Was This Couple Wrong For Wanting To Trade Vacation Money For Babysitting Hours?

Vacations are awesome, especially when you can take them with family you love. They’re also expensive, and these days, more and more people find themselves more than a little bit strapped.

OP’s family is scheduling a resort vacation that’s going to work out to around $2k per person, and though most of the family can afford it (if barely), his younger sister called asking for the money to cover her portion.

My (32m) family is planning a vacation for this summer. Both my parents, my older brother and my SIL, my younger sister Camila (22f) and my husband, my 2 kids (10f and 8m) and I are all planing to go.

We are planning to stay in a resort for 2 weeks. This will obviously be a bit expensive (at least 2k USD per person and that is an enormous amount of money in my currency). Camila is in her last semester of university and will start a full time job on August. Right now she’s not working and lives with my parents (not passing judgment on her for being unemployed because my brother and I went through the same at her age).

Camila called me last week to ask if we could pay for her ticket and accomodation (my parents would pay for food and activities).

OP and his husband discussed it and agreed they could pay her way IF she would be willing to do some (very minimal) babysitting for them over the next couple of months.

Basically, they could not afford the extra $2k if they still had to pay for a babysitter.

My husband and I can comfortably afford our family, but adding Camila would put financial pressure on us. I told her that I would discuss it with my husband and then I would call her.

So my husband and I agreed that we would be willing to pay for her if she would babysit our children on certain occasions. Of course, not every day and without notice, but at least twice a week for two hours for two months. She would basically be the replacement for our current babysitter.

Anyway, I texted her basically saying what I just wrote, and she replied “Absolutely not.” So I called her to ask why she was so against this arrangement, which I think benefits both of us: she gets to go on vacation and we have a babysitter we trust and don’t spend more than our monthly budget.

His sister claimed she wouldn’t have time because she’s busy with school and needs to study, but OP countered with the fact that his children are older and no trouble; she could easily study while watching them.

She refused and tried to say they were taking advantage of her.

Camila said that we were manipulating her into doing unpaid labor to us and forcing her to say yes because neither our brother or parents could afford to pay for her.

She also said that she’s way to busy with her last semester of uni and finals. I told her that she could do all of her school stuff in our house, my children are very well behaved and need very little supervision, but she still said that she wouldn’t do it.

So I then told her that I was very sorry but if she didn’t accept then we couldn’t pay for her to go on the vacation.

Their mother thinks her daughter has a point, but OP doesn’t think he’s asked for anything outrageous.

So now she’s incredibly mad at me.

But now my mom is also angry with me because she wants to have a family vacation and she knows my husband and I do have the money to pay for Camila, and “family helps family”, which I agree with, but I believe that help must be reciprocal and right now Camila is not reciprocating that help.

My brother and dad just want to settle this down, they are not taking sides.

What about Reddit? Let’s find out what they think below!

The top comment wonders why the sister thinks her labor is unpaid, since she is getting a free vacation out of the deal.

This person did the math, and it would definitely work out in the sister’s favor, all told.

This comment says they should send that math to their mother.

They say maybe the parents should offer to help with the babysitting.

While this person thinks that the sister is entitled and rude and no one should be going out of their way to help her.

I’m kind of appalled by the way their kind offer was met.

I think their mother needs to take another look at this situation.