I need to add a little bit of context: My mom (51) was diagnosed with breast cancer back in December. My sister’s father has been economically responsible for her surgery / medications and recently, chemotherapy. Which has in turn made me responsible for my mom. I have been to her doctor’s appointments, stayed the night of her surgery and have been helping everywhere I can with things such as paperwork for her insurance, wig shopping, and overall accompanying. I have a 12yo sister and have been supportive with everything that relates to her (such as school meetings, doctor appointments and keeping her company most of the time). I feel blessed because I have a really great boyfriend. He has been with me through this whole process. He has kept me sane and helps my mom wherever he can such as taking her out for dinner making grocery shopping with me taking care of my sister, paying for her things / meals.

My boyfriend has been super depressed for the past couple of months so he decided he was going to take a five day trip to Miami with his parents because he needed the beach - something that I obviously encouraged because I know he has his own personal struggles aside from my mom‘s diagnosis.

He has two senior dogs which have to be fed seven in the morning at 6 o’clock at night - I offered my help and made sure to tell my mom prior to her starting her chemo treatment that I was gonna stay at my boyfriend’s house and take care of their dogs. So I have been going back-and-forth between my house and my boyfriend‘s house to make sure I feed the dogs. I sleep over at his house, feed the dogs as soon as I wake up, return to my house (stay and care for whatever my mom needs) up until 6 - I then return to his house and start all over.

Thanks to God my grandma helped me out a little bit these few nights. My mom’s first chemo treatment was on Wednesday so she stayed over up until today. My mom has been feeling incredibly sick (she doesn’t drink water and has been dehydrated) so chemo sucked a little bit more - which none of us were prepared for. It’s been ongoing for over 4 days.

Yesterday I made sure to buy her electrolytes as well as some headache medicine. I stayed over up until six and then came back again in the morning to do the grocery shopping with my sister. Today, my sister started feeling sick and took her for a quick COVID test - made my mom and my sister lunch.

We (grandma and me) were just discussing what was going to happen later today, because my grandma has to return to her house and I have to manage feeding the dogs and returning tomorrow morning. To which my mom very angrily responded that I was being extraordinarily inconsiderate and irresponsible for taking up the responsibility of helping out with my boyfriend’s dogs, knowing that my mom was starting her chemo treatment.

This take really pisses me off because both myself and my boyfriend have been managing our personal lives in a very different way to accommodate my mom’s diagnosis. Everything has been revolving around her. So it just seems a little bit unfair to be judged for “taking on” helping my boyfriend 5 days.

I think what ends up pissing me off, is that a lot of times throughout my life I have been either sick or feeling not great - My mom hasn’t been very accommodating towards me. For example there was one time where I got my nose bridge filed (I am an addict so they didn’t give me sedatives or pain killers, so I felt everything) at night, I asked my mom to get me some water (since she uses filters and I don’t) to which my mom responded that I could go ahead and pick up the water for myself - both me and my boyfriend ended up getting the water bottles, despite me feeling like sh*t at 2 am.

So obviously, when my mom told me that I was being irresponsible and inconsiderate, I exploded and told her that I was not a paid nurse that this wasn’t my job and that this wasn’t my responsibility to take. That I had been helping her for over six months - and my boyfriend has too. Something which is obviously seen as a “duty” for her - not something to be thankful for.

She told me to leave, to go “feed the dogs” and that she was gonna ask the father of my sister for a nurse since I was acting like this.

So, AITAH?

I feel like being your parents primary caregiver at 28 isn’t easy - specially when you receive the short end of the stick every single time for something that isn’t your responsibility in the first place. Nothing is ever good enough.