My sister (19) and I (17) recently moved to a small town. Well, the job market is over-saturated, and no one is hiring. (We live with our mom so we had no choice on the area). Turns out there is a need for childcare and we both have previous experience from working in daycares, so we posted an ad online for babysitting. This idea was completely hers as I plan on moving out soon. (Which I have told her about and she is fine with my help being temporary). She asked me, if she babysat would I help? I agreed. A family reached out to us and we have been babysitting for a little over a month. We split the earnings (which is almost nothing) each week, but I’m paying for everything. I pay for snacks and meals for the kid and any craft supplies. I’m making the meals, changing 60% of the diapers, and planning ALL activities and it’s not what I signed up for. I have to remind her to change diapers or to do any task at all. It feels like I’m babysitting 2 kids because she’s no help. The only time she does things is if I ask her to. If I don’t remind her to do things they don’t get done, and I’m so tired of it.

My sisters birthday is coming up and her boyfriend plans to come and visit from out of state. He rented an Airbnb for them to stay a whole week at. My sister asked me if I could babysit alone and I agreed. Another family with 2 kids reached out asking us to babysit. I told her if we get more kids to watch that I wouldn’t be too comfortable by myself though, so she’d have to help. Well, I overheard her talking to her bf how I was being greedy by asking her to find more families that need childcare (FB posts, flyers, reaching out through childcare groups) since we aren’t making hardly anything…and she said since I told her more kids means I won’t babysit alone, she’s not looking for more kids on purpose. She said I was selfish for not wanting to watch 3 kids ages 3, 6, & 9 by myself. I never said that she couldn’t see her bf, just that I would need help during the day. Her birthday is a month away…so not having that extra income really just hurts both of us.

Today I applied to another job and I have an interview tomorrow. So if I get the job I won’t be babysitting anymore. I told her this and it made her upset because that means she will have to watch the kid alone. We only have one kid right now that comes 1-2 days a week…it’s up to my sister if she wants to watch the other 2 kids as it was never a for sure plan. It also means that she won’t be able to stay at her boyfriend’s Airbnb.

I feel a little bad about it, but this was all her idea and I feel like she wasn’t being respectful or responsible. I feel taken advantage of because we are splitting our earnings 50/50 yet I’m doing all the work. She also told her bf that she would’ve had NO PROBLEM watching the 3 kids by herself and that I just was jealous of her. So I was petty and took her up on that. She thinks she can do it alone, fine. She’s going to have to now.