Am I overreacting?
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Anonymous
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We have a college student who helps us on occasion with childcare. She lives here rent free since she's DH's distant cousin.
She cleans for us and we pay her for that. I just had surgery, she knew it and didn't offer any sort of help. I'm pretty upset but DH says it's foolish of me to be expecting her to offer help. I was an au pair and can't imagine seeing my host mom going through surgery and not offering any help! Am I a fool? Should I have offered her money instead of expecting help? |
Anonymous
| Yes, she should offer to help given she is living there rent free and it is holiday time so no school. No, you should not have to pay her. As family you are helping her and she needs to help you. |
Anonymous
| Do you treat her like family? Eat dinner together? Go places together? Things like that? If so, it weird she didn't offer to help. But if she is more like a roommate/renter, I don't think it is weird. |
Anonymous
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We invite her for all fun stuff we do and often pay for her tickets. She doesn't join us for meals because of her school schedule.
She left today and txted me wishing a speedy recovery saying she'd be gone for the weekend. I'm pretty disappointed. |
Anonymous
| I guess it depends on what type of surgery it was and how incapacitated you were. |
Anonymous
| No, it is not weird. She has a life. Unless you're paying her to stick around and help, I think it's unreasonable to expect that she'd cancel her plans. |
Anonymous
It also depends on her weekend plans. I wouldn't expect a "distant cousin"/tenant to cancel out of town weekend plans to help you. |
Anonymous
| Is she hired help or not? Sounds like mostly not and she left for the weekend. Should she have stayed and helped you? I do t see that she did anything wrong. |
Anonymous
| Why didn't you ask her for help? Just be direct, and polite. People aren't mind readers, especially college kids. |
Anonymous
| She knew about the surgery since I scheduled it in October. I even scheduled her to clean the house the day of the surgery so id come to a clean home. She knew for a long time I would be off this week. |
Anonymous
Because we didn't have the money to pay for her hourly rate and if we asked we'd had to pay. If she offered we'd def tip her but not pay as much as she charges - 22/h for 2 kids. |
Anonymous
| No she should not have stayed and worked for free. C'mon OP, you're acting entitled. |
Anonymous
This. She's in her early 20s. She's clueless and self-absorbed. If you want something, you have to spell it out. I'm a teacher at an elementary school with a lot of 20somethings. At a meeting this week, there were snacks including bags of chips and such. I was amazed by how adults could take the last chips from a bag and then just leave the big empty bag there. No one bothered to say, "oh hey, this is empty. How about if I throw it away?" |
Anonymous
So she should stay and cater to you, unpaid??? Very entitled. You may be a pill for her to live with... |
Anonymous
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Your problem is that you weren't clear about expectations when you gave her a free place to live. She is sorta an au pair/paid help/renter and sorta family/relative.
You need to let this go. She did not do anything wrong. |