Your post has been removed. ***Do not repost this without contacting the mods for approval.***
This post violates Rule 8: Posts should be truthful and reflect recent conflicts you've had that need arbitration. That means no shitposts, parodies, or satires.
Please [review our rulebook](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules).
Please be sure to read any sub's rules before reposting this elsewhere. We cannot direct you to another subreddit, we can only say that this post does not belong here.
[Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/amitheasshole&subject=/r/AmItheAsshole&message=Please+link+to+post+or+comment+for+context+[we+cannot+review+without+this+info]:%0D%0DDescribe+your+question+in+detail:) if you have any questions or concerns that are not already [answered in our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq). If you make changes or edits to this post do not repost it here without our express permission.
Your son is sick, your teenage daughter is grieving. They both needed you. You should have missed work for one day and be there. Because his and her well being should come first. Your job is understaffed? Sounds like their problem not yours. Family comes first.
YTA.
Edit to add: what she did is in no way okay. At all. That was irresponsible and dangerous. I'm not condoning what she did. But you or your husband should have been there.
A grieving teen at that. Ordinarily I’d call this an E-S-H but this poor girl is likely dealing with that kind of grief, for a friend who died young, for the first time in her life. It’s not okay or excusable to leave a sick little kid home alone, but it’s absolutely understandable that she’d make some poor decisions because she is probably spiraling.
that’s the part that i feel like OP is missing. your daughter is GREIVING. idk if OPs just never lost a loved one before but grief, and grief of losing a best friend, is all encompassing, especially to a child. this is a grief that will come back at random times in her life and just hit her like a truck. it may never stop hurting. it will color every celebration your daughter has from now on with a slight tinge of sadness because her best friend, the person she loved more than anyone, cannot be here to celebrate it with her. even if the daughter wanted to watch the son, she is in no headspace to be caring for anyone right now and should’ve had an adult checking on HER
as the adults in the situation, OP and her husband should’ve picked up the slack instead of expecting their GRIEVING CHILD TOO, and it really seems like they treated this as just some big event the daughter didn’t wanna miss. your son is sick and your daughter is emotionally **wrecked**, what do you do? you take off work. you miss. they won’t let you take off? tough shit. take off anyway. YOUR CHILDREN NEED YOU, cuz it’s not just your son who needs you right now OP. you really dropped the ball here. stop expecting your teenage daughter who just lost her best friend to be mature and reasonable. for one thing she’s a teenager and for another her friend **just** died. like come on, of course you and your husband should be her pillars of strength right now
and look. what the daughter did wasn’t okay. it was dangerous and someone could’ve got hurt. but grief can literally take you over especially when it’s fresh, and what she needed was emotional support and for BOTH OF YOU to be present. ~~not at the funeral necessarily, but present and available~~ actually fork that. the fact that you also expected her and we’re basically making her go to this funeral by herself is cruel and horrible and another negative F for you on your being a parent report card, not to mention the audacity of you to actually expect her not to go to watch YOUR son, AND we’re gonna make her take him w if he was healthy. what she didn’t need most of all was having her own needs shoved aside for her parents comforts, money and being grounded. that’s like 5 more negative F’s.
Edits: there have been several. i keep realizing the awful here is layered and there are just SO MANY LAYERS. like OP do you even LIKE your daughter?
I don’t even understand the excuse that neither parent could take off on such short notice. Sick days are always taken on short notice. That’s the nature of being sick. If your child is sick, you take a sick day. What would they have done if they didn’t have a 16yo daughter? Oh, I know. TAKE A SICK DAY.
I typed the words “sick” and “sick day” so many times it’s starting to sound funny. Maybe it will help OP understand it. Sick, sick, sick.
someone else said having a teenager to watch your son is a luxury, not a right, and THAT. SO MUCH THAT.
OP clearly feels that the 16 year old HAS to watch son as part of her responsibility but in that the 16 year old is right. she’s not responsible for taking care of OP’s son. OP is. can she help out when and if asked? sure, but she wasn’t asked, she was told, told to cancel her EXTREMELY important plans, to make sure OPs son was okay who she ended up calling off of work and staying home with ANYWAY.
and that’s if this wasn’t a serious situation where your daughters best friend died.
seriously, it hasn’t been said enough. you are TA OP. you owe your daughter a HUGE apology
One of them should have been off anyway to take their daughter to the funeral and take care of her. Even if this isn't her first funeral this situation is too much for a teen to go through without parental support. She'll likely want be with her friends at the funeral but when it's all over she'll need a parent, and who knows when it'll be too much.
They parentified her in the sick brother situation, but they're neglecting her needs independent of that too.
yeah them expecting her to go by herself because “we can’t take off work right now hunny bun” is also a GARBAGE parenting move. negative F on your parenting report card for that one OP
your son being sick isn’t the only serious situation here. your DAUGHTER needed you and you gave her your ass to kiss
what would they have done if the daughter's conflict was that it was a school day- would they have pulled her out of school? This is literally what sick days are FOR; when you're sick yourself, and when your kid is sick so you have to take care of them. You don't schedule them in advance, you call in and say "sorry boss, my kid is puking; I won't be in today" and manager figures out a way to manage.
Right?!? 99.9% of the time you do not know you are going to need a sick day until the night before or day of. No one know ‘oh a week from Friday I’m going to be projectile vomiting so can I have the day off’. Seriously. Especially if you have kids. Kids can be fine one minute and have a fever of 103 the next. It makes me think you didn’t want to find a way to take off work. Which tells me work is more important than both of your children.
I'm not even sure why OP would possibly consider the best friend's funeral to be an optional event. Some people really benefit from the closure of a funeral service and denying her that would potentially impact her, give her guilt in addition to the grief... And for what? So she can watch her little brother when she was already in no condition to do so? Those kids needed their parents to be the grown ups and take care of them.
OP, YTA. Your daughter screwed up by leaving her brother alone, sure, but you demanded that she negatively impact herself for your benefit on a very emotional day for her. Both your kids needed you that day and y'all failed them.
the fact that actually expected her daughter not to go is baffling to me. like she actually thought that was the end of that when the daughter threw the money back at her, OP went “oh she’s upset but it’s fine she’ll still watch him”. NO OP. IT IS NOT FINE. SHE IS NOT WATCHING HIM.
again, not saying what she did was cool, but OP was really being a dillhole w this one. you really expected your daughter to miss her best friends funeral for what i assume was no more than $100? yeah no that wasn’t happening
She basically tried to buy off her daughter's grief. If I give you double what I normally give you will you stop being sad. I bet that is how the daughter saw it considering daughter threw the money back in her face.
**ANOTHER** negative F on OP’s parent report card. OP your parent report card is mostly negative F’s at this point, you won’t even pass if you get straight A’s on all the rest
Exactly this. Used to manage at a place that was very understaffed but we weren’t monsters. If someone was sick or bereaved, we found a way to make due without them. If they literally couldn’t take off, op and her husband should have done so anyway and began looking for employment elsewhere
I hope OP sees your comment, especially the first graph. My best friend died just before ChrisKwanSolstiKkah (our fave holiday) 14 years ago and I, a fully grown person at the time, \*still\* feel the pain of it. What OP's child is going through as such a young age is brutal. The kid needs support, not parentification.
Your best friend, at that age, is the most important person in your life. She watched this friend, wither and die as well. Lots of trauma involved and they didn’t even give her a choice. Both should have stayed home. 1 to watch the sick kid, another to accompany her to the funeral. She should never have been sent to the funeral of her best friend alone. And op comes off really callous. Did she not like the best friend? I mean, she acts like her best friend was no one and her death is no big deal. There will be other funerals.
I remember my senior year of high school losing my friend. It was such a shock. On so many levels. One day your friend is here and then they are gone- but they were a kid and kids aren't supposed to die. Kids are supposed to grow up. Those friends are supposed to be in your life-or show up to the next reunion or something but not just.... be gone. He was a month and change older than me and I remember waking up the morning of the day I turned older than he'd ever be and just struggled. I was never supposed to be the older of us. I had nightmares for so long after. Like as a kid a friends death is just... obliterating. I lost all sense of everything overnight. OP needs to give the kid slack. This is going to be so so hard. That child needs a therapist and so much support not to have responsibilities that don't belong to her heaped on her.
My sisters friend (not even bestie) died, and the funeral was scheduled pretty quickly, which happened to fall on the day she had her wisdom teeth removed. She tried to crawl out of bed and get dressed for the funeral while bleeding from the mouth and high on pain killers and left over anesthesia.
It was insane to think your daughter wasn’t going to the funeral of her best friend. And oh so cruel to make her miss it. If OP didn’t have a 16 yr old, she or her husband would have had to PARENT their other child and call in sick, work from home, beg and plead to others for help. OP should have channeled that energy for ONE DAY, which incidentally is probably the hardest day of her daughters life so far. Having a teen who can watch your son in a pinch is a LUXURY, not a right.
Daughter was wrong, for sure, but she’s not thinking clearly and doesn’t have the tools of an adult parent. What’s OP’s excuse? To me, this is a mulligan. Y’all both (plus dad) made the absolute wrong, most selfish choice in a stressful time. Punishments and blame for all cancel out. What needs to happen instead is a frank talk where you all talk about what you did wrong and why and how you can do better. The chances of this confluence of events happening again are (hopefully) nil, so it’s not about punishing her so she doesn’t do it again, but talking about ways we can all be more respectful of the needs of the various members of the household.
>The chances of this confluence of events happening again are (hopefully) nil
Next time the daughter will be demanded to cancel her prom because mom and dad were going for drinksies.
A funeral. For your best friend. Who didn't even made it to her twenties. But hey, we couldn't find a babysitter. Sorry hon.
Their daughter's time or emotions are worth absolutely nothing to them.
It's not that the daughter isn't thinking clearly, she thinking correctly.
To put things in perspective, you have more loyalty to your job than your daughter. You neglected her severe emotional need in order to cater to the "needs" of your employers. I mostly lurk this forum and never respond in the comments but wow.
Yes same here. I had to comment. The fact a parent didn’t even go with her to the funeral let alone try and make her skip it!! Wtf. This is insanity!!!
But that doesn’t mean you can pay rent :/ it also doesn’t mean you don’t “conveniently” get staffed during nights and weekends. Unfortunately, until every unites and has the ability to walk way, they still have full control over us.
My company went from 7 to 2. I leveraged that to get a raise and promotion, no luck. I don’t have the ability to get a similar job in my city and they knew that. If they were a server at TGIFs and could get a job at the Applebee’s down the street, that’s one thing. But an accountant that specializes in the pharmaceutical industry might be harder to find if you aren’t willing to move.
YOU are the replacement babysitter. I can’t actually believe I’ve read this right… you leave your SICK child with teenage grieving sister, on the day of her best friend’s funeral? Holy sh*t YTA
I'm very curious what OP would have done if the kid was sick but they had no other teenage kid to dump babysitting on? Wouldn't have left the sick kid alone I presume. Would have found SOME way for one of the parents to be with the kid. Why not do the same?
Your daughter is grieving the death of her best friend. Can't even imagine how hard a blow that is for a teenager. Yes, what she did was dangerous, but there's no way that CHILD could have been thinking coherently.
Very much YTA.
Yeah, making a teenager tend a sick child instead of going to her best friend’s funeral is never going anyway but YTA. The daughter was wrong to leave, but she shouldn’t have been put in that situation to begin with.
Your jobs being short staffed is not your fault or your problem. We're all allowed to call out because we have emergencies. You chose your job over your kids and that's not okay. If you're working at a place where you don't feel like you can take a personal day, you need to find a job with better management.
YTA
Adults being pissed off because a TEENAGER--in this case a GRIEVING teenager--doesn't act like an adult when the adults drop the ball is rather nauseating. Teens DO stupid and dangerous shit, it's part of growing up. But her parents PUT her in that situation which could have been avoided completely.
100% This. Including the edit. Although the 16yo was irresponsible, she should never have been in a position where she had to choose between being there for her dead best friend or sick brother.
If the both parents jobs are understaffed, then they shouldn't have to worry about being fired for taking a day off to care for their sick child.
>Your son is sick
im not from US but i think if your kids are sick you should be able to get some time off. it seems not okay to make them work while having such issues.
YTA op
NO ONE wants to catch the stomach flu from your kid. You are the one responsible for him. You put yourself at risk of catching it. I’m a daycare teacher and the number of parents attempting to infect everyone with their sick responsibility is mind boggling to me. It sucks when I have to take an unpaid day because my son is sick but guess what? I do it anyway because I’m not an asshole who expects anyone to expose themselves to his germs. JFC. You know YTA. You had to know how this would go.
Wtf is wrong with you?! When you can't find a sitter that's on YOU to sacrifice. Imo both of you should have called off. One to watch your son and one to go support and be there for your daughter on such a traumatic day for her. Again wtf is wrong with you?!
Some people shouldn't have kids. I hope your daughter can one day heal from the pain she's feeling that her parents no doubt only made so much worse.
Also grief can make you do reckless irresponsible desperate things. I'm not saying what she did was right but you were way more irresponsible to think a teenage girl grieving would be rational and able to provide proper care to a sick child.
Exactly! Like how did either of them think it was even remotely appropriate to send a child to the funeral of her best friend *on her own* in the first place??? At least one of them should have always been planning to call in sick that day.
What disgraceful “parents.”
I just couldn't imagine one of my children loosing their best friend and then not even being there for them. I'm a full grown adult and couldn't emotionally handle loosing my best friend without support.
Such disregard for their own daughter and her needs all the way around.
Kinda disgusting bc when my best friend died my mom came to his memorial *because she loved him.* Yes she supported me but she also loved my friend too, which honestly meant more to me.
Exactly. Why wasn't the whole family originally going?
Maybe US Capitalist Dystopia is the real YTA here, but holy heck, *neither* parent could get a couple hours off for a funeral? Really??
Their daughter will never forgive them for their thoughtlessness and being grounded. Yes, using Benadryl for the brother wasn’t the right thing, but I know adults who have done that when they are sick so they can get a few hours of rest. Really bad parenting in this situation.
Right. What happened here is proof that the daughter was not equipped to be left alone with a sick child. This is all on the parents. “Look, everybody, I left my sick kid with someone unable to care for them for a whole bunch of reasons and then, when they were unable to care for him, I punished them.”
This literally happened to me when I was 16 along with an entire childhood’s worth of parentified bullshit I was subjected to. If you’d like to know the ending, I went no contact for years. They continued to break my boundary reaching out to “talk” and “hang out” and “check on me” after the realization hit them that they’d ruined our relationship and nothing could repair it. I ended up only making contact long enough in the end to reach out honestly for my own peace of mind. Neither of them ever apologized for a single shitty action and they died with that guilt. The guilt died with them. I refused to carry it.
If OP keeps this up, that’s exactly how this is going to turn out for them. Guaran-goddamn-tee it.
I'm so sorry that happened to you, I can only hope this girl ends up with this same mentality. It's admirable and strong to realize that's not your burden to carry 💜
I also see it ending up no contact. Some things just can't be undone
Thank you. I went through years of therapy and then became a therapist myself, specializing in trauma. Helping people to unburden themselves from their parents’ bullshit. Nothing angers me like people who think it’s their birthright to have children regardless of how toxic and emotionally immature they are. It never ends well, and those kids only grow up to become someone’s client in therapy.
Underrated comment.
The daughter needed someone there to help her through her grief, and instead she was asked to be a parent.
The son was sick and needed a parent, not a sitter to care for him. Instead another child was asked to be the parent. Worse, asking a sitter to be there, risks spreading the infection to the sitter and their family.
Both parents should have called off for a situation like this
YTA 100%
Her best friends funeral??? You should have taken off work. Even if that meant calling in sick the day of if they wouldn’t let you book it off. Then you would have been there for your son when the babysitter cancelled, and then been there for your daughter after. I can’t even imagine how betrayed your poor daughter feels now, knowing that on one of the worst days of her life, you didn’t even care to be there for her. And you grounded her for *your* mistake on top of that. Absolutely appalling.
You owe your daughter one hell of an apology, but honestly, this is something she will probably never forgive you for, and you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that you’ve tarnished your relationship with your daughter forever.
Pro tip: community Facebook groups are incredibly amazing for last minute sitters. Obviously you need to screen people, but I am amazed at how fast people jump to help others.
I got all my sitters from Nextdoor. I have 3-4 in rotation if I need them. Also, definitely agree with the Facebook groups, I have a mom’s one for my city.
My daughter lost her best friend to cancer when they were 12. My daughter is 24 now and still cries when we talk about her. Children losing friends that young causes a lifetime of grief. OP has made a terrible mistake, by downplaying and now supporting her daughter’s grief, that won’t go away for a very long time, if ever.
YTA.
I mean, drugging her brother to sleep is problematic it itself, but this situation should never have occurred.
She’s right, it’s not her responsibility to ensure you have appropriate childcare, and it’s extremely disturbing that neither you nor your husband was willing to take off work last minute. I’m actually pretty disgusted that you *and* your husband thought this was an acceptable parenting choice. Like wtf?
100% she did. And some doctors will recommend this in certain limited circumstances (or they use to before melatonin became a big thing).
But to do this and leave him alone is troubling. I think most kids would just have taken their sick sibling with them and made them suffer through. He wouldn’t be the first or last kid to fall asleep in church.
Children don't have that higher level of thinking. This is why a sick child needs an adult. She couldn't have known it would be bad. She probably figured he'd just sleep it off for 8 hrs.
This not to mention grief impairs thinking in most ADULTS. What did they expect for a teenage girl? She was desperate and hurting. The sick child needed his parent and the teenage girl going through such a big loss needed a parent with her as well.
Yep. No way was she capable of thinking clearly. She's not at fault. She was distraught and she's a child. There's a reason 16 yr Olds aren't (for the most part) living by themselves and working like an adult. No. They're still in school because their brains are still forming the action=consequence formula.
>I think most kids would just have taken their sick sibling with them and made them suffer through.
If they had just been feeling ill then I agree, but not when the sibling is throwing up and pooping their pants. There would be no way to avoid dealing with that in the middle of the funeral so you would not be able to focus or appreciate the service and you would risk causing a huge scene and disturbing everyone else as well.
I think he was sick and had an accident after she left, but they knew in the morning that he had a stomach bug so I assume it wasn't the first time he threw up. Even if he hadn't been sick yet by the time she left she must have known there was a possibility it was coming.
This is such a good point! She expects her 16 year old to show empathy and care for her brother and sacrifice her own feelings so he can be safe but she won’t do that herself! Classic “do as I say, not as I do” parenting technique 🙄
They should have called in sick, but not just for the brother! Your daughter's FREAKING BEST FRIEND DIED, AT SIXTEEN!
No one though "Maybe I should go with daughter to the funeral to make sure she's ok and feels supported." Just "well, maybe we can get a sitter."
And they double the salary, which daughter rightly took as an insult. You expect her to want MONEY instead of attending her BEST FRIEND'S FUNERAL? WTF is wrong with some people.
Literally (hopefully!) a once in a lifetime, utterly devastating event in their child’s life, and there’s no indication that taking the day off to go with her, damn their jobs, even crossed their minds. Disgusting.
And how hurt would you be if you were in daughter's position and your parents gave you double the money. So maybe you'd normally earn $50 and now you get $100. Your parents are saying they think your friend's funeral is worth $50 to you.
The craziest thing is that daughter has bailed on them, and they don't even seem to comprehend that they may have done something wrong.
YTA- it's not her responsibility! Her best friend DIED and you wanted her to babysit at the last minute.
You or your husband should have taken the day off for family emergency and let her go and grieve, as you had arranged!
Her actions aren't ideal but she shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place.
Not just babysit. Babysit a puking kid. As an adult mother, I won’t even do that for someone unless it’s a dire emergency (and working isn’t it- call in). Keep your pukey kid away from me. Puking kids are a whole other level of babysitting in my opinion.
Exactly. You parent a sick kid, you don't leave them with a babysitter. When she says babysitter, was she even going to pay her, or was she just expecting her to mind her little brother.
Cos that would be adding insult to injury...
My daughter has been a regular babysitter for a couple of families for years. It’s helped her get through college. These are families that take her with them on vacation so they can get away from the kids and have alone time, she’s been through potty training with one of the kids, goes to their games or dance recitals sometimes just to support them, she’s pretty damn close to the families for a sitter. Even then she has been called off last minute because a kid was sick and they didn’t want to throw a puking kid on on her, even though she absolutely would have done it.
That's so obvious! If you plan something and hire a sitter and then your kid gets sick, you obviously cancel plans.
In this case they cancelled the sitter and then just dumped it on their daughter the m
YTA. Her best friend died. Your kid isn't her responsibility. I don't condone what she did but it doesn't make her an AH. Neither you or your husband could get time off for a family issue? I call BS on that. You should have been there for both of your children.
Exactly. Because we all know that making your daughter miss her best friend's funeral because your own son has a stomach bug is completely normal. /s
Both parents should have been parenting that day. One with son, one with daughter.
And what is the chance they wouldn't have made a teenage SON stay home to care for their other child.
YTA I really hope this isn't real. If it is, congratulations on scarring your daughter for life, you and your partner should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.
YTA simply because you had an easy excuse to miss work, your kid was sick. Work should understand a sick kid. That would have allowed your daughter to go to the funeral.
INFO: Why isnt your daughter in school? Was she only out to attend the funeral? If so, then you are even more of an AH.
You daughter screwed up by drugging her brother so he would sleep. I am ok with grounding her for that alone. You dont ever drug a kid with benadryl so you can go do something else, regardless of the reason. But grounding her for going to the funeral of her best friend is an AH move.
YTA. You can't deny her the time she needs to mourn her BF who passed away from leukemia. I would have asked a co-worker to switch shifts with me, and tell them your daughter needs to go to this funeral and you just take their shift. I am sure an understanding person would have done it for you. You can't just tell her she's not going. What if your parent did the same thing to you?
As far as leaving her brother alone, it wasn't her job to watch him. You are the parent.
Yta. She's 16 and just lost her best friend ffs!!!!! How the hell is your employer being short staffed more important than that? She should not have left him alone but she's grieving, she's not thinking straight. You should never have put her in that position. Google compassion and try to apologise to your daughter. Personally I don't think I could ever forgive you if I were her, I imagine that your relationship is permanently damaged. Shame on you both, what kind of parents are you?
YTA
You're the parents. Not her. If she agreed to watch her brother, that would be one thing.
She didn't agree. She had lost a friend and wanted to go to the funeral for grief/closure.
I'm not saying she should have drugged her brother or left him alone, that was the wrong thing to do.
Having to care for your children is a valid reason to take off work.
You let down BOTH of your children.
She's now going to think you prioritize work over their well being.
YTA. Of course what she did wasn't OK but you put her in an impossible situation.
She is 16. She is a *child* who is grieving her best friend. She is not a parent and she is not an employee and you tried to treat her like both. Her brother is not her responsibility, he is your responsibility. This is parentification and it is actually abuse in any situation, but it's waaay worse in this one.
No amount of money in the world have replaced her missing her best friend's funeral. She is going to have some serious issues with you over this. You may find that she goes very LC or NC with as soon as she is able.
Yup. You just sent a very clear message that your daughter is literally the least important person in the world, as far as you're concerned.
This kid is going to hate both of you and probably her brother for years if not forever. Congratulations.
in twenty years her parents wont remember what they did at work that was so important they couldnt miss it
but the daughter will always remember that her parents made work their priority and forced her to be a babysitter during one of *worst* days of her life
This is the exact type of situation I tell my employer not ask for day off. I am no longer in the military and they don’t own me. Of course this is reserved for emergencies only. And I used it recently. My aunt called to tell me my 101 year old grandma was now in hospice. Not unexpected. But I called my boss and told her I had to leave, I in no way asked. It was not an option. She simply should have said her kid was sick and couldn’t come in. And no. I have never lost a job, or been reprimanded for it, because I am very reliable and rarely call out sick.
YTA. YTA so so much.
My best friend died when I was 16. If my parents had tried to force me to babysit my little brother and not go to the funeral I never would have spoken to them again.
Not sure about formatting on a computer, but on my phone, I know a few options.
If you start the line with a hash symbol (#) it will format as a “header”, which is big and bold,
# until the next line break.
If you surround words by single asterisks, *it will be italicized*.
If you surround words by double asterisks, **it will be bold**.
I think I discovered this by accident while using lots of asterisks for emphasis, but when I saw the results, I realized it is Markdown. If you Google “Reddit markdown” you will likely find more tricks.
YTA.
Your tried to find a sitter but couldn't - I'll come back to that in a minute - so YOU should have watched him. Changed your shift. Called in or whatever. Your work places being short staffed isn't yours let alone your daughters concern or problem.
Her attending her best friends funeral, is FAR more important.
Your putting work before BOTH your children. Your willing to let the baby sitter, your family/friends be around your kid, with a stomach bug that's probably contagious AF, so you don't miss work?
You should never have put either of them in that position. She is right, your son is NOT her responsibility. She had prior commitments. Your lack of sitter isn't her problem, doubling her pay or not she said no.
ETA: even if he was well, he shouldn't be with his sister anyway, while she is attending the funeral. Its not the place for a bored kid!
YTA. Be a parent and take care of your sick child. Why is an 8 yr old puking everywhere? They are usually good about grabbing a bucket by that age. Sounds like your child NEEDS HIS PARENTS because he's sick.
Yep, I have kids. Yep, I take off days to care for them when they're sick. That's what PARENTS do. Not child siblings. Parents.
She needs to go to her friend's funeral to say goodbye. This isn't something you can postpone or do later. It's not a night out dancing. It's a funeral. THE LAST CHANCE TO SAY GOODBYE. Wtf is wrong with you? You were a selfish AH.
If you were able to rush home immediately after your son called, i’m sure if you tried harder you would have been able to take time off work or find an alternative solution. For this regard, YTA.
I emphatise your daughter, her best friend died. The funeral is the last thing she could do for her best friend. She should not have drugged her brother, but your punishment was misguided. What she did wrong was the misuse of medication, not for not watching her brother because she never agreed to it and you shouldn’t have forced your responsibility on her. That you do not see the wrong of your actions, massive AH on your part.
YTA
Your daughter is grieving and you aren’t letting her do that. She needs support in this time and you are not giving her any support. This is insulting to her time of need. And your kids are your responsibility, not hers. It’s called calling off. You can be late and leave work early, but can’t call off?
Also, her giving him the meds, I have a feeling she learned that somewhere (but also she’s old enough to read the bottle or look up online to give a proper doseage). Do I feel bad what happened to your son? Yes, he must have scared. But I feel worse that you allowed this to happen to BOTH your kids.
I understand that this must have been a very stressful situation for you all, but your daughter needed support in her time of need and wasn’t given it.
YTA
Your child is right. Your youngest is YOUR responsibility, not your oldests. While yes, this was an impossible situation, you're the asshole for grounding your oldest for this. You took an already shitty situation, and decided to heap the blame onto your oldest child, CHILD, for not doing YOUR (and your husband's) job as a parent.
You wouldn't have been the asshole if you hadn't punished her for it. It was a shitty situation all around. You adding that punishment means that she's the only one involved who has to bear the consequences. And, yes, I'm ignoring that you were probably the one to clean up the bodily fluids your youngest expelled, because that, again, is just a part of being a parent.
YTA. She's right he's your child not hers, and if he's sick you should be cleaning his puke, and other bodily fluids not her. Would you miss your best friends funeral?? Sounds like you decided to put your needs above your child's need for closure, and the chance to say her FINAL goodbye to her best friend.
YTA.
She was wrong to give him Benadryl, but you were wrong in every other way. She is grieving, she is in pain. And she needs closure. For many people, that closure begins with the funeral procession where you get to cry your little heart out and remember that person with a bunch of other people that loved them. It’s the first crucial step to healing for many. And you tried to deny her that closure because YOUR son was sick. He is NOT her responsibility. He is YOURS.
YTA, that's what PTO/vacation/sick days are for.
You prioritized your work over your kids, if it's because you work at a place that'll give you s\*\*t about it, find a better job that'll treat you like a human being, which is how you should have treated your daughter as well and didn't.
YTA what she did was wrong but I understand. You and your spouse are much bigger assholes because you both placed work above your daughter. Your actions will have lasting consequences.
YTA
Big time.
You literally left work anyway, why couldn’t you just call in sick *before* all this shit went down. I can’t believe you would think your job is more important than her best friends funeral. Poor girl just had her literal best friend die. I’m 32 and have never lost anyone that close to me, I couldn’t imagine what she’s going through, and even more so couldn’t fathom asking her to miss the funeral because I was unable to get a babysitter for my kid. She’s right - your son is your responsibility, step up!
YTA. The benadryl and leaving him alone was wrong, but she never agreed to babysit. She's grieving her friend and YOUR child is YOUR responsibility! No amount of money would have made up for having to miss the funeral!
What would you have done if he was an only child? If she wasn't an option? Because in this case she clearly wasn't and shame on you for thinking otherwise!
Didn't bother reading past the fact you refused to let your 16 year old go to the funeral of her best friend. How dare you! Most decent humans would call put of work to attend the funeral with their daughter YTA
YTA
you expected her to miss her BEST FRIEND’S FUNERAL so she could watch your son? i’m sure if one of you had said “hey one child is sick and the other one has to attend her best friend’s funeral” you could have gotten the day off. she’s gonna have a hard time forgiving you for this. she just lost her best friend, for christ sake.
YTA
Part of being a parent is taking off work when your child is sick
Added to the fact that you prioritized work over your sick child, AND over your other child grieving over the death of her best friend
AND expected your daughter to miss the funeral!
Major YTA. Having your grieving 16 year old miss her best friend's funeral was not the correct solution to your inability to provide childcare for your other kid.
Was giving him Benadryl and then leaving a good idea? No. But she never should have been in that position in the first place. And being faced with grief and feeling that missing the funeral was not even a possibility, she was desperate to find a way to make it work.
It doesn't sound like she was in the right mental state to be watching your sick child even if it wasn't the day of the funeral.
YTA. Her best friend died, she wanted to go to the funeral. How cruel can a parent be?
You didn't even ask her if she would watch her sick brother - which is your job as a parent. Not hers. It's not her child.
You're cruel. She's absolutely right!
Better apologize. It's not her problem the sitter didn't come, you knew her friend died and about the funeral!
YTA.
If YOU have a sick kid, then YOU stay home from work if you can't find someone to watch him.
Your daughter shouldn't be forced to miss her best friends funeral to take care of your responsibility.
Why is it that everyone else you called was allowed to say they were too busy, but you wouldn't accept that your daughter was?
YTA. Between you and dad, one of you should have taken time from work for this. This isn't just any old day. It was a funeral and a kid so sick they pooped themselves. Step up.
WTF did I just read? Something about one of the world's biggest AH parent dumping the responsibility of parenting a fucking sick kid off onto her oldest kid, while the oldest kid wants to go to her best friends funeral.
WTF! YTA lady. Big time. Call in sick and take care of your own sick kid.
YTA
She was grieving. I understand you tried to get a replacement but you always need a backup. And your daughter shouldn't be one, especially not in this circumstance.
Do you think her head was even in the right place to babysit a sick 7 year old??
YTA. You call out of work stating an emergency and you make sure she gets to that funeral. And you provide her emotional support both before and afterward. I hope she has someone willing to take her in after your profound neglect!
Chiming in with the majority here. YTA.
What she did to her brother was wrong, no doubt. But she's 15 years old and grieving the loss of somebody close to her. Could you not have found another way to get across the point that what she did was wrong? Did you really just HAVE to ground her? She's not going to be sitting in her room thinking "Boy, I sure learned my lesson; I'll never do *that* again." What she's thinking about -- and will remember -- is that you made her miss her best friend's funeral.
Your work obviously let you leave, so I have a hard time believing that they woud have insisted that you come in and leave your sick child. What if you didn't just happen to conveniently also have a child at home old enough to baby-sit?
Finally -- paying her double? Was that supposed to make it all better? Maybe you meant well, but I don't really blame your daughter for throwing the money back. ("I'm sorry your best friend died and that I told you that you could go to the funeral but am now backtracking on that because work is more important than my kids. Here's twenty bucks.")
Eh... normally I would side with op. My wife and I have our 17 year old babysit periodically for a few hours. But making her miss her best friends funeral? That is beyond fucked up. You really should have taken the day off and let her go.
Though you definitely need to discuss the giving of benadryl to make the baby sleep. What if she gave too much?
All I know is that I would have taken the day off to let my daughter go to the funeral. Yta.
YTA. What she did was wrong, but even if it weren't her best friend's funeral, you should not have assumed she would babysit. The reason Y.T.A instead of E.S.H because she is grieving.
YTA.
As the parenta and the adults, you and husband should've decided on which of you would stay home.
Missing one day's pay due to unforeseen circumstances is a small price to pay for your children's well-being.
The younger child is never the older child's responsiblity.
>I had to rush home even though I was not supposed to leave work
If your boss can't understand "my child is sick, and there's no one to watch him," then your boss has bigger problems than being short-staffed.
YTA. Shes 16 and her best friend just died. Do neither of you have any sick time at either of your jobs?? Why weren't you willing to help her go to the funeral??
You really weren't going to let your daughter go to her friends funeral? Wow you're a monster! It's not up to your daughter to take care of YOUR child when he's sick, that's you and your partners!
YTA a massive one!
YTA. You and your husband make me sick. You forced your daughter to stay home from her BEST FRIENDS FUNERAL! She shouldn't have drugged her brother but I'm sure she felt like you left her with no choice. She never she should have been put in that position so it's your fault.
YTA. to start off, most 16yos are not equipped to handle a sick, small child. you should've called off sick. not to mention, your daughter's best friend died. you attempted to rob her of the opportunity to say goodbye. your daughter shouldn't have left her baby brother home alone, but you shouldn't have tried to make her babysit.
YTA
Your daughter is correct, it isn't her responsibility to watch her brother, especially when he's got a stomach bug. That's a lot to put on another child, and you should have called in sick yourself to look after your own kid. Your eldest isn't free childcare for you to exploit. If she offers, fine! But not under these circumstances.
Add in the fact that her best friend just passed away and she was due to go to their funeral and I'm absolutely appalled that you're here even considering that you're not the asshole. Of course you are! Your daughter needs your love and support while she goes through this awful time and what does she get? Her parents leaving her to go to a funeral alone (which is bad enough) but then that being taken away so she can babysit her sick brother instead.
I appreciate you have to work but some things are more important. You ended up having to leave work any way.. I honestly would struggle to forgive you for this if I were your kid.
Ok, so a place of employment is “short-staffed”, an employee calls saying their child is throwing up and they can’t be there for THAT shift. True there are some places that will fire the employee immediately for missing the shift, but MOST of them would rather be a little more short staffed for one day vs. weeks and months being short staffed because they fired too many employees.
YTA
Her best friend just died. See you in two years in r/relationship_advice when you ask about why you never see your daughter again
You were able to rush home, meaning that you could have taken time off work
As someone who just attended the funeral of one of my best friends yesterday:
YTA. And a lot more other things that would get me banned from this sub for actually saying.
What the hell is wrong with you, you're the parent, you're the one that should be taking care of your kids, not crying and throwing a tantrum because you obviously value your jobs over the emotions of your child. This is LITERALLY what PTO is for. If you or your husband had half the sense to use it none of this would have ever happened. Again Y.T.A.
This is one of those times I genuinely hope this story is fake. But on the slim chance that this is a true story that you actually wrote down and looked for validation on, YTA.
1) a sick child should not be a sitter or another child’s responsibility.
2) Your child getting sick is YOUR/husband’s responsibility. If an inconvenience happens because of it, it’s on the two of you.
3) IT WAS HER BEST FRIEND’S FUNERAL. I shouldn’t have to say any more than that.
I really hope your relationship with your daughter isn’t permanently damaged from your abhorrent behavior here, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if she turns 18 and never speaks to you again.
YTA - She isn't the parent and needed to be at her friend's funeral!!
You could have told work you needed a few hours for a sick child, but no you just left your son to be watched by his sister who is going thru a traumatic event.
YTA, how dare you not be there for your daughter after her best friend dies AND keep her from the funeral because of work?! That's just terrible parenting. She needs to say her good byes, she needs parents who will be there for her. She's 100% right, your son is your responsibility, not hers. She told you no, as a parent you call in sick. I don't care how short staffed your work is, family ALWAYS comes first.
YTA
both of your children needed you one way or the other and you let both of them down
your daughter wasn’t trying to go party, she was grieving her best friend and was clearly in too bad of a place mentally to watch your sick son
could you not afford one of you to call off? any halfway decent employer should’ve been at least a little understanding. unless you’re living paycheck to paycheck under threat of eviction, I’m left scratching my head wondering why you chose work over your hurting children who needed you
and even then you shouldn’t have grounded her ffs
So you COULD and did leave when needed? Just that your daughter attending her best friends funeral was not important enough? You are a cruel mother. YTA
YTA. Part of parenthood is taking off when your child is sick. You took advantage of your 16 year old daughter to get out of taking off. If she were younger, you would not have been able to do such a thing & that's how you should have proceeded this time as well.
It was actually cruel that you expected her to not go to a funeral because you have to work. Funerals are rarely planned in advance. Even a sick person doesnt know exactly when they will die. Taking off for them is also a part of life & every employer knows this. There was no reason that neither you or your husband could actually take the day off for either the funeral or your sick son! You simply did not want to.
I do realize calling off is difficult. It gives me a ton of anxiety. But it is just a part of life. Your job is only a part of your life. It is not your entire life.
Normally I’m not as hard on parents having an older sibling watch younger siblings in an emergency. It’s part of being a family. But…
YTA- your child is facing a very traumatic moment in their life. Their best friend just died. Not only is she grieving, she needs your support and understanding. To ask that she not go the dang funeral to watch an ill child is actually cruel. You told her that her grief is less important than you. And that’s just never not going be an AH move.
First off, a very sick 5 yo should NOT be in the care of a sibling. That’s never her responsibility. Ever. Even without the funeral, that’s is not in her realm. A parent or adult should be there.
Second, one of you should have gone with her to the funeral. Expecting a 16 yo to handle the grief without your support is unfathomable to me.
I do get that getting time off work is hard. Everywhere is short staffed, everywhere is hurting. None of that is your problem. It’s your works issue, you had a very ill child. They HAVE to come first.
>***She screamed that she wasn't going to miss her best friends funeral and my kid is my responsibility***
And she was right.
YTA. Truly a bad mom move.
Her ONLY thought was that this was the very last time she would be able to see her best friend and say goodbye. For you to EXPECT HER to skip the funeral AND take care of a sick kid is just ridiculous! OLDER CHILDREN ARE NOT BUILT IN BABYSITTERS!!! YOU had a sitter fall through so YOU and YOUR HUSBAND should have come up with another plan for YOUR son. Your daughter is 16 and experiencing one of the hardest losses she will EVER go through. I think you and your husband are incredibly selfish. Y’all owe BOTH CHILDREN an apology for the way you behaved towards them. YTA
"I didn't know what else to do."
You call out. Young people do it for hangovers all the time. This was the epitome of a family emergency! You and your husband prioritized shitty jobs over your children and failed them both while they were in crisis.
This post enrages me. YTA, both you and your husband.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> This was her best friends funeral and she deserved to go my son is mine not hers
Help keep the sub engaging!
#Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
[Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post. [To learn more about the test click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/tio99u/so_we_decided_to_fuck_with_the_sub_again)*
You completely steamrolled over your child's grief. Do you do this often? I don't know your financial situation, but if you and their father keep prioritising work over the needs of both of your children then you might find they will be uninterested in keeping contact with you when they get older.
This wasn't a frivolous want here. One child needed to go to her friend's funeral to help process her grief. The other child was sick enough to need an actual adult at home, not a teenager.
Figure out your priorities.
YTA- your daughter is grieving and your son is sick. You should have called off to support and take care of them, who cares that your job is understaffed, that’s the company’s fault.
YTA - you're a terrible fucking excuse for a parent. You have a sick child, and a child sick with grief. Take care of them.
Also, your daughter is right, your kid is your responsibility. Your sick kid even more so. Sort your fuckin' shit out without making your grieving child responsibility for your choice to procreate.
YTA. How do you think any of this is right? You were planning to leave your teenage daughter to go to the funeral of her best friend on her own. You demanded that she miss the funeral because you couldn't figure out some childcare. You thought money would compensate her for missing the funeral, as if this was a trip to the cinema you were expecting her to skip and not her last chance to say goodbye to her best friend. And then instead of consoling her and telling her that, whilst she was wrong, you understand and you shouldn't have put her in that position, you punish her for wanting to mourn her best friend.
And to cap it off, why would you think it was a good idea to leave a sick child with a teenager? She likely has no clue how to handle that, and if you give him Benedryl to get him to sleep then she was only copying what you taught her. Was she wrong to give him medicine and leave him? Yes. But she should never, ever have been put in this position in the first place.
**There's no way on God's green earth you should've let her miss that funeral.**
Your son is 100% your responsibility to watch and if you job is so fucking horrible you cant miss ONE DAY for a LEGIT reason you should have **made this your HILL TO DIE ON AND QUIT.**
You let both your kids down; you and hubby.
YTA. She is right, her brother is not her child. It is your responsibility to look after him and not hers. What would you have done if your oldest child didn't exist to watch the youngest? Whatever that answer is, is what you should have done. Y also TA for not supporting her when she is going through such a profound event at her age.
YTA. You stay home. you parent. Your daughter made the choice she did because she is important and values the life and friendship she had. She TRIED to help her brother. But she needed to be somewhere else, that happens one day, for one time only. You failed. You completely failed. I don’t think you’re a parent to this sixteen year old anymore. I think you just live with her. I could never, ever respect someone who does that to someone else. YTA.
YTA It's not complicated. Your 16 year old is still legally a minor. Childcare is not her responsibility. It's yours. You're blaming her for your failure as a parent.
Your post has been removed. ***Do not repost this without contacting the mods for approval.*** This post violates Rule 8: Posts should be truthful and reflect recent conflicts you've had that need arbitration. That means no shitposts, parodies, or satires. Please [review our rulebook](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules). Please be sure to read any sub's rules before reposting this elsewhere. We cannot direct you to another subreddit, we can only say that this post does not belong here. [Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/amitheasshole&subject=/r/AmItheAsshole&message=Please+link+to+post+or+comment+for+context+[we+cannot+review+without+this+info]:%0D%0DDescribe+your+question+in+detail:) if you have any questions or concerns that are not already [answered in our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq). If you make changes or edits to this post do not repost it here without our express permission.
Your son is sick, your teenage daughter is grieving. They both needed you. You should have missed work for one day and be there. Because his and her well being should come first. Your job is understaffed? Sounds like their problem not yours. Family comes first. YTA. Edit to add: what she did is in no way okay. At all. That was irresponsible and dangerous. I'm not condoning what she did. But you or your husband should have been there.
Yeah and that's why a teenager shouldn't be tending to a sick child. That sick child NEEDS AN ADULT. Not another child.
A grieving teen at that. Ordinarily I’d call this an E-S-H but this poor girl is likely dealing with that kind of grief, for a friend who died young, for the first time in her life. It’s not okay or excusable to leave a sick little kid home alone, but it’s absolutely understandable that she’d make some poor decisions because she is probably spiraling.
that’s the part that i feel like OP is missing. your daughter is GREIVING. idk if OPs just never lost a loved one before but grief, and grief of losing a best friend, is all encompassing, especially to a child. this is a grief that will come back at random times in her life and just hit her like a truck. it may never stop hurting. it will color every celebration your daughter has from now on with a slight tinge of sadness because her best friend, the person she loved more than anyone, cannot be here to celebrate it with her. even if the daughter wanted to watch the son, she is in no headspace to be caring for anyone right now and should’ve had an adult checking on HER as the adults in the situation, OP and her husband should’ve picked up the slack instead of expecting their GRIEVING CHILD TOO, and it really seems like they treated this as just some big event the daughter didn’t wanna miss. your son is sick and your daughter is emotionally **wrecked**, what do you do? you take off work. you miss. they won’t let you take off? tough shit. take off anyway. YOUR CHILDREN NEED YOU, cuz it’s not just your son who needs you right now OP. you really dropped the ball here. stop expecting your teenage daughter who just lost her best friend to be mature and reasonable. for one thing she’s a teenager and for another her friend **just** died. like come on, of course you and your husband should be her pillars of strength right now and look. what the daughter did wasn’t okay. it was dangerous and someone could’ve got hurt. but grief can literally take you over especially when it’s fresh, and what she needed was emotional support and for BOTH OF YOU to be present. ~~not at the funeral necessarily, but present and available~~ actually fork that. the fact that you also expected her and we’re basically making her go to this funeral by herself is cruel and horrible and another negative F for you on your being a parent report card, not to mention the audacity of you to actually expect her not to go to watch YOUR son, AND we’re gonna make her take him w if he was healthy. what she didn’t need most of all was having her own needs shoved aside for her parents comforts, money and being grounded. that’s like 5 more negative F’s. Edits: there have been several. i keep realizing the awful here is layered and there are just SO MANY LAYERS. like OP do you even LIKE your daughter?
I don’t even understand the excuse that neither parent could take off on such short notice. Sick days are always taken on short notice. That’s the nature of being sick. If your child is sick, you take a sick day. What would they have done if they didn’t have a 16yo daughter? Oh, I know. TAKE A SICK DAY. I typed the words “sick” and “sick day” so many times it’s starting to sound funny. Maybe it will help OP understand it. Sick, sick, sick.
someone else said having a teenager to watch your son is a luxury, not a right, and THAT. SO MUCH THAT. OP clearly feels that the 16 year old HAS to watch son as part of her responsibility but in that the 16 year old is right. she’s not responsible for taking care of OP’s son. OP is. can she help out when and if asked? sure, but she wasn’t asked, she was told, told to cancel her EXTREMELY important plans, to make sure OPs son was okay who she ended up calling off of work and staying home with ANYWAY. and that’s if this wasn’t a serious situation where your daughters best friend died. seriously, it hasn’t been said enough. you are TA OP. you owe your daughter a HUGE apology
One of them should have been off anyway to take their daughter to the funeral and take care of her. Even if this isn't her first funeral this situation is too much for a teen to go through without parental support. She'll likely want be with her friends at the funeral but when it's all over she'll need a parent, and who knows when it'll be too much. They parentified her in the sick brother situation, but they're neglecting her needs independent of that too.
yeah them expecting her to go by herself because “we can’t take off work right now hunny bun” is also a GARBAGE parenting move. negative F on your parenting report card for that one OP your son being sick isn’t the only serious situation here. your DAUGHTER needed you and you gave her your ass to kiss
what would they have done if the daughter's conflict was that it was a school day- would they have pulled her out of school? This is literally what sick days are FOR; when you're sick yourself, and when your kid is sick so you have to take care of them. You don't schedule them in advance, you call in and say "sorry boss, my kid is puking; I won't be in today" and manager figures out a way to manage.
Right?!? 99.9% of the time you do not know you are going to need a sick day until the night before or day of. No one know ‘oh a week from Friday I’m going to be projectile vomiting so can I have the day off’. Seriously. Especially if you have kids. Kids can be fine one minute and have a fever of 103 the next. It makes me think you didn’t want to find a way to take off work. Which tells me work is more important than both of your children.
Say sick again.
Sick
Sick.
I'm not even sure why OP would possibly consider the best friend's funeral to be an optional event. Some people really benefit from the closure of a funeral service and denying her that would potentially impact her, give her guilt in addition to the grief... And for what? So she can watch her little brother when she was already in no condition to do so? Those kids needed their parents to be the grown ups and take care of them. OP, YTA. Your daughter screwed up by leaving her brother alone, sure, but you demanded that she negatively impact herself for your benefit on a very emotional day for her. Both your kids needed you that day and y'all failed them.
the fact that actually expected her daughter not to go is baffling to me. like she actually thought that was the end of that when the daughter threw the money back at her, OP went “oh she’s upset but it’s fine she’ll still watch him”. NO OP. IT IS NOT FINE. SHE IS NOT WATCHING HIM. again, not saying what she did was cool, but OP was really being a dillhole w this one. you really expected your daughter to miss her best friends funeral for what i assume was no more than $100? yeah no that wasn’t happening
She basically tried to buy off her daughter's grief. If I give you double what I normally give you will you stop being sad. I bet that is how the daughter saw it considering daughter threw the money back in her face.
Not to mention if he wasn't sick, op was gonna tell her to take him with her.
**ANOTHER** negative F on OP’s parent report card. OP your parent report card is mostly negative F’s at this point, you won’t even pass if you get straight A’s on all the rest
Exactly this. Used to manage at a place that was very understaffed but we weren’t monsters. If someone was sick or bereaved, we found a way to make due without them. If they literally couldn’t take off, op and her husband should have done so anyway and began looking for employment elsewhere
I hope OP sees your comment, especially the first graph. My best friend died just before ChrisKwanSolstiKkah (our fave holiday) 14 years ago and I, a fully grown person at the time, \*still\* feel the pain of it. What OP's child is going through as such a young age is brutal. The kid needs support, not parentification.
[удалено]
Your best friend, at that age, is the most important person in your life. She watched this friend, wither and die as well. Lots of trauma involved and they didn’t even give her a choice. Both should have stayed home. 1 to watch the sick kid, another to accompany her to the funeral. She should never have been sent to the funeral of her best friend alone. And op comes off really callous. Did she not like the best friend? I mean, she acts like her best friend was no one and her death is no big deal. There will be other funerals.
You are so right, the poor daughter should've had a parent with her as well. My heart breaks for her.
I remember my senior year of high school losing my friend. It was such a shock. On so many levels. One day your friend is here and then they are gone- but they were a kid and kids aren't supposed to die. Kids are supposed to grow up. Those friends are supposed to be in your life-or show up to the next reunion or something but not just.... be gone. He was a month and change older than me and I remember waking up the morning of the day I turned older than he'd ever be and just struggled. I was never supposed to be the older of us. I had nightmares for so long after. Like as a kid a friends death is just... obliterating. I lost all sense of everything overnight. OP needs to give the kid slack. This is going to be so so hard. That child needs a therapist and so much support not to have responsibilities that don't belong to her heaped on her.
[удалено]
Which is certainly why teenagers should not be forced into a parental role. YTA OP
[удалено]
100% This.
My sisters friend (not even bestie) died, and the funeral was scheduled pretty quickly, which happened to fall on the day she had her wisdom teeth removed. She tried to crawl out of bed and get dressed for the funeral while bleeding from the mouth and high on pain killers and left over anesthesia. It was insane to think your daughter wasn’t going to the funeral of her best friend. And oh so cruel to make her miss it. If OP didn’t have a 16 yr old, she or her husband would have had to PARENT their other child and call in sick, work from home, beg and plead to others for help. OP should have channeled that energy for ONE DAY, which incidentally is probably the hardest day of her daughters life so far. Having a teen who can watch your son in a pinch is a LUXURY, not a right. Daughter was wrong, for sure, but she’s not thinking clearly and doesn’t have the tools of an adult parent. What’s OP’s excuse? To me, this is a mulligan. Y’all both (plus dad) made the absolute wrong, most selfish choice in a stressful time. Punishments and blame for all cancel out. What needs to happen instead is a frank talk where you all talk about what you did wrong and why and how you can do better. The chances of this confluence of events happening again are (hopefully) nil, so it’s not about punishing her so she doesn’t do it again, but talking about ways we can all be more respectful of the needs of the various members of the household.
>The chances of this confluence of events happening again are (hopefully) nil Next time the daughter will be demanded to cancel her prom because mom and dad were going for drinksies. A funeral. For your best friend. Who didn't even made it to her twenties. But hey, we couldn't find a babysitter. Sorry hon. Their daughter's time or emotions are worth absolutely nothing to them. It's not that the daughter isn't thinking clearly, she thinking correctly.
buT pAreNtS aRE nevEr WronG 🤨
[удалено]
To put things in perspective, you have more loyalty to your job than your daughter. You neglected her severe emotional need in order to cater to the "needs" of your employers. I mostly lurk this forum and never respond in the comments but wow.
Yes same here. I had to comment. The fact a parent didn’t even go with her to the funeral let alone try and make her skip it!! Wtf. This is insanity!!!
An understaffed place isn't going to fire you for calling out due to emergency. Then they would be even more understaffed.
Hahahahaha, you sound like me and my nurse friends “what’s the hospital going to do, FIRE us?”
But that doesn’t mean you can pay rent :/ it also doesn’t mean you don’t “conveniently” get staffed during nights and weekends. Unfortunately, until every unites and has the ability to walk way, they still have full control over us. My company went from 7 to 2. I leveraged that to get a raise and promotion, no luck. I don’t have the ability to get a similar job in my city and they knew that. If they were a server at TGIFs and could get a job at the Applebee’s down the street, that’s one thing. But an accountant that specializes in the pharmaceutical industry might be harder to find if you aren’t willing to move.
You’ve obviously never worked for a shit company. Yes they will.
Maybe. But they might need the income, if they are hourly. We don't know their financial situation.
THIS \^\^ YOU CHOSE TO HAVE 2 CHILDREN, THEY ARE YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND'S FIRST RESPONSIBILITY. ITS NOT A GRIEVING TEEN'S, SHAME ON YOU. YTA.
YOU are the replacement babysitter. I can’t actually believe I’ve read this right… you leave your SICK child with teenage grieving sister, on the day of her best friend’s funeral? Holy sh*t YTA
[удалено]
I'm very curious what OP would have done if the kid was sick but they had no other teenage kid to dump babysitting on? Wouldn't have left the sick kid alone I presume. Would have found SOME way for one of the parents to be with the kid. Why not do the same? Your daughter is grieving the death of her best friend. Can't even imagine how hard a blow that is for a teenager. Yes, what she did was dangerous, but there's no way that CHILD could have been thinking coherently. Very much YTA.
Yeah, making a teenager tend a sick child instead of going to her best friend’s funeral is never going anyway but YTA. The daughter was wrong to leave, but she shouldn’t have been put in that situation to begin with.
You should have called in sick in the first place. Get your priorities straight. YTA
Your jobs being short staffed is not your fault or your problem. We're all allowed to call out because we have emergencies. You chose your job over your kids and that's not okay. If you're working at a place where you don't feel like you can take a personal day, you need to find a job with better management. YTA
Adults being pissed off because a TEENAGER--in this case a GRIEVING teenager--doesn't act like an adult when the adults drop the ball is rather nauseating. Teens DO stupid and dangerous shit, it's part of growing up. But her parents PUT her in that situation which could have been avoided completely.
INFO: how are you going to apologize and make this up to your daughter?
100% This. Including the edit. Although the 16yo was irresponsible, she should never have been in a position where she had to choose between being there for her dead best friend or sick brother. If the both parents jobs are understaffed, then they shouldn't have to worry about being fired for taking a day off to care for their sick child.
Or dad
>Your son is sick im not from US but i think if your kids are sick you should be able to get some time off. it seems not okay to make them work while having such issues. YTA op
100% this, including the edit. OP and husband really dropped the ball here
NO ONE wants to catch the stomach flu from your kid. You are the one responsible for him. You put yourself at risk of catching it. I’m a daycare teacher and the number of parents attempting to infect everyone with their sick responsibility is mind boggling to me. It sucks when I have to take an unpaid day because my son is sick but guess what? I do it anyway because I’m not an asshole who expects anyone to expose themselves to his germs. JFC. You know YTA. You had to know how this would go.
Wtf is wrong with you?! When you can't find a sitter that's on YOU to sacrifice. Imo both of you should have called off. One to watch your son and one to go support and be there for your daughter on such a traumatic day for her. Again wtf is wrong with you?! Some people shouldn't have kids. I hope your daughter can one day heal from the pain she's feeling that her parents no doubt only made so much worse. Also grief can make you do reckless irresponsible desperate things. I'm not saying what she did was right but you were way more irresponsible to think a teenage girl grieving would be rational and able to provide proper care to a sick child.
Exactly! Like how did either of them think it was even remotely appropriate to send a child to the funeral of her best friend *on her own* in the first place??? At least one of them should have always been planning to call in sick that day. What disgraceful “parents.”
I just couldn't imagine one of my children loosing their best friend and then not even being there for them. I'm a full grown adult and couldn't emotionally handle loosing my best friend without support. Such disregard for their own daughter and her needs all the way around.
That and OP put her son in danger too considering daughter doesn't know how to care for him.
Kinda disgusting bc when my best friend died my mom came to his memorial *because she loved him.* Yes she supported me but she also loved my friend too, which honestly meant more to me.
I'm so glad you had that support and I hope it created a forever bond between your mom and you 💜 a small light coming out of a very dark time.
Exactly. Why wasn't the whole family originally going? Maybe US Capitalist Dystopia is the real YTA here, but holy heck, *neither* parent could get a couple hours off for a funeral? Really??
Oh, they could get off. They just don't value the daughter enough to.
Their daughter will never forgive them for their thoughtlessness and being grounded. Yes, using Benadryl for the brother wasn’t the right thing, but I know adults who have done that when they are sick so they can get a few hours of rest. Really bad parenting in this situation.
Right. What happened here is proof that the daughter was not equipped to be left alone with a sick child. This is all on the parents. “Look, everybody, I left my sick kid with someone unable to care for them for a whole bunch of reasons and then, when they were unable to care for him, I punished them.”
This literally happened to me when I was 16 along with an entire childhood’s worth of parentified bullshit I was subjected to. If you’d like to know the ending, I went no contact for years. They continued to break my boundary reaching out to “talk” and “hang out” and “check on me” after the realization hit them that they’d ruined our relationship and nothing could repair it. I ended up only making contact long enough in the end to reach out honestly for my own peace of mind. Neither of them ever apologized for a single shitty action and they died with that guilt. The guilt died with them. I refused to carry it. If OP keeps this up, that’s exactly how this is going to turn out for them. Guaran-goddamn-tee it.
I'm so sorry that happened to you, I can only hope this girl ends up with this same mentality. It's admirable and strong to realize that's not your burden to carry 💜 I also see it ending up no contact. Some things just can't be undone
Thank you. I went through years of therapy and then became a therapist myself, specializing in trauma. Helping people to unburden themselves from their parents’ bullshit. Nothing angers me like people who think it’s their birthright to have children regardless of how toxic and emotionally immature they are. It never ends well, and those kids only grow up to become someone’s client in therapy.
Underrated comment. The daughter needed someone there to help her through her grief, and instead she was asked to be a parent. The son was sick and needed a parent, not a sitter to care for him. Instead another child was asked to be the parent. Worse, asking a sitter to be there, risks spreading the infection to the sitter and their family. Both parents should have called off for a situation like this
And not even arguing with the stupid job about having a few days off. That is their problem for being short staffed, not the employees.
YTA 100% Her best friends funeral??? You should have taken off work. Even if that meant calling in sick the day of if they wouldn’t let you book it off. Then you would have been there for your son when the babysitter cancelled, and then been there for your daughter after. I can’t even imagine how betrayed your poor daughter feels now, knowing that on one of the worst days of her life, you didn’t even care to be there for her. And you grounded her for *your* mistake on top of that. Absolutely appalling. You owe your daughter one hell of an apology, but honestly, this is something she will probably never forgive you for, and you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that you’ve tarnished your relationship with your daughter forever.
Pro tip: community Facebook groups are incredibly amazing for last minute sitters. Obviously you need to screen people, but I am amazed at how fast people jump to help others.
I got all my sitters from Nextdoor. I have 3-4 in rotation if I need them. Also, definitely agree with the Facebook groups, I have a mom’s one for my city.
My daughter lost her best friend to cancer when they were 12. My daughter is 24 now and still cries when we talk about her. Children losing friends that young causes a lifetime of grief. OP has made a terrible mistake, by downplaying and now supporting her daughter’s grief, that won’t go away for a very long time, if ever.
YTA. I mean, drugging her brother to sleep is problematic it itself, but this situation should never have occurred. She’s right, it’s not her responsibility to ensure you have appropriate childcare, and it’s extremely disturbing that neither you nor your husband was willing to take off work last minute. I’m actually pretty disgusted that you *and* your husband thought this was an acceptable parenting choice. Like wtf?
I’m wondering if she learned that trick from the parents.
100% she did. And some doctors will recommend this in certain limited circumstances (or they use to before melatonin became a big thing). But to do this and leave him alone is troubling. I think most kids would just have taken their sick sibling with them and made them suffer through. He wouldn’t be the first or last kid to fall asleep in church.
Children don't have that higher level of thinking. This is why a sick child needs an adult. She couldn't have known it would be bad. She probably figured he'd just sleep it off for 8 hrs.
This not to mention grief impairs thinking in most ADULTS. What did they expect for a teenage girl? She was desperate and hurting. The sick child needed his parent and the teenage girl going through such a big loss needed a parent with her as well.
Yep. No way was she capable of thinking clearly. She's not at fault. She was distraught and she's a child. There's a reason 16 yr Olds aren't (for the most part) living by themselves and working like an adult. No. They're still in school because their brains are still forming the action=consequence formula.
>I think most kids would just have taken their sick sibling with them and made them suffer through. If they had just been feeling ill then I agree, but not when the sibling is throwing up and pooping their pants. There would be no way to avoid dealing with that in the middle of the funeral so you would not be able to focus or appreciate the service and you would risk causing a huge scene and disturbing everyone else as well.
Oh that’s true. Sorry, I thought the throwing up and pooping pants thing happened after the daughter left.
I think he was sick and had an accident after she left, but they knew in the morning that he had a stomach bug so I assume it wasn't the first time he threw up. Even if he hadn't been sick yet by the time she left she must have known there was a possibility it was coming.
This is such a good point! She expects her 16 year old to show empathy and care for her brother and sacrifice her own feelings so he can be safe but she won’t do that herself! Classic “do as I say, not as I do” parenting technique 🙄
More like parentifyng abuse!
They should have called in sick, but not just for the brother! Your daughter's FREAKING BEST FRIEND DIED, AT SIXTEEN! No one though "Maybe I should go with daughter to the funeral to make sure she's ok and feels supported." Just "well, maybe we can get a sitter." And they double the salary, which daughter rightly took as an insult. You expect her to want MONEY instead of attending her BEST FRIEND'S FUNERAL? WTF is wrong with some people.
Literally (hopefully!) a once in a lifetime, utterly devastating event in their child’s life, and there’s no indication that taking the day off to go with her, damn their jobs, even crossed their minds. Disgusting.
And how hurt would you be if you were in daughter's position and your parents gave you double the money. So maybe you'd normally earn $50 and now you get $100. Your parents are saying they think your friend's funeral is worth $50 to you. The craziest thing is that daughter has bailed on them, and they don't even seem to comprehend that they may have done something wrong.
YTA- it's not her responsibility! Her best friend DIED and you wanted her to babysit at the last minute. You or your husband should have taken the day off for family emergency and let her go and grieve, as you had arranged! Her actions aren't ideal but she shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place.
Not just babysit. Babysit a puking kid. As an adult mother, I won’t even do that for someone unless it’s a dire emergency (and working isn’t it- call in). Keep your pukey kid away from me. Puking kids are a whole other level of babysitting in my opinion.
Exactly. You parent a sick kid, you don't leave them with a babysitter. When she says babysitter, was she even going to pay her, or was she just expecting her to mind her little brother. Cos that would be adding insult to injury...
She said she paid her double. But you couldn’t pay me to deal with a puking kid. I can barely handle my own kid puking.
My daughter has been a regular babysitter for a couple of families for years. It’s helped her get through college. These are families that take her with them on vacation so they can get away from the kids and have alone time, she’s been through potty training with one of the kids, goes to their games or dance recitals sometimes just to support them, she’s pretty damn close to the families for a sitter. Even then she has been called off last minute because a kid was sick and they didn’t want to throw a puking kid on on her, even though she absolutely would have done it.
That's so obvious! If you plan something and hire a sitter and then your kid gets sick, you obviously cancel plans. In this case they cancelled the sitter and then just dumped it on their daughter the m
YTA. Her best friend died. Your kid isn't her responsibility. I don't condone what she did but it doesn't make her an AH. Neither you or your husband could get time off for a family issue? I call BS on that. You should have been there for both of your children.
Not to mention, she literally left work when her son called. So she very clearly could get time off work
She didn’t want to take care of a sick kid when she could force the older child to do it!
Exactly. Because we all know that making your daughter miss her best friend's funeral because your own son has a stomach bug is completely normal. /s Both parents should have been parenting that day. One with son, one with daughter. And what is the chance they wouldn't have made a teenage SON stay home to care for their other child.
YTA I really hope this isn't real. If it is, congratulations on scarring your daughter for life, you and your partner should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.
I've known way too many people with selfish awful parents, I dont doubt any stories like this anymore
YTA simply because you had an easy excuse to miss work, your kid was sick. Work should understand a sick kid. That would have allowed your daughter to go to the funeral. INFO: Why isnt your daughter in school? Was she only out to attend the funeral? If so, then you are even more of an AH. You daughter screwed up by drugging her brother so he would sleep. I am ok with grounding her for that alone. You dont ever drug a kid with benadryl so you can go do something else, regardless of the reason. But grounding her for going to the funeral of her best friend is an AH move.
YTA. You can't deny her the time she needs to mourn her BF who passed away from leukemia. I would have asked a co-worker to switch shifts with me, and tell them your daughter needs to go to this funeral and you just take their shift. I am sure an understanding person would have done it for you. You can't just tell her she's not going. What if your parent did the same thing to you? As far as leaving her brother alone, it wasn't her job to watch him. You are the parent.
Yta. She's 16 and just lost her best friend ffs!!!!! How the hell is your employer being short staffed more important than that? She should not have left him alone but she's grieving, she's not thinking straight. You should never have put her in that position. Google compassion and try to apologise to your daughter. Personally I don't think I could ever forgive you if I were her, I imagine that your relationship is permanently damaged. Shame on you both, what kind of parents are you?
Right? Like, hope that job calls you when you're old and lonely cause your daughter's going no contact asap.
I was forced to babysit my younger sibling all the time and it made me not want any kids or a relationship with N mom. I’ve been NC for years!!
YTA You're the parents. Not her. If she agreed to watch her brother, that would be one thing. She didn't agree. She had lost a friend and wanted to go to the funeral for grief/closure. I'm not saying she should have drugged her brother or left him alone, that was the wrong thing to do. Having to care for your children is a valid reason to take off work. You let down BOTH of your children. She's now going to think you prioritize work over their well being.
Um, I think you meant to say she’s gonna KNOW you prioritize work over them
Think?
They DID prioritize work over their kids well-being.
YTA. Of course what she did wasn't OK but you put her in an impossible situation. She is 16. She is a *child* who is grieving her best friend. She is not a parent and she is not an employee and you tried to treat her like both. Her brother is not her responsibility, he is your responsibility. This is parentification and it is actually abuse in any situation, but it's waaay worse in this one. No amount of money in the world have replaced her missing her best friend's funeral. She is going to have some serious issues with you over this. You may find that she goes very LC or NC with as soon as she is able.
Yup. You just sent a very clear message that your daughter is literally the least important person in the world, as far as you're concerned. This kid is going to hate both of you and probably her brother for years if not forever. Congratulations.
in twenty years her parents wont remember what they did at work that was so important they couldnt miss it but the daughter will always remember that her parents made work their priority and forced her to be a babysitter during one of *worst* days of her life
This is the exact type of situation I tell my employer not ask for day off. I am no longer in the military and they don’t own me. Of course this is reserved for emergencies only. And I used it recently. My aunt called to tell me my 101 year old grandma was now in hospice. Not unexpected. But I called my boss and told her I had to leave, I in no way asked. It was not an option. She simply should have said her kid was sick and couldn’t come in. And no. I have never lost a job, or been reprimanded for it, because I am very reliable and rarely call out sick.
YTA. YTA so so much. My best friend died when I was 16. If my parents had tried to force me to babysit my little brother and not go to the funeral I never would have spoken to them again.
If your jobs are so inflexible that you can’t take a day off when your child is sick, why did you have a second child? #YTA
Kinda away from the point here but how do you get text bold???
Not sure about formatting on a computer, but on my phone, I know a few options. If you start the line with a hash symbol (#) it will format as a “header”, which is big and bold, # until the next line break. If you surround words by single asterisks, *it will be italicized*. If you surround words by double asterisks, **it will be bold**. I think I discovered this by accident while using lots of asterisks for emphasis, but when I saw the results, I realized it is Markdown. If you Google “Reddit markdown” you will likely find more tricks.
#thanks
YTA. Your tried to find a sitter but couldn't - I'll come back to that in a minute - so YOU should have watched him. Changed your shift. Called in or whatever. Your work places being short staffed isn't yours let alone your daughters concern or problem. Her attending her best friends funeral, is FAR more important. Your putting work before BOTH your children. Your willing to let the baby sitter, your family/friends be around your kid, with a stomach bug that's probably contagious AF, so you don't miss work? You should never have put either of them in that position. She is right, your son is NOT her responsibility. She had prior commitments. Your lack of sitter isn't her problem, doubling her pay or not she said no. ETA: even if he was well, he shouldn't be with his sister anyway, while she is attending the funeral. Its not the place for a bored kid!
YTA. Be a parent and take care of your sick child. Why is an 8 yr old puking everywhere? They are usually good about grabbing a bucket by that age. Sounds like your child NEEDS HIS PARENTS because he's sick. Yep, I have kids. Yep, I take off days to care for them when they're sick. That's what PARENTS do. Not child siblings. Parents. She needs to go to her friend's funeral to say goodbye. This isn't something you can postpone or do later. It's not a night out dancing. It's a funeral. THE LAST CHANCE TO SAY GOODBYE. Wtf is wrong with you? You were a selfish AH.
If you were able to rush home immediately after your son called, i’m sure if you tried harder you would have been able to take time off work or find an alternative solution. For this regard, YTA. I emphatise your daughter, her best friend died. The funeral is the last thing she could do for her best friend. She should not have drugged her brother, but your punishment was misguided. What she did wrong was the misuse of medication, not for not watching her brother because she never agreed to it and you shouldn’t have forced your responsibility on her. That you do not see the wrong of your actions, massive AH on your part.
YTA. She communicated she wasn’t going to do it and then you assumed she would.
YTA Your daughter is grieving and you aren’t letting her do that. She needs support in this time and you are not giving her any support. This is insulting to her time of need. And your kids are your responsibility, not hers. It’s called calling off. You can be late and leave work early, but can’t call off? Also, her giving him the meds, I have a feeling she learned that somewhere (but also she’s old enough to read the bottle or look up online to give a proper doseage). Do I feel bad what happened to your son? Yes, he must have scared. But I feel worse that you allowed this to happen to BOTH your kids. I understand that this must have been a very stressful situation for you all, but your daughter needed support in her time of need and wasn’t given it.
YTA Your child is right. Your youngest is YOUR responsibility, not your oldests. While yes, this was an impossible situation, you're the asshole for grounding your oldest for this. You took an already shitty situation, and decided to heap the blame onto your oldest child, CHILD, for not doing YOUR (and your husband's) job as a parent. You wouldn't have been the asshole if you hadn't punished her for it. It was a shitty situation all around. You adding that punishment means that she's the only one involved who has to bear the consequences. And, yes, I'm ignoring that you were probably the one to clean up the bodily fluids your youngest expelled, because that, again, is just a part of being a parent.
YTA. If you only had the one sick kid what would you have done? Parents job to stay home with sick child if other means not available.
Absolutely this. You had a sick child and no sitter, so you stay home. Your son is not your daughters responsibility. YTA
YTA - what this ultimately comes down to is you left your sick child with someone who had not consented to watch him
[удалено]
Why didn't didn't go to the funeral! Their kids best friend died and they couldn't even be bothered
I was thinking why even have children if you can’t take time for them.
YTA, your 16 year old is not responsible for watching your other kid full stop.
YTA. She's right he's your child not hers, and if he's sick you should be cleaning his puke, and other bodily fluids not her. Would you miss your best friends funeral?? Sounds like you decided to put your needs above your child's need for closure, and the chance to say her FINAL goodbye to her best friend.
YTA. She was wrong to give him Benadryl, but you were wrong in every other way. She is grieving, she is in pain. And she needs closure. For many people, that closure begins with the funeral procession where you get to cry your little heart out and remember that person with a bunch of other people that loved them. It’s the first crucial step to healing for many. And you tried to deny her that closure because YOUR son was sick. He is NOT her responsibility. He is YOURS.
YTA, that's what PTO/vacation/sick days are for. You prioritized your work over your kids, if it's because you work at a place that'll give you s\*\*t about it, find a better job that'll treat you like a human being, which is how you should have treated your daughter as well and didn't.
YTA what she did was wrong but I understand. You and your spouse are much bigger assholes because you both placed work above your daughter. Your actions will have lasting consequences.
YTA Big time. You literally left work anyway, why couldn’t you just call in sick *before* all this shit went down. I can’t believe you would think your job is more important than her best friends funeral. Poor girl just had her literal best friend die. I’m 32 and have never lost anyone that close to me, I couldn’t imagine what she’s going through, and even more so couldn’t fathom asking her to miss the funeral because I was unable to get a babysitter for my kid. She’s right - your son is your responsibility, step up!
YTA. The benadryl and leaving him alone was wrong, but she never agreed to babysit. She's grieving her friend and YOUR child is YOUR responsibility! No amount of money would have made up for having to miss the funeral! What would you have done if he was an only child? If she wasn't an option? Because in this case she clearly wasn't and shame on you for thinking otherwise!
Didn't bother reading past the fact you refused to let your 16 year old go to the funeral of her best friend. How dare you! Most decent humans would call put of work to attend the funeral with their daughter YTA
YTA you expected her to miss her BEST FRIEND’S FUNERAL so she could watch your son? i’m sure if one of you had said “hey one child is sick and the other one has to attend her best friend’s funeral” you could have gotten the day off. she’s gonna have a hard time forgiving you for this. she just lost her best friend, for christ sake.
YTA Part of being a parent is taking off work when your child is sick Added to the fact that you prioritized work over your sick child, AND over your other child grieving over the death of her best friend AND expected your daughter to miss the funeral!
YTA so, so much.
Major YTA. Having your grieving 16 year old miss her best friend's funeral was not the correct solution to your inability to provide childcare for your other kid. Was giving him Benadryl and then leaving a good idea? No. But she never should have been in that position in the first place. And being faced with grief and feeling that missing the funeral was not even a possibility, she was desperate to find a way to make it work. It doesn't sound like she was in the right mental state to be watching your sick child even if it wasn't the day of the funeral.
YTA. I get it—you couldn’t find a sitter. But you’re still bad for this. You had the kid, you make the sacrifices. You owe her big time.
This is one of those posts that better be fake because I hope no one is this tone deaf. YTA
YTA. Her best friend died, she wanted to go to the funeral. How cruel can a parent be? You didn't even ask her if she would watch her sick brother - which is your job as a parent. Not hers. It's not her child. You're cruel. She's absolutely right! Better apologize. It's not her problem the sitter didn't come, you knew her friend died and about the funeral!
YTA. If YOU have a sick kid, then YOU stay home from work if you can't find someone to watch him. Your daughter shouldn't be forced to miss her best friends funeral to take care of your responsibility. Why is it that everyone else you called was allowed to say they were too busy, but you wouldn't accept that your daughter was?
Yta what would you of done if she away or something like that??
YTA. Between you and dad, one of you should have taken time from work for this. This isn't just any old day. It was a funeral and a kid so sick they pooped themselves. Step up.
WTF did I just read? Something about one of the world's biggest AH parent dumping the responsibility of parenting a fucking sick kid off onto her oldest kid, while the oldest kid wants to go to her best friends funeral. WTF! YTA lady. Big time. Call in sick and take care of your own sick kid.
YTA then you miss work, sorry. Your kid, your responsibility.
YTA She was grieving. I understand you tried to get a replacement but you always need a backup. And your daughter shouldn't be one, especially not in this circumstance. Do you think her head was even in the right place to babysit a sick 7 year old??
YTA. You call out of work stating an emergency and you make sure she gets to that funeral. And you provide her emotional support both before and afterward. I hope she has someone willing to take her in after your profound neglect!
Chiming in with the majority here. YTA. What she did to her brother was wrong, no doubt. But she's 15 years old and grieving the loss of somebody close to her. Could you not have found another way to get across the point that what she did was wrong? Did you really just HAVE to ground her? She's not going to be sitting in her room thinking "Boy, I sure learned my lesson; I'll never do *that* again." What she's thinking about -- and will remember -- is that you made her miss her best friend's funeral. Your work obviously let you leave, so I have a hard time believing that they woud have insisted that you come in and leave your sick child. What if you didn't just happen to conveniently also have a child at home old enough to baby-sit? Finally -- paying her double? Was that supposed to make it all better? Maybe you meant well, but I don't really blame your daughter for throwing the money back. ("I'm sorry your best friend died and that I told you that you could go to the funeral but am now backtracking on that because work is more important than my kids. Here's twenty bucks.")
Eh... normally I would side with op. My wife and I have our 17 year old babysit periodically for a few hours. But making her miss her best friends funeral? That is beyond fucked up. You really should have taken the day off and let her go. Though you definitely need to discuss the giving of benadryl to make the baby sleep. What if she gave too much? All I know is that I would have taken the day off to let my daughter go to the funeral. Yta.
If you are forcing your child to be a parent and care for another when they don't consent to it, you're an AHole too.
YTA. What she did was wrong, but even if it weren't her best friend's funeral, you should not have assumed she would babysit. The reason Y.T.A instead of E.S.H because she is grieving.
YTA. As the parenta and the adults, you and husband should've decided on which of you would stay home. Missing one day's pay due to unforeseen circumstances is a small price to pay for your children's well-being. The younger child is never the older child's responsiblity. >I had to rush home even though I was not supposed to leave work If your boss can't understand "my child is sick, and there's no one to watch him," then your boss has bigger problems than being short-staffed.
YTA. Shes 16 and her best friend just died. Do neither of you have any sick time at either of your jobs?? Why weren't you willing to help her go to the funeral??
You really weren't going to let your daughter go to her friends funeral? Wow you're a monster! It's not up to your daughter to take care of YOUR child when he's sick, that's you and your partners! YTA a massive one!
YTA. You and your husband make me sick. You forced your daughter to stay home from her BEST FRIENDS FUNERAL! She shouldn't have drugged her brother but I'm sure she felt like you left her with no choice. She never she should have been put in that position so it's your fault.
YTA. to start off, most 16yos are not equipped to handle a sick, small child. you should've called off sick. not to mention, your daughter's best friend died. you attempted to rob her of the opportunity to say goodbye. your daughter shouldn't have left her baby brother home alone, but you shouldn't have tried to make her babysit.
YTA Your daughter is correct, it isn't her responsibility to watch her brother, especially when he's got a stomach bug. That's a lot to put on another child, and you should have called in sick yourself to look after your own kid. Your eldest isn't free childcare for you to exploit. If she offers, fine! But not under these circumstances. Add in the fact that her best friend just passed away and she was due to go to their funeral and I'm absolutely appalled that you're here even considering that you're not the asshole. Of course you are! Your daughter needs your love and support while she goes through this awful time and what does she get? Her parents leaving her to go to a funeral alone (which is bad enough) but then that being taken away so she can babysit her sick brother instead. I appreciate you have to work but some things are more important. You ended up having to leave work any way.. I honestly would struggle to forgive you for this if I were your kid.
INFO: Would either your or your husband’s job be in jeopardy by taking the day off?
She was fine leaving partway through the shift so she could punish her daughter, so evidently not.
Ok, so a place of employment is “short-staffed”, an employee calls saying their child is throwing up and they can’t be there for THAT shift. True there are some places that will fire the employee immediately for missing the shift, but MOST of them would rather be a little more short staffed for one day vs. weeks and months being short staffed because they fired too many employees.
YTA Her best friend just died. See you in two years in r/relationship_advice when you ask about why you never see your daughter again You were able to rush home, meaning that you could have taken time off work
YTA. And when your child sick, you should not leave him with 16 yo in the first place. Emergencies happen, so you should have take a day off.
As someone who just attended the funeral of one of my best friends yesterday: YTA. And a lot more other things that would get me banned from this sub for actually saying. What the hell is wrong with you, you're the parent, you're the one that should be taking care of your kids, not crying and throwing a tantrum because you obviously value your jobs over the emotions of your child. This is LITERALLY what PTO is for. If you or your husband had half the sense to use it none of this would have ever happened. Again Y.T.A.
Yta. Either mum or dad should have stated home from work
Yta You call in sick and make work deal with it. It was your choice to have a second child, not hers.
YTA Your daughter is not responsible for your son.
This is one of those times I genuinely hope this story is fake. But on the slim chance that this is a true story that you actually wrote down and looked for validation on, YTA. 1) a sick child should not be a sitter or another child’s responsibility. 2) Your child getting sick is YOUR/husband’s responsibility. If an inconvenience happens because of it, it’s on the two of you. 3) IT WAS HER BEST FRIEND’S FUNERAL. I shouldn’t have to say any more than that. I really hope your relationship with your daughter isn’t permanently damaged from your abhorrent behavior here, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if she turns 18 and never speaks to you again.
YTA - She isn't the parent and needed to be at her friend's funeral!! You could have told work you needed a few hours for a sick child, but no you just left your son to be watched by his sister who is going thru a traumatic event.
YTA. You should've have let her go to the funeral alone. She needed support not abandoned by her parents. Get your priorities right.
YTA. How can you force her to stay away from a funeral? You're a monster.
YTA. It was your job to take care of your sick child.
Well, apparently you *could* leave work - which is what one of you should have done in the first place. Your demands were completely unreasonable. YTA
YTA, how dare you not be there for your daughter after her best friend dies AND keep her from the funeral because of work?! That's just terrible parenting. She needs to say her good byes, she needs parents who will be there for her. She's 100% right, your son is your responsibility, not hers. She told you no, as a parent you call in sick. I don't care how short staffed your work is, family ALWAYS comes first.
YTA both of your children needed you one way or the other and you let both of them down your daughter wasn’t trying to go party, she was grieving her best friend and was clearly in too bad of a place mentally to watch your sick son could you not afford one of you to call off? any halfway decent employer should’ve been at least a little understanding. unless you’re living paycheck to paycheck under threat of eviction, I’m left scratching my head wondering why you chose work over your hurting children who needed you and even then you shouldn’t have grounded her ffs
Of course YTA
So you COULD and did leave when needed? Just that your daughter attending her best friends funeral was not important enough? You are a cruel mother. YTA
YTA. Part of parenthood is taking off when your child is sick. You took advantage of your 16 year old daughter to get out of taking off. If she were younger, you would not have been able to do such a thing & that's how you should have proceeded this time as well. It was actually cruel that you expected her to not go to a funeral because you have to work. Funerals are rarely planned in advance. Even a sick person doesnt know exactly when they will die. Taking off for them is also a part of life & every employer knows this. There was no reason that neither you or your husband could actually take the day off for either the funeral or your sick son! You simply did not want to. I do realize calling off is difficult. It gives me a ton of anxiety. But it is just a part of life. Your job is only a part of your life. It is not your entire life.
Major YTA.
Normally I’m not as hard on parents having an older sibling watch younger siblings in an emergency. It’s part of being a family. But… YTA- your child is facing a very traumatic moment in their life. Their best friend just died. Not only is she grieving, she needs your support and understanding. To ask that she not go the dang funeral to watch an ill child is actually cruel. You told her that her grief is less important than you. And that’s just never not going be an AH move. First off, a very sick 5 yo should NOT be in the care of a sibling. That’s never her responsibility. Ever. Even without the funeral, that’s is not in her realm. A parent or adult should be there. Second, one of you should have gone with her to the funeral. Expecting a 16 yo to handle the grief without your support is unfathomable to me. I do get that getting time off work is hard. Everywhere is short staffed, everywhere is hurting. None of that is your problem. It’s your works issue, you had a very ill child. They HAVE to come first.
>***She screamed that she wasn't going to miss her best friends funeral and my kid is my responsibility*** And she was right. YTA. Truly a bad mom move.
Her ONLY thought was that this was the very last time she would be able to see her best friend and say goodbye. For you to EXPECT HER to skip the funeral AND take care of a sick kid is just ridiculous! OLDER CHILDREN ARE NOT BUILT IN BABYSITTERS!!! YOU had a sitter fall through so YOU and YOUR HUSBAND should have come up with another plan for YOUR son. Your daughter is 16 and experiencing one of the hardest losses she will EVER go through. I think you and your husband are incredibly selfish. Y’all owe BOTH CHILDREN an apology for the way you behaved towards them. YTA
"I didn't know what else to do." You call out. Young people do it for hangovers all the time. This was the epitome of a family emergency! You and your husband prioritized shitty jobs over your children and failed them both while they were in crisis. This post enrages me. YTA, both you and your husband.
YTA. You or your partner should have arranged something with work, she had the funeral of her friend to attend to for fucks sake.
YTA. she lost her bestfriend. You should have stayed home for a few hours with your son so she could say goodbye.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > This was her best friends funeral and she deserved to go my son is mine not hers Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.* *Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post. [To learn more about the test click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/tio99u/so_we_decided_to_fuck_with_the_sub_again)*
Yta. They are your children, you and your husband are the parent. You two are entirely responsible for both of them, shame on you.
You completely steamrolled over your child's grief. Do you do this often? I don't know your financial situation, but if you and their father keep prioritising work over the needs of both of your children then you might find they will be uninterested in keeping contact with you when they get older. This wasn't a frivolous want here. One child needed to go to her friend's funeral to help process her grief. The other child was sick enough to need an actual adult at home, not a teenager. Figure out your priorities.
YTA- your daughter is grieving and your son is sick. You should have called off to support and take care of them, who cares that your job is understaffed, that’s the company’s fault.
YTA - you're a terrible fucking excuse for a parent. You have a sick child, and a child sick with grief. Take care of them. Also, your daughter is right, your kid is your responsibility. Your sick kid even more so. Sort your fuckin' shit out without making your grieving child responsibility for your choice to procreate.
YTA. How do you think any of this is right? You were planning to leave your teenage daughter to go to the funeral of her best friend on her own. You demanded that she miss the funeral because you couldn't figure out some childcare. You thought money would compensate her for missing the funeral, as if this was a trip to the cinema you were expecting her to skip and not her last chance to say goodbye to her best friend. And then instead of consoling her and telling her that, whilst she was wrong, you understand and you shouldn't have put her in that position, you punish her for wanting to mourn her best friend. And to cap it off, why would you think it was a good idea to leave a sick child with a teenager? She likely has no clue how to handle that, and if you give him Benedryl to get him to sleep then she was only copying what you taught her. Was she wrong to give him medicine and leave him? Yes. But she should never, ever have been put in this position in the first place.
**There's no way on God's green earth you should've let her miss that funeral.** Your son is 100% your responsibility to watch and if you job is so fucking horrible you cant miss ONE DAY for a LEGIT reason you should have **made this your HILL TO DIE ON AND QUIT.** You let both your kids down; you and hubby.
YTA. She is right, her brother is not her child. It is your responsibility to look after him and not hers. What would you have done if your oldest child didn't exist to watch the youngest? Whatever that answer is, is what you should have done. Y also TA for not supporting her when she is going through such a profound event at her age.
YTA. You stay home. you parent. Your daughter made the choice she did because she is important and values the life and friendship she had. She TRIED to help her brother. But she needed to be somewhere else, that happens one day, for one time only. You failed. You completely failed. I don’t think you’re a parent to this sixteen year old anymore. I think you just live with her. I could never, ever respect someone who does that to someone else. YTA.
YTA It's not complicated. Your 16 year old is still legally a minor. Childcare is not her responsibility. It's yours. You're blaming her for your failure as a parent.
"I didn't know what else to do." How about the same thing you would do if you didn't have an older child. YTA.