I hate you for having the nerve to ask if your 16 year old son can live with me and my boyfriend 5 out of 7 days per week. Ummm no, actually that is not okay with me but because you are my boyfriend’s fucking moron sister, the boyfriend cannot say no to you. Can you even fathom how much of an inconvenience that is going to be? We work Monday to Friday 9-5, school is generally held at the same time so when we are going to be getting home so is your damn son, I guess I can look forward to no privacy. We will have no time together. I am a smoker of the herb and since the last time your punk ass smelled weed on me you ran to your mommy to tell her, I have a feeling that this living arrangement is not going to work in my favor. Am I an asshole for saying to my boyfriend that he has to say no to his sister or I’m outtie? I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say that occasionally he can stay, but for a young couple (25 & 27) having a 16 year old there all the fucking time, is not gonna work. If I wanted a roommate, I would find one… one that I like, and one that pays some money towards rent. Fuck I am so pissed off and frustrated. I don’t know what to do. I want to scream, cry and punch things all at the same time. —Take care of your own fucking kid
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2011.
Just based on your account of this OP, the only one who comes out looking remotely sympathetic is the kid. At least until he starts torturing the neighborhood pets and setting fires which seems like a dead-bang certainty, doesn’t it?
I understand the frustration, sure. It is a reasonable reaction to be a bit upset but you my friend come off as a real bitch! Sorry.
o.p., why does this sister want the kid there? doesn’t she trust leaving him at her home? is this kid a troublemaker, waiting for his next problem to arrise?
if you answered yes, to at least on of those questions, then either he, or you need to go. if bubby hubby wannabe wants this dude there all the time, let him have him. but make sure he knows that is where his next piece of tail will be coming from.
i can understand if sister was in financial straits, but just to unload a kid on someone, uhuh. there are easier solutions to this, one of them, doesn’t involve you being an adult child babysitter.
don’t let the feeling of sisterly love get in the way. shit like this can come to no fucking good for you. put out the ultimatum today, don’t wait til too late.
Expecting this person to stay 5 days per week without payment is RIDICULOUS.
Am sure the moron sister is receiving some type of support for this punk and that money should go to whoever is providing food/shelter
I would feel the exact same as you OP. I don’t plan on having children and I certainly wouldn’t take somebody else’s in because they for whatever reason can take care of their responsibilities. If your BF doesn’t really want to either but won’t say no to his sister then I would leave if I were you!
And LS makes a good point. This kid is 16! I was allowed to be left alone when I was like 10 and certainly was allowed to be left home alone for days at a time, sometimes a week by the time I was 16!
Why isn’t the mother taking the responsibility for her kid? She obviously knew how to spread her legs in the first place. Why does she pawn the kid off on you 5 days a week? What a bad mother!
there has to be some compelling reason for him to stay there…
and how long term are we talking?
Is she going on a trip and wants family to babysit for a couple weeks?
a permanent arrangement doesn’t sounds like you’ll be a happy camper….
You may want to drop the ultimatum now rather than when he moves in and you’re raging mad for a week or 2 straight…
Lovers may come and go but family is supposed to be forever. Of course it doesn’t sound like the most pleasant of situations, but sometimes life isnt pleasant. My husband has a 15 year old by from a previous marriage and if circumstances ever brought him to live with us, as inconvenient as that might be for me, I would never begruge my husband his desire or duty to care for a family member.
I agree with the OB. It’s as bad as the kids trying to dump the grandkids on you. They’re your responsibility, not mine. I’ll take them if or when I want to.
..your bf sounds like a pussy …just say’n
Hey, I just realized my post above sounded kind of snooty. I do feel for you OP; the situation would suck. But you haven’t given us enough of the details. Why does the sister want her kid to live with you? Does she have a major deadline she needs to work extra hours to meet? Or does she want more free time to do drugs? There’s a big difference, and if she’s trying to do something positive for her and her kid’s life then if I were you I would keep my mouth shut and be glad you have a man who takes the issue of family seriously.
I think you will soon be looking for a new boyfriend . . .
Z — I think there’s a difference between a nephew and one’s own child. If I was with someone who had children, I would have no problem having them come live with us because I knew he had the kids going into the relationship and if I had a problem with it, I wouldn’t be IN said relationship. Kids come first!
Anyway…
Maybe I don’t understand OP’s anger that much because, as someone who comes from an Acadian French family, we’re always taught “the more the merrier” when someone in the family needs a place to stay, whether it’d be crashing at each others’ place while visiting Halifax and CB, or putting someone up for a summer while they do a work internship in Ottawa. My great uncle actually gave up his bedroom for me when I had my four month internship. I felt bad at the time and told my mom and she told me that’s just what we do for each other in our family and not to worry about it. She told my uncle and he laughed and said “it’s not like I’m going to be homeless!”
I think at one point or another, all my CB relatives lived with my grandmother, and whenever we’d visit Cape Breton in the summers we’d stay at my great aunt’s place. Even now, one of my other great aunts lives with her brother and his wife (he has an income suit in his house that she lives in), and it’s just the way things are done in my family. In fact, when my grandmother in Halifax was ill (very ill — i’ve been told she almost died) when my mom was a kid, her and her brother were shipped off to Cape Breton to live with relatives while my grandmother was in the hospital. And there was no issue whatsoever — it was a given that that’s where they’d stay.
Would it be inconvenient to have family stay for a long period of time? Yes, sure, but I’d do it in a heart beat if someone in my family (not just immediate either — extended as well) needed a place to crash. That’s just the way my family rolls, and maybe that’s how your BF’s family rolls too?
And it might not be as bad as you think. I know I loved staying at my great aunt’s when we’d visit and seemingly the entire family was there. Always something to do and someone to talk to 🙂
One question though: is your name on the lease/deed too? If it is, you need to express your concern NOW rather than later. If it isn’t, well, too bad, so sad — if it’s your bf’s place he can do whatever the hell he wants with it.
I agree with you PK, the more the merrier. And because I’m so close to my siblings, I’d do anything to help them out and know they would be the same towards me. Depending on how serious my romantic relationship was, I’d take their opinion into account, but would be pretty weary if that person’s concerns were as seemingly self-motivated as the OP’s comes across.
Exactly, Z.
Though, I can kind of see how you might want your privacy. I know I like mine… however, doing the whole “move back in with your parents post graduation while you find a job/save money for your own place” thing kinda… tramples all privacy, so I guess I don’t have much sympathy, lol. Your privacy is probably squashed a lot more living with your folks than it is living with your bf’s nephew 😛
… at least your bf’s nephew won’t ask you where you’re going, how you’re getting home and call you 10 times when you attempt to go out anywhere 😛
So it could be worse, OP 😛
I do love that about Acadians P.K always a delightful friendly welcoming bunch even to anglos.
Heehee, we just don’t call y’all bastards to your face — we do it behind your backs 😛
…or to your face in French… heehee
j/k 🙂
I totally agree with the OP. I think the bf is being completely unfair. This isn’t a situation that the OP went into the relationship knowing, like if the bf had a kid of his own. But that isn’t the case here, this is the OP’s boyfriend’s nephew. She had no reasonable expectation of having to look after this kid. I wouldn’t want to become an insta-mommy anymore than the OP. Why should she have to clean up the bf’s sister’s mess?
There are a lot of reason’s why someone wouldn’t want to become responsible for another person’s kid. It isn’t always the more the merrier. They may have a small apartment, and the kid also sounds like he’s pretty in your face. Maybe the OP doesn’t feel ready to be a mom of a 16 year old in her mid-twenties. She may not be responsible enough to handle being a stand-in mom of a 16 year old. It wasn’t her choice, and it doesn’t sound like she was asked how she felt about it. It sounds like her bf is making these choices for her.
I think that its great if a family is close and wants to help each other out, but that is not everyone’s values. That doesn’t make either value system right or wrong just different. If you live with someone, roommate/ significant other/ whatever, you have to take their feelings into account as well, especially when the choices being made will change the other person’s life significantly. If they were just roommates and the OP was pissed, no one would blame her.
In your crazy chiac french? I’m starting to understand that a lot more now though.
I’m surprised the sister would suggest that her impressionable 16 year old son live with a herb smoking couple since she is obviously against it. Maybe reminding her of it will enable the problem to solve itself = p
It takes a village to…
Fuck it, let’s just turn our backs on anyone who needs help…especially family members…the ‘me’ generation rules! Everyone else be damned.
Why does everyone always tote out that “it takes a village” crap… in an urban setting there ain’t no village.
The OP said in her post that she wouldn’t mind once in a while, but the amount being expected is outside of what she considers to be reasonable. It would be different if it was her bf’s kid but its not, its her bf’s nephew. They are young, probably have a small place and she, at least, has a life style that is alternative to what his mother wants him exposed to. She has the right to feel comfortable in her own home and this kid would make her uncomfortable. I feel bad for her, her bf didn’t seem to talk to her about it, just made the decision. Why does it make you a terrible person if you don’t want to shelter someone’s child?
She’s not related to the mother, and she has an equal stake in the home she shares with her boyfriend. She’s not saying they can’t help the kid out once in a while, but she’s drawing the line at 5 plus times a week. That’s a lot of worry, responsibility and financial burden to put on somebody without their full consent.
I’m one of those people that refuses to hold a baby and I hate being around children. There is not a “motherly” bone inside me. But I guess that makes me a bad person I guess? I’m a woman so I’m supposed to care about every single child? I hate getting this same lecture over and over again, that because I’m a woman, there will be a point in my life when I want to have a child because that’s just what every woman does. Is it really so hard to fathom that there are women out there who don’t want children or have anything to do with one? And I’m supposed to feel like I’m a horrible person for feeling that way? Wellllllll I don’t. I chose not to have a child and there’s no way I would accept the OP’s situation and saying she should feel terrible because she’s not choosing to do what you would do is pretty narrow minded. Some of your instincts are to help children but my instinct is to get away from the situation. That makes me awful? Sure, if there was child falling off a cliff, I would help them up. But housing a 16 year old for 5 days a week is something completely different.
I can predict next months bitch – My BF kicked me out because I had sex with his 16 year old nephew…. Came home and the youngster was jerking his gherkin and I said, here let me help you blah blah blah. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry
Mel — I completely get what you’re saying. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to be a mother or not having a “mothering bone” in your body. Unfortunately “society” is an asshole when it comes to this and women who don’t like or want to have kids are seen as being crappy people.
However, you would likely NOT get into a relationship with someone who does have kids — right? Those among us who would generally tend to like kids and don’t (or shouldn’t) have an issue with the idea of their significant other’s kids coming to live with them. And those who DO have issues with kids and choose to date others with children are just fooling themselves if they think they’ll ever be chosen as number one over their SO’s kids.
It’s a big decision to date someone who has kids from previous relationships (especially if you don’t have your own).
I don’t blame you, OP, and I have a child.
Were I in your shoes, the biggest pissoff for me would be that it wouldn’t the boyfriend doing the heavy lifting, as it were, but me. I would bet anything that, if I weren’t living there, the idea to send him off to one’s single, mid-20s brother wouldn’t occur to her unless she were desperate and the brother was the only other family she had.
Five days a week usually means that the kid’s having to go to school in the area, probably because the local school won’t have him anymore, or because it offers special programming he can’t get from his local school. Either way, it’s time for a sit-down with your boyfriend over what he can or cannot say on your behalf.
star0girl: it’s either trying to copy off of traditional First Nations ideals or some gay mayoral candidate in Toronto is using it as an election platform.
OB, what you need to do is leave your stash out.
Him being a 16 year old boy, he’ll be into it … & when ole mom find’s out he’s smoking & she’ll lose it ! IF she’s as rabid as you claim about your ‘alternative behaviour’
You won’t be able to get that kid to come over to your house for christmas dinner ~;)
Usually I think everyone who posts a bitch is a total twat. But I actually feel your pain.. As my spouses younger sibling is constantly mooching. And you’re right, it DOES NOT WORK. Make some decisions now, or prepare to be miserable.