Man Stirs Drama By Refusing To Let Neighbor’s Baby Sleep In His Room Amid Texas Power Outages

When a storm like last week’s in Texas hits, some fare better than others.

The financial ability to be more emergency prepared or the blind luck of fortunate geography might make all the difference between two people staring down a weather event.

So neighborly assistance can be so massively important that it becomes a no-brainer for the length of the storm.

But not everyone is down.

One Redditor, known as fetalratface, told his side of the story when he pushed back on that collectivist sentiment. He posted his account of the recent storm in Texas to the “Am I the A**hole (AITA).”

OP went with a title that was rather selective about the details. 

“AITA for not wanting a baby to sleep in my room?”

He began the story by painting a picture of recent days in Texas. 

“I live in Dallas and we’re going through Hell because of this winter storm.”

“My family’s house had to deal with rolling black-outs for the past few days, but yesterday is the day that it looked like our power was back on for good, which lead to my mom inviting our neighbors to stay with us.”

“For whatever reason, their power hasn’t been on for the past few days and my mom invited them to stay with us without even consulting anyone else in the family.”

OP wasn’t nearly as in to the all-for-one sentiment. 

“These neighbors have three kids, one of which is a baby who’s only a few months old and out of nowhere, my mom told me that the baby and its crib were going in my room.”

“That pi**ed me the fu** off since she didn’t even ask how I felt about that, but she wouldn’t listen to my protests; she never does.”

The drama kicked off on night one. 

“Last night I was trying to get to sleep, but the fu**ing baby was being noisy. She wasn’t crying, she was just making random baby noises and I couldn’t deal with it.”

“She eventually fell asleep and so did I, but then she started crying, which woke me up.”

“The parents came in and started consoling the baby back to sleep, but I was still up when the baby woke again and started making more baby noises.”

OP had what he thought was a better solution. 

“I decided to take action of my own.”

“I ended up moving the crib into my sister’s room and when she started crying again, it was definitely better for me.”

It wasn’t well received. 

“But I heard a bunch of confusion in the hallway. The baby’s mom was wondering why the crib was in my sister’s room and I just pretended to be asleep.”

“But my mom slammed my door opened and immediately called me out.”

“This lead to a giant argument between me and her in the hallway. I was arguing that it’s not fair that the baby sleeps in my room, but once again, my fu**ing bi*** mom already decided that she was in the right and that she’s not to be questioned.”

“Then the neighbor’s other kids woke up and the entire house was watching me and my mom scream at each other.”

But the saga didn’t end there. 

“Things eventually calmed down and the baby went back in my room. But once she was asleep, I pushed the crib into the bathroom and she wasn’t discovered until this morning when the baby’s dad found her in there.”

“Now they’re mad at me, but I’m pissed at them and my mom.”

“My mom keeps calling me a brat and the neighbors have already scolded me for what I did, so I retorted by calling them shi**y parents who want to pawn their baby off to me instead of taking care of her themselves.”

“Now my mom is blaming me for the current tension in the house. Who’s the bad guy here?”

Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:

• NTA – Not The A**hole
• YTA – You’re The A**hole
• ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
• NAH – No A**holes Here

Plenty of Redditors had zero patience for OP’s gripes.

They didn’t hold back with their criticism. 

“YTA – you are 24 yrs old. Your parents do not have to provide a roof over your head. Do you pay rent?”

“Your city is in crisis. Your mom is helping a family with children out so they don’t freeze. You can handle a baby in your room for a couple of nights during an emergency.” — Queen_Aurelia

“YTA. It’s a fu***ing emergency that will be over soon. You are acting like they moved a baby in with you permanently. You are so selfish, you should be ashamed.” — TAdumbemployee

“YTA. And yep, 100% the brat. It’s literally unsafe for your neighbors to be at their house right now – I’m sure they don’t want to have to spend any time around you either.”

“You’re 24 and far too old to be acting like this IMO. Grow up.” — madpirate-k

Others highlighted his decision to move the baby in the middle of the night. 

“YTA you should not have moved their child in the middle of the night without telling anyone. That is terrifying for a parent for their kid to not be where they think and to not know what happened.”

“Then you doubled down and put the baby in the bathroom? Any sympathy I might have had over lack of sleep is gone. Grab a pillow and blanket in sleep in the bathroom yourself if it’s so bad in your room” — Nyankh

“YTA. Not because you don’t want the baby in your room, but because you repeatedly moved the baby and the crib in the middle of the night without telling anyone instead of waiting til morning to have a normal conversation about it.”

“You weren’t left to care for the baby, you said the parents came to care for her when she cried. Then screaming and waking everyone up in the middle of the night? Yeah, you were a brat about it.” — Big-Buff-Cheeto-Puff

Some Redditors, however, offered OP some sympathy.

They still slammed his attitude, but they did wonder about some of the other people’s decisions. 

“ESH. It’s weird that a baby that young would be put in your room instead of putting her crib wherever her parents are sleeping. And practically, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Other than that, you do sound like a royal brat. Your mother is trying to help out and be neighborly in a crisis. It’s inconvenient, sure.”

“But if the situation was reversed and your family was without heat for several days, you would be grateful for a neighbor to take you in.” — miz-elle

“My only beef is why wasn’t the baby with the parents?”

“I don’t trust a single f’king soul on this earth to have my baby sleep in their room without my presence.” — illmortalized

“ESH You’re not an a**hole for not wanting the baby in your room and I don’t see why the baby wasn’t in the same room as it’s parents.”

It was obvious that the baby was going to wake up during the night (as babies do), so why should you not only have a screaming baby in your room, but also have it’s parents in your room when it wakes up.”

“However, you are an a**hole for putting the baby in another room without telling anyone where it is and trying to ignore your mother when she was mad that you did move the baby.” — xX_Username1_Xx

It’s too late to change much now even if OP did take Redditors’ criticism to heart. That is, unless climate change sends more storms through Texas in the coming years.