NC'd as don't know if family are on here! Sorry if this is long!
My aunt (71) has been caring for my cousin's DD every other weekend between 9am and 3pm approx for about three years now. The DD, we'll call her Polly, is now 9.
My cousin is not my aunt's DD. My aunt's brother was cousin's father (he died several years ago). My aunt has two grown up children living with her, a DD and DS but they are in and out all weekend and are not able to help much with Polly. That aside, the arrangement was very much between my aunt and cousin anyway.
Polly is not an especially demanding child, she will entertain herself much of the time, but she is difficult to converse with and can be fairly frosty with my aunt and her DCs. I suspect this is because the DCs do not like Polly's mum and do not have anything to do with her themselves due to her past bad behaviour (too much to get into it all here, but it's things like borrowing large sums of money and never giving it back, rudeness about the DCs when they have asked for it and bitching about them, etc). I wonder if my cousin has been feeding comments about them to Polly and she is now being cold with the family because of this. It would be very typical of my cousin. I would just lately describe Polly as being hostile. I hate saying that about a child, but that is the impression I have got when I visited.
My aunt also strongly suspects that Polly has been taking things from the house. Just little knickknacks so nothing big but still. She can't prove it but it can't be anyone else. She hasn't said this to anyone other than me and felt bad even saying that.
In conversation with my aunt this weekend, it transpires that she is unhappy with continuing to babysit on such a frequent basis but doesn't know what to do. I want to advise her to either reduce the hours of what she is willing to do or cease the arrangement altogether and just do ad hoc babysitting. I think she would be okay with either, just not the every other weekend arrangement they have now. It makes it very difficult for my aunt to make plans to do anything and can't take Polly with her if she did as Polly never wants to go anywhere. It's also a lot of pressure and commitment and although my aunt isn't frail, she shouldn't have to feel like that at 71.
My cousin will either kick off or sulk big time over this. The arrangement was originally put in place because she works weekends (that is still the case) but she has also put some pressure on my aunt to babysit during holidays as well.
Would my aunt be reasonable to have a conversation with my cousin about reducing the amount of hours she has Polly? I think she's entirely reasonable, but I'm not impartial in this as I have a similar relationship with my cousin as aunt's DCs do.
Some maybe important info:
- Polly's mum has no other close family nearby who could help with childcare. Her brother works shifts and would be unable to commit even if he agreed to help (which he may well not).
- Finding and paying a local babysitter might be difficult at weekends they would be in limited supply around here.
I think I've gone through most of the important stuff here....so is my aunt being unreasonable?