Reply to Happy to watch your kids...but you have to actually ASK.

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Reply to "Happy to watch your kids...but you have to actually ASK."

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, as difficult as it may be, just be nice. It sounds like you already are the nice aunt, keep it this way. 
If you start drawing lines in the sand now, you sister may say to her kids something like "no you can't go outside because aunt susie will only watch her own kids" or something annoying like that. The kids know what's going on-they will always remember how nice you are to them.
Trust me, btdt, better to just focus on the kids and be nice. [/quote]

OP, the above is a recipe for becoming a doormat. Focus on the kids and be nice and you'll increasingly find that your lake vacations are worthless because you can't relax for a minute, since you never know when or if you're the adult in charge of other people's children. I'd start having more holidays without these families along, somewhere else.

You mention that everyone else in the family agrees that these particular parents are not doing their job. Have you considered getting all the other adults together and having what my folks would have called a "come to Jesus" talk with the offending parents? Basically, tell them that everyone else sees a problem about which they seem to be oblivious, and that there must be a clearly designated adult in charge, and no more vanishing without speaking directly to another adult and SAYING, "I'm going to the grocery store and expect to be back in about X minutes" and so on.

Are the other adults here, who see the same problem you see, going to be willing to step up and participate in an intervention like that? I think the oblivious parents will need to hear this from everyone at once, not just in bits from various adults. It's confrontational, yes, but it sounds like that may be the only way to put them on notice that the rest of you care about your nieces and nephews but are unwilling to continue with disappearing adults. You should be sure to say that all of the rest of you also will always be clear with them and each other if YOU are the ones leaving, etc.
They'll whine and say they're being attacked and "how dare you criticize us as parents" and all that crap but they're wrong and you are right. Get the other family members behind you. I would have thought that the one kid going missing would have been enough to scare the hell out of these parents but clearly it wasn't.

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