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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Money_Improvement274 on 2023-07-04 18:35:49+00:00.
I (29M) have a brother (27M) who has a 4 year old daughter. His daughter’s mom passed away cause of birth complications and he’s been raising her mostly alone ever since. Recently he asked me if I could babysit her for the night so he could go a date, but I refused cause I’m not experienced with kids and frankly, cause I simply don’t want to babysit.
My brother kept insisting saying that he’s too tight with money to pay for a babysitter, but I kept refusing to do it. However one day at around 7 PM I suddenly hear a girl knocking at my door and there was my niece while my brother was nowhere to be found. I let her in my mom and then I started calling him multiple times, but he wouldn’t pick up any of my calls. After half an hour I ended up giving him a message that if he doesn’t come back in 15 minutes then I’ll report him to the police for child abandonment.
He came back after 20 minutes, but luckily for him I didn’t call the police yet. He was absolutely furious with me and started berating me literally in front of his daughter, but I eventually made him leave my house with my niece. However afterwards he kept giving me messages about how I failed as both a brother and a uncle, that I proved to my niece that I don’t love her and see her as a burden and that I couldn’t even allow him this night of fun when he hadn’t had sex since his daughter was born, but I messaged him that the last thing is his problem, not mine, and so he needed to figure it out on his own instead of pining on me against my will. However this only got him to send even more venomous messages. My boyfriend however thinks that I’m acting like an asshole to him and that we could’ve taken care of my niece for this night without creating a scene.
AITA for not having much sympathy for my brother’s situation and not wanting to babysit his daughter
You are not the asshole for going nuclear when he threw the kid at you to force your hand. However, I personally would have helped him somehow, either babysiting or helping him finding someone willing to babysit or paying for a babysitter. The universe took a humongous dump on your brother, he’s probably crying himself to sleep every other night, it’s seems a bit cold not lending him a hand in way or the other, but of course that doesn’t justify his actions.
I kinda wish repost bots weren’t bringing content into iata… It’s one thing to copy over memes, but what’s the point of giving responses if OP isn’t going to see them?
Anyhow, I’m with you on this one. Was surprised the responses on Reddit were so uniformly one-note on this one.
No, this guy doesn’t have to watch his brother’s kid, and his brother literally leaving his kid on his doorstep is WILD… but at the same time, his brother didn’t decide to be a single dad, and it is absolutely an asshole move to just generally never be willing to help your own brother when he’s on the ropes.
If my little brother had a kid and God forbid his partner passed away, better believe I’m helping with that kid whenever I can.
oops I didn’t realize it was a repost bot 🤦