Helping your neighbor in their time of need is something a lot of people are happy to do. However, sometimes, the ask is too much and some people are not willing to go the extra mile.
Keep reading this story to know what this neighbor drew the line on…
Going into labor can be a stressful experience for many people, especially those who are parents already. If the labor comes suddenly without having prepared for it, organizing childcare can be a hassle.
While some people have a plan in place, at times, the sudden onset of labor can really throw all your plans out the window. This mother, however, had not thought about who would care for her older children as she rushed to the hospital when she went into labor. She posted her story on Reddit to see what people thought.
A 26-year-old mother posted how she had moved to a new apartment block a year ago. Since the building was new, all their neighbors had moved in around a similar time as them and they were all getting to know one another.
The building shares a courtyard; hence, children who live in the building play together. And since there are a lot of young families in the building, they often do one another favors. The young mother recalled giving other moms baby formula and helping out with other things related to their children. However, she specified that she keeps her distance otherwise and has not befriended any of the other mothers.
The young mother was without her husband, who had gone to visit friends and family. She was looking after her 2-year-old and 11-month-old.
The mothers in the building have a group where all of them help one another with childcare. They take turns, and it is a rotating system, but she is only a silent participant in the group, never offering to help since she does not want anyone else looking after her children.
She shared that the day before at 3 am, there was a knock on her door. She did not open the door because she was home alone with her children; she was not expecting any company, and it was so late at night.
When they would not stop knocking, she looked through her peephole and saw that it was her neighbor. The neighbor was 9 months pregnant and had just gone into labor. She stood outside her door with her boyfriend and hospital bag. Her neighbor asked whether she could take care of their children for an hour till their aunt could get there.
She refused, saying she did not want to be liable if something happened to her children, and she also did not want to risk her children being woken up.
The neighbor’s children were 1 and 4 years old; she said she already had her hands full with her own two children and did not want to have four children running around her house. She later also added that the 1-year-old would have been super attached to their primary caregivers and would hence her being a stranger, it would have been hard to calm them down.
The boyfriend got upset and told her off, saying how she, as a mother, could watch another struggle and not help. She felt that had her husband been there, she would not have been spoken to like that. She turned to Reddit to figure out if she had been wrong in this situation.
A lot of people agreed with her on the Reddit thread. One person pointed out that the parents did not plan ahead and seemed to be in this mess of a situation because of their poor planning. User Schezzi wrote that the parents had 9 months to plan and “left their kids’ safety and wellbeing until their literal last minute.”
However, other users were not as kind and thought this was unacceptable behavior. BrinaGu3 wrote that it seemed unacceptable to help someone in a time of emergency.The original poster later came back and mentioned to everyone that the neighbor who had eventually agreed to take the children in told her that the aunt had not arrived till 8 in the morning. The children did not sleep the entire night, and she woke up her children as well. They had also left a mess in her house. She mentioned all of this as a way to show everyone that she had been right about not taking the children.