A post has gone viral on Reddit after a woman claimed she asked her sister to halt her “passion” for rescuing dogs to help care for her four children.
A post has gone viral on Reddit after a woman claimed she asked her sister to halt her “passion” for rescuing dogs to help care for her four children.Redditor u/Throw_away_no374828 detailed the situation in the subreddit “Am I The A**hole” in a post that has been voted on over 8,000 times and received more than 4,000 comments.
The Redditor explained that she has four children aged 11 months to 10 years old. She said that her sister is “child-free” and has been happy to watch the older children to help the Redditor keep her “sanity.”
“This has been extremely helpful and I tell her all the time how grateful we are for her help,” she said.
A post has gone viral on Reddit after a woman shared that she asked her sister to stop fostering dogs in order to care for her children. Above, a stock image shows a dog in a kennel. Wpadington/Getty Images
She wrote that the kids would normally go over to her sister’s home but recently she has been fostering dogs that make the arrangement impossible. She said after some time she decided to ask her sister “point-blank” to not take in another dog so she could continue to help with childcare.
According to the ASPCA, approximately 6.3 million companion animals enter U.S. animal shelters nationwide every year. About 3.1 million of those animals are dogs and 3.2 million are cats.
Though the organization estimates that the number of dogs and cats entering shelters has declined from approximately 7.2 million in 2011 with the biggest decline seen in dogs.
Fostering and adoption are important for these animals as approximately 920,000 shelter animals are euthanized each year though this figure has also been in decline since 2011.
The Redditor explained that rescuing dogs is her sister’s “passion” so she knows requesting she was “asking a lot.”
When she made the request, she said, she opened up about how tough things have been since her sister became unavailable to look after her kids.
“How little sleep I get each night, how my husband hasn’t been helping as much as he should, and some other deeply personal issues that I’ve been struggling with,” she wrote.
She said while her sister comforted her she did not agree and said she needed time to think. The Redditor said that while she feels guilty she doesn’t have anyone else to turn to for help.
“I can’t afford a babysitter long term, and my friends all have their own kids to look after,” she said. “Above all, my kids will always come before a dog and that’s the reason I was willing to request it.”
Commenters thought the Redditor’s request was not a fair one and that it was her responsibility to handle the child care of her own children.
“Absolutely no one loves to admit this to themselves, but your own life choices led you to this point,” one commenter said. “Your exhaustion, your sleepless nights, that fact you’re broke, your inability to find a consistent babysitter… these are all problems you’ve invented for yourself by having children outside your means.”
“You choose to have kids. She did not. You expect her to drop her life and things important to her to pick up your problems,” wrote another.
Others pointed out that her husband should be pulling more of the weight rather than it falling on her sister.
“You stated that your husband isn’t helping with your children as much as he should and your solution was to guilt your sister into changing her dog loving lifestyle (unpaid, I might add) so she could accommodate your children more frequently,” another commenter wrote. “You understand the problem but are talking with the wrong adult to solve it.”
