When rent is not cheap, one way to save money is to live with your sibling. In fact, 1.9 million Americans aged 18-29 say they currently live with their brother or sister. And although that’s only 3.6% of that age group, it still shows a trend.
But what if your sibling has children who also live with you? That’s the situation this 24-year-old woman got into when her brother got divorced. Since they’re siblings, he expected his sister to help out with the kids, but she had a different opinion.
The brother and sister thus asked for opinions online: should she be obligated to help since it’s family, or was he too entitled to expect free childcare?
A brother called his sister “selfish” for not helping him out with his kids
Image credits: Getty Images (not the actual photo)
The 24-year-old defended her decision by telling him to hire a babysitter
Image credits: Getty Images (not the actual photo)
Image source: anon
Parent burnout is a pressing problem nowadays
Being a parent is not easy. And while some commenters condemned ‘Howard’ for complaining that he needs “a minute alone,” parent burnout is a very real thing. Research from Australia’s Parenting Research Centre shows that almost half of all parents experience psychological distress.
In 2024, the U.S. Surgeon General also revealed that parents are stressed about more things than before: there’s work, childcare, and the household. But nowadays, parents also have to worry about social media, the children’s mental health crisis, and their safety at school.
Some parents may be spreading themselves too thin. Researchers from the Parenting Research Centre also note that nearly half of their surveyed parents lack time to get everything done. What’s more, at least three in five say they do nothing to re-energize and take some time for themselves.
“Our research found that more than a third of parents feel they are too hard on themselves about their parenting, almost half find it hard to forgive themselves when they make parenting mistakes, and about one in six struggle with feelings of guilt or shame about their parenting,” the Parenting Research Centre CEO, Warren Cann, said.
When parents are burnt out, the quality of care they give their children is affected. So, time off from children is not only in the interest of parents, but in the interest of the children themselves, too.
Parents do need “time off,” and it shouldn’t be taboo to ask for help
Some commenters vilified the dad for thinking he’s entitled to time off from being a father. “When you chose to have children, everything else in your life became secondary,” one commenter wrote. And while this is true to an extent, the idea that parents can’t ask for help and should suffer in silence is quite problematic.
Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told NPR that feeling like you’re losing your sense of self is not a normal thing that parents should feel. While having children does a complete 180 to a person’s life, a parent’s self and identity still matter.
“Your sleep, your time with friends, your diet, your quiet time, those are not indulgent, those are essential,” Murthy explained. Granted, treating your unwilling sister as the default babysitter is hardly okay, but, as the author herself said in her post, babysitters do exist.
Historically, women have been the default caregivers, yet it seems that a change is coming
It’s hard for parents to find adequate childcare, and that’s not their fault; it’s a failure of the system. For example, childcare programs in the U.S. have been underfunded for a very long time. Financially vulnerable families and parents might not be able to pay for nannies and babysitters, so their only other option is often family members and friends.
That why it’s not surprising that the brother expected his sister to shoulder a part of his family’s mental load and parenting duties. Unfortunately, women are still carrying the bigger part of the caring load, be it with children, elders, or differently abled family members.
According to a 2011 OECD report, two-thirds of family caregivers are usually female. When it comes to grandparents, they’re often the default childcare option, too (most often grandmas). Or, as a professor of sociology and co-director of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives at the University of Manchester, Vanessa May, puts it, “an unpaid social safety net.”
However, recent research indicates that more men are taking on caregiving roles lately. In 2024, researchers from the University of Lucerne found that men and women were investing similar amounts of time in caring for their disabled family members. That said, women were still spending four more hours a week on household chores.
These researchers also found that women report a better quality of life and satisfaction than their male counterparts, signaling that male caregivers may need a different type of support.
People in the comments advised Howard to pull himself together and not expect his sister to act like a wife
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