Would you have asked 18 year old sister to babysit so you can have a day out ?

[Mairzydotes]

This situation has been and gone , so I suppose it's now hypothetical, but I keep over thinking it .

Dh's mate suggested they go to this event that was on recently . Near the cutoff for tickets dh decided to buy tickets and suggested I go too and he would ask his dp if they would look after the dc . I wasn't sure cos I was thinking about all the details.

Anyway, on the last day of sales , I decided I would like to go . Apparently it was too late to ask his parents and it became apparent I wouldn't go.

It's all over now but I have spent all the time since regretting not going . We have an 18 year old dd who was off work that day and I'm sure , in hindsight, she could've have looked after her siblings that day so I could've attended.

She does look after them fairly often short term in the house while one of us pops out on errands. I suppose I feel guilty asking for fun things

Yes of course why wouldn’t you?

My daughter has looked after her siblings when she was younger than that. She looked forward to it as I paid her babysitters rates and got them all a takeaway. I don’t know why you made it into such a big issue

Of course! Surprised she didn’t offer.

Yes, we did this - left money for takeaway. They all enjoyed having a parent free day!

Don't see why not, as long as she didn't have urgent college stuff/work etc.

How old are your younger children?

I’m debating asking 17 year old DD to babysit her youngest sibling (Age 3) for a few hours one evening so me and their dad can out for a meal - but my mum is going ape shit and saying 3 year old is too young and she’ll babysit instead (Don’t want her to!)

Thank you everyone.

I was expecting more negativity. Like I said , in hindsight, it would have been fine and totally acceptable. Which makes me feel even worse about missing out .

I suppose my main worries was that itge distance was a bit further than I'd usually go and the risk of getting held up ( traffic was horrendous) .

6 and 8 .

With there being an age gap , I've never wanted my teen dd to feel like a babysitter.

In your situation, I think it would be fine to pop out for a meal nearby . Especially if it is lunch .

Of course. MN has this weird thing where they think it’s a terrible thing to ask older sibling to look after younger ones on occasion. No, it’s normal.

I think some threads are just full of posts disagreeing with the op for arguments sake.

I’m similar to you in terms of age gap.

17 year old, 7 year old and 3 year old.

I definitely think occasional babysitting should be a perk of a bigger age gap!

We have similar age gaps and to be honest it’s never occurred to me to ask the older one to babysit for the day but I think that’s mostly because she is either working or has plans. I wouldn’t see an issue with it but I’d either give her some money or buy her something she’s after as while I do ask every so often for the odd hour I’ve never wanted her to feel she’s always expected to look after them

I babysat my baby sister all the time when I was 17. Why on earth is your mum making such a drama, it felt completely normal to me

She’s gone neurotic the older she’s getting. Everything is dramatic!

Don’t get me wrong, my eldest DD isn’t particularly fond of young children and massively values her own space - which she has in bucketloads; so she’s not exactly Mary Poppins, but I think it’s very reasonable for her to babysit for a couple of hours occasionally.

I think my mum thinks youngest DD (3) is too young, but I disagree.

Yeah, buy her a takeaway and give her some money, it’s not like you were going to do it every week. I’m sure she would like the money

You could have offered to pay her. She would probably have be pleased to earn some money.

It all seemed a bit last minute.

I would have been more comfortable asking with more notice.