New stepmother demands 17-year-old babysit her children because his father said he would if they married: ‘My relationship with his wife and her kids doesn’t exist really, and I know that [makes her mad] but she was his choice, not mine’ – FAIL Blog

Parents make commitments on behalf of their children all the time.

But, at what point does this stop? There’s a line there somewhere where the relationship needs to change, and the child is now an adult who makes their own decisions, but it’s not really clear where that line is. The truth is it’s more of a slow-changing process and succession of responsibility on the part of the parent as their kid learns to handle more responsibility and the parent learns to give it. The process is never going to be smooth, and there is going to be some conflict, to a lesser or greater degree.

Summer break is your chance for freedom in your teenage years, a freedom that slowly evaporates as you work more and more in your first jobs over the summer. And with the encroaching responsibility that is the rest of your life ensuing after the summer of your 18th birthday, your summer of your 17th year on this planet is really your last hurrah of care-free childhood. And the last thing you want to be doing is spending that babysitting your newly acquired step-siblings… if you can consider them that at all. This teen’s dad and his dad’s new wife were clearly counting on him spending his summer watching his dad’s wife’s children, and the pair were stunned when he chose to move out instead.