little ones. Back in 2019, for instance, nearly 60% of children aged 5 years and younger who weren’t enrolled in kindergarten were cared for by someone other than a parent at least once a week.

Now, the redditor tries to stand up for herself more and believes the family heard what she had to say

Image credits: SHVETS production (not the actual photo)

But be it relatives, a trustworthy nanny or someone else, non-parental care is only an option when it’s based on mutual agreement, which seemingly wasn’t the case for the OP. The relatives would simply leave their children with her and go socialize with others, which resulted in the redditor stopping attending the gatherings altogether.

“I can now recognize when others are using me for their own personal gain and am not afraid to say no, even if it means being judged negatively by others and people I care about and love. This is a very difficult thing to say to loved ones,” the OP told Bored Panda, adding that she is still in touch with them nevertheless.

“It sounded in the original post that I stopped seeing family all together. I still see them, just never in a setting of a party or a family gathering. I love hanging out with the family outside of such a setting and to be fair, the kids are great fun to be around as long as I’m not expected to babysit them, which I never once said I was okay with at any point. At the end of the day, we are all still family and I think they got the message that I am not their babysitter.”

The OP answered some questions, providing more details

People shared their thoughts in the comments

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