Having a sibling is great (in most cases) - you have a lifetime friend, a person who you know will always be there for you, you have somebody with whom you grew up and shared your childhood joy. However, it’s not the same when you need to be a constant parent to them - it is not only extremely exhausting but every one of us also wants to experience our teenage years before becoming a parent.
This 17 Y.O. Reddit user found himself in a similar situation. He lives with 3 siblings, pays half rent, buys groceries and basically raises all of his siblings. However, despite all this, one day he got into a fight with his mom over his siblings’ bedtimes that caused quite a drama.
Sometimes siblings may act more like parents than actual parents do
Image credits: Kindel Media (not the actual photo)
Teen shares that he lives with 3 of his siblings and mom, but he pays half of the rent, buys groceries and raises the kids as mom is almost never home
Image credits: Ron Lach (not the actual photo)
One day, she got home a little bit earlier, so two siblings came to say hi, but the youngest one was already asleep, as it was past his bedtime
Image credits: Vika Glitter (not the actual photo)
This whole situation caused quite an argument with their mom saying that his bedtime is unreasonable, telling the teen to stop micromanaging as it's her kids and her rules
Image credits: throwawaythrow2929
Mom basically exploded saying teen is being a control-freak to which he shot back saying that she is never around and his siblings are more of his kids than hers
A couple days ago, one Reddit user posted his story asking for community members’ verdict on whether he was being a jerk for telling his mom that his little brothers are more his kids than hers and she shouldn’t have a say in raising them. The post caught quite a lot of folks’ attention and collected over 6.6K upvotes and 1.2K comments.
The original poster (OP) starts his story by sharing that he lives with his 3 younger brothers and mom, but pays rent, buys groceries and juggles having a job, going to school and raising his siblings, as mom is almost never home. One evening, OP’s mom came back home a little bit early and wanted to say hi to everyone, but the youngest one was already asleep.
OP emphasized that they have quite a clean routine together; however, mom scolded him, saying that it was too early for his brother to go to sleep. The disagreements about bedtimes caused quite a fight, with mom saying that it’s her kids, her house and her rules and he should stop being a control freak, and OP telling her that it’s also his house and his siblings are basically his kids as she’s never around.
The community members gave the author the ‘Not the A-hole’ badge in this situation and discussed that he is being parentified. “I’m so sorry you’ve been forced to be the parent here. My heart genuinely aches for you and you were absolutely right for pointing all that out to her when she tried to play the parent for once,” one user shared. “I've seen situations like this way too many times. Narcissistic mothers who think they do no wrong,” another added.
Image credits: Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare (not the actual photo)
Bored Panda got in touch with the OP of this story, Harlem, and he kindly agreed to share more comments regarding this whole situation.
“My post blew up more than I ever expected anything I write on here to, and the amount of support I got was pretty overwhelming,” OP shared. “I did get a fair bit of good advice - maybe I should look into food stamps again, going about applying for disability benefits, going after my father for child support, that sort of thing.”
However, he also noted that many people made his life out to be more tragic than he had ever really thought it was, which was surprising. “Not sure how much I agree with it, but it's something for me to think about.” Harlem also told us that at one point he was offered financial aid from one of the people who read his post, which made him all emotional.
“I don't feel that I'm in a place to accept that without feeling guilty for unnecessarily taking someone's money when we get by for the most part, but the fact that someone reached out was so surprising to me. Did not expect that at all, and I think it's so, so kind of them to offer something like that to a random kid on the internet.”
We also asked Harlem how he manages to balance his responsibilities between school, work and taking care of his siblings - “My days usually all go the same way. I get up around six, make breakfast, make sure the kids are all up, make sure everyone eats, and have everyone out of the house by 7:30. My first class starts a little before eight and ends a little before ten.”
“After, I drive to work [I used to bike but my neighbor who's kind of old and doesn't really do much lets me use her car if I bring groceries and stuff for her in exchange], do a shift from 10:00am to 3:55pm, then pick everyone up, assuming no one chose to stay after or bike home or something, and get home at a bit past 4pm,” he continued.
“I usually do my own homework/online school work then, or help the others with whatever they have going on for an hour-ish. We eat dinner around six and I have to make that, so that takes a little while. We usually finish that at seven, and then everyone has free time. The youngest goes to bed at 8, and after that, the other two get to stay up a while longer and I usually spend some more time studying. At ten, the rest of us go to bed, assuming I don't pull a night shift. Then, rinse and repeat. Not super interesting, but that's life, I guess.”
Image credits: Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare (not the actual photo)
Speaking about challenges that OP has faced while assuming such a significant caretaking role at a young age, he emphasized that trying to keep everyone and everything in line isn’t easy as with this many people, dynamics get complicated. “As I mentioned in some of my comments and previous posts, but not in this one, I have a twin brother. My youngest brother misses my twin, while my twin left because he couldn't handle living in a dysfunctional family. Things like that.”
He added that he had to learn to look, to go shopping and had to deal with people looking at him, judging, as it’s not a big town - “A lot of folks kind of know ‘oh yeah, that's Harlem, the boy with the stupid hair with the loser mom and the run-off dad and the mob of brothers, and didn't there used to be one more of them?’”
Finally, Harlem shared a few more things: He hopes to go to college and work in the medical field. Also, his dad left when mom was pregnant with his youngest brother. And he opened up on why he thinks his mom has a drinking problem - “She occasionally hugs me when she comes home and I'm still up, and she didn't just go to bed immediately. When she does this, she smells like alcohol. Beyond that, slurred speech, weird emotion-y ness, and crying, rambling about my bad dad to me, which is not very in character for her when she's all there."
So guys, what’s your take on this situation? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Redditors stood by the author of this story
