My [F25] sister [F35] keeps leaving her kids at my parents [60s] house and I'm going insane.
I invite every culture to respond to this post.
We come from a mixed background with middle eastern roots. My sister lives in another continent and once a year her, her husband and their 3 kids (F12, F8, M5) will come to visit us. They do have their own house here. I will add they are rich and we're middle class. Here's the problem : They leave their kids at my parent's house for the entirety of their stay at their kids's request. My dad is retired and suffering from an illness. My mom is currently jobless due to burn out but used to work in daycares all her life as an educator.
For the past 3 weeks, I've been losing my mind and it's affected my mood, my motivation to work and my quality of life. I've had a vision of how kids are supposed to behave at their grandparents house and how they should treat their auntie (me). My vision and what's happening in reality are polar opposites.
So much it caused me to request a discussion with my sister to come up with a solution.
(You can skip 3 paragraphs to jump straight to the discussion) Essentially, her kids are spoiled, rude, talk back and don't respect the rules. They've messed with my personal space in the house, not just the common areas. The tipping point for me was when I wanted to take my birth control pill and I couldn't find my water bottle, causing me to be late. The kids had hid my water bottle for "fun".
(You can skip this paragraph) Here's other things they've done.
-Stay up past their bedtime and refusing to go to bed when I remind them their grandma has told them to sleep already
-Using Snapchat when their mom hasn't allowed them
-Putting on the TV an 18+ movie about a tribe despite me forbidding them to watch 18+ things. They said their mom lets them watch it. I just turned off the TV.
-Taking things from my bedroom and hiding them.
-Taking my phone from the table and running away with it to protest bedtime.
Etc
Since my sister was in another country at the time, I texted her about everything. She got too overwhelmed and told me we'd talk about it in person. When she returned, she took her kids home for a night and inquired about everything I texted her. They told my sister that I had been a terrible person, yelling at them, telling them they have no manners and that they decided to do the silent treatment to me. So the next night, my sister dropped her kids at our house at 11:30pm and I was shocked because we were supposed to discuss.
[Discussion] What ended up happening was her telling me that she's not interested in her kids getting corrected by me or drafting a set of rules they must respect when living at our house. She was very confrontational with me, saying that because I told her kids off (which I apologized for because I really regretted doing that) she wasn't sorry about anything they've done and they won't apologize either. She asked if it was possible to ignore every misconduct of theirs while they are on vacation. And about the pranks they've been doing to me, she said kids will be kids. Lastly, she said she's leaving her kids with my parents, not with me, so I don't need to involve myself. I explained to her that whether I'm an active auntie or not, whether I chose to babysit or not, the kids still share our common areas in the house and I have no choice but to be involved when they are disturbing me.
She apologized that they were a disturbance to me which I did appreciate. But long story short, that night, we didn't come up with a solution like I had hoped.
The following day I got a hotel for myself to enjoy my weekend because I work hard and I was really hurt over the previous discussion and needed time to be alone. I realized as much as I wanted to be an active auntie, it's better for my peace to not be one. And I communicated that to my sister and she respected that. I just find it unfortunate it came to this.
Lastly, my parents have repeated to me that I must tolerate the kids and that I should be ashamed I even brought up a discussion with my sister. They've said that it's not easy for them either and as much as they understand me feeling like I lost control and I'm not living this arrangement too well, that I need to remember they're leaving in a few weeks and it's all temporary.
I decided to write this post because today, my niece was about to order 3 desserts at 9pm using her mom's card and my mom stopped her.
I asked my mom why she got involved since it's not her money. My mom said that it's impolite to not refund my sister if her daughter ends up ordering food at 9pm since her kids are guests and she didn't plan financially on those desserts at 9pm. I don't agree they're guests.
TLDR ;
My sister visits us every year and leaves her kids in our family home. This hasn't been working out for me as I haven't been able to have a minimum sense of control in my house nor respect from the kids. Attempt at discussion with my sister failed.
Question :
Is there any advice you guys can give me for the next time my sister comes around and leaves her kids at our house again next year ? So far my own solution is spending little to no time with the kids. Also I would like to know if there was any way I should've handled things better.
Posted Aug 21, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC