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Canadian Couple Balks After Daughter Demands They Move To Texas To Help Care For Her Kids

Nikoline Arns/Unsplash

Try as they might, parents can do a wonderful job in raising their kids but also struggle financially.

Some may have the benefit of a family who can help them, but potentially not in the way they would help, pointed out the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.

Redditor throwaway9mdi wanted to help her daughter and two grandsons in any way she could, but that did not include moving to another country.

When her daughter kept insisting she move, the Original Poster (OP) wasn’t sure how else to help.

She asked the sub:

“AITA for refusing to move countries?”

The OP’s daughter found herself in a difficult spot.

“My daughter moved to the US from Canada. Both my husband and I are in Canada and we’ve worked and lived here our whole lives.”

“My daughter left to be with her boyfriend, who she married and recently divorced.”

“The father has left for his home country of Chile, and it’s almost impossible to get him to pay child support now.”

“She is going through a lawyer but it will likely take years and he doesn’t have a job now so she probably won’t get much from him.”

“Now she is a single mother with 2 small children and childcare costs of approximately $1400 a month, making her $3700 a month income not enough to support them.”

The OP tried to find a way to help her daughter. 

“She wants me to move to Texas to look after her sons for her.”

“I don’t have any interest in moving to the US and told her to come back to Ontario and she could move in with us and we can help her with the children.”

“Ontario also has an affordable $10/day child care subsidy (though I’m not 100% sure if she would qualify).”

“She refuses because she found a new boyfriend and wants to continue to live with him.”

“I told her I’m not moving down there and she can move up here (she has dual citizenship) and we can help her or she can stay in Texas.”

The OP was surprised when her daughter doubled down on her idea.

“She then tried asking for $1400 every month to cover her childcare, which I told her I don’t have, and she argued since her children are my grandsons, I need to help provide for them.”

“I told her I will let her stay rent-free and help her babysit if she moves back, and she insists I have to move there or pay for her daycare costs, because she wants to be with her new boyfriend.”

“I was so annoyed she would stay for a man who she has only known a few months and told her to ask him for the money, since she is staying in Texas for him, and she yelled I was being heartless.”

“AITA?”

Fellow Redditors weighed in:

  • NTA: Not the A**hole
  • YTA: You’re the A**hole
  • ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
  • NAH: No A**holes Here

Some said the daughter needed to be grateful for the ways her mother could help.

“‘Help me!'”

“‘Ok, here is some help.'”

“‘No, not like that. help me by completely uprooting your life!'”

“NTA. I suspect that your daughter is emotionally distressed at the moment and is not able to hear your side very well. However, her inability to accept your help does not mean you are an AH.” – mmahowald

“The daughter sounds delusional. She is an adult. She cannot pay her bills but doesn’t want to be inconvenienced in any way. Instead, she wants the world to bend around her.”

“Who in their right mind demands that their parents uproot their entire lives for the sole purpose of providing free childcare or giving them large amounts of money each month?”

“OP has been more than generous by offering to help the daughter if she moves back. But, she is more concerned about her new boyfriend… What happens if OP moves and the daughter finds a new boyfriend that she wants to run off to?” – Electrical-Date-3951

“I once worked with someone who complained non-stop that her mother wouldn’t babysit her kids while she worked, and so she had to pay for daycare.”

“If you dared point out that her mother was only in her 50s, with her own expenses, and couldn’t afford to take early retirement in order to become a full-time, unpaid babysitter, you were accused of not caring about the struggles of working parents.” – Kalamac

“NTA, as a Canadian you couldn’t pay me enough to move to Texas. Best of luck to her, beggars can’t be choosers. She’s one illness away from financial disaster not to mention she can’t afford her current situation.”

“Apparently, she didn’t learn enough with her first marriage, some people need it repeated multiple times before it sinks in.” – whatsmypassword73

“As an ex-military wife whose husband was stationed in Texas and who was forced to live there for 2 years, you couldn’t get me to move back. Not even if you gave me all of Jeff Bezos’s money. No way, no how.”

“NTA OP. You offered her a wonderful opportunity to get on her feet. She’s acting like an entitled brat to ignore it AND THEN demand that, since you aren’t uprooting your whole life for her, you give her $1400 a month.”

“Absolutely not. She can take you up on your very sweet offer and get on her feet, or stay in Texas and be miserable. It’s her choice and, quite frankly, she sounds like a person who has to learn the hard way. However, you are NTA.” – bookworm1421

“NTA.”

“Your offer is 100% correct. You have offered her your home for free, and to help with the grandchildren. It is absolutely up to her to move to you if she is struggling, not the other way round. Her demands are ridiculous, you are already being a great and supportive parent.” – my__name__is

Others said the OP’s daughter was fixated on the wrong things.

“I think someone needs to tell the daughter that they have men in Canada. I’m sure there’s plenty to go around, especially if her tastes range more towards the ‘deadbeat who refuses to contribute’ type (based on baby daddy).” – applewatermelonn

“NTA, you have offered her help and she has rejected what you can provide. If it comes down to it badly enough she can always just move with the boyfriend to Canada.” – College_advice12

“NTA.”

“Sounds like she’s prioritizing her love life over the needs of her children. You have behaved impeccably throughout this, whereas she’s behaving very entitled and acting immaturely.”

“She has responsibilities now and they are HER responsibilities, not yours. How dare she treat you so shabbily, I’m hurt for you.” – Sprogpaws

“NTA it’s insane to expect you to uproot your life to look after her kids and the audacity and entitlement of your daughter is shocking.”

“You’re not their parent, and you aren’t obligated to do anything for them. The fact that she has been offered help and she has the chance to do better but she would rather stay in a bad position for a man is telling.” – TCGislife

“This story breaks my heart. I really, really hope you are a troll, because your daughter is a very bad mom who puts her new boyfriend in front of her own kids. She needs to get her priorities straight, and stop trying to put her responsibilities on your shoulder.”

“You are NTA, obviously. While morally, those are your grandchildren and you morally should care for them… your daughter doesn’t care for them to start with, so it makes it really hard for you to take the extra burden. You are not a bad person for not uprooting your life when your daughter is clearly the one that needs to make the sacrifice.” – MaybeAWalrus

“NTA, she made adult decisions which now have consequences.”

“You have offered her help within your boundaries and she has refused because of a relationship which is only a few months old. That’s her problem, not one of your making.”

“At this point, she is using her children to extort money from you which you don’t have and even if you did she isn’t entitled to.” – purplepeopleeater23

“NTA. Ask your daughter if she’s going to pay for your medical insurance and any healthcare costs you have to face in Texas seeing as she’s expecting you to give up the socialized healthcare up here.”

“I’m fairly certain I know what her answer is. She needs to decide whether taking care of her children or staying with her new boyfriend is more important to her, you’ve already offered to help in the way that you can.” – UnicornCackle

The subReddit understood hoping for things to work out a certain way and to be disappointed when something else happened. That said, they also understood that the OP was willing to make sacrifices for her daughter that her daughter wasn’t grateful for, simply because they were not the option that she wanted most.

The subReddit was also concerned about the OP’s daughter’s priorities, as she didn’t want to move and improve her, and her children’s, situation because she was dating someone new. Having an opportunity to take better care of their children and turning it down for a relationship could potentially say a lot about a person.

Written by McKenzie Lynn Tozan

McKenzie Lynn Tozan has been a part of the George Takei family since 2019 when she wrote some of her favorite early pieces: Sesame Street introducing its first character who lived in foster care and Bruce Willis delivering a not-so-Die-Hard opening pitch at a Phillies game. She's gone on to write nearly 3,000 viral and trending stories for George Takei, Comic Sands, Percolately, and ÃœberFacts. With an unstoppable love for the written word, she's also an avid reader, poet, and indie novelist.