I
(f23) am a university graduate and live at home with my mother. She
owns the house with a mortgage that's been fully paid off. I pay her
rent (around half of the market rate for our area) and do most of the
housework. Me and my mother both work a lot, I work in healthcare and
work irregular shift patterns and my mum is self-employed and
occasionally has to travel for work.
My
brother (m31), his wife "Rose" (f31) and their daughter (f6) moved back
into our mum's house on Friday. They got a mortgage on a home but it
turned out to have a lot of maintenance issues, the biggest ones being
with their toilet and shower not functioning. Also their heating doesn't
work. It's estimated to take at least a month to fix everything so in
the meantime they're staying here.
Rose
came to me and asked if I could take their daughter to school, as her
school is a 5 minute drive from the hospital. Normally their neighbour
(who has a child the same age) would take her to school but that's no
longer an option. My brother works full-time and his shifts clash with
doing this (he starts at 7am) and he and Rose share a car, as she only
works one shift a week on Sundays.
I
told Rose that I can't commit to taking my niece to school everyday.
She needs to be dropped off at school for 8am, and sometimes I'm doing
overnight shifts that don't finish until 9-10am or I'm doing shifts that
start really early in the morning.
Rose
got a bit upset and asked why I can't just explain to my boss that I
need to be available for school drop-off. She didn't wait for an answer
and said she knows it's not that simple but she needs me to help her. In
my job, if you start requesting restricted availability, they will give
you way less shifts.
I
couldnt understand why Rose wouldn't walk her daughter to school, as
it's a 15 minute walk from our mum's house to get there, with no hills
and plenty of safe crossings. Rose and their daughter don't have any
health conditions that would make this not doable. I asked Rose why she
wouldn't walk her daughter to school and she said that is too far to
walk with a young child. I showed her the distance on Google maps (I
assumed she wasn't aware of how close it was) and she reiterated that it
was too far.
I said to Rose I think that's her best option but I cannot take her daughter to school everyday.
Later
that day my mum told me that Rose came to her really upset that I
refused to help. My mum said she knows I normally work irregular shifts
but that it'd be a really nice thing for me to do. I feel like I'm going
crazy because when I was a kid I went to the same school and my mum
walked me there and back from this house!! I said no and my mum said
that's fine I understand.
Now I've got my brother calling me selfish and he said it's a small ask that even their neighbour could do it and I'm refusing.
Am I really such an a**_hole???
Social Plugin