A 20-year-old woman says her family is pressuring her to take custody of her two younger siblings once their mother dies — but she believes she’s in no position to raise them.
Now she’s wondering if refusing would make her the villain in the situation.
A Family Crisis
The woman explained that her mother is currently battling a severe heart and lung infection and may not survive.
If that happens, her two younger siblings — a 10-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl — will need someone to care for them.
Both children also have special needs.
Their father died two years ago, leaving their mother as their only parent.
Now relatives are pushing the 20-year-old to step in as their guardian.
Why She Feels Completely Unprepared
The woman says the expectation feels overwhelming for several reasons.
First, she doesn’t currently have a job or stable income.
She also doesn’t have a driver’s license or even a government ID yet, which already makes it difficult for her to work or handle official responsibilities.
On top of that, she says she didn’t graduate from high school and struggles with her own mental health challenges.
With all of that in mind, she doesn’t believe she can realistically provide the care two special-needs children would require.
A Complicated Relationship With Her Siblings
Adding to the difficulty is the relationship she has with the kids themselves.
According to her, both siblings have told her multiple times that they don’t like her and even say they hate her.
Because of that, she worries that forcing herself into a parental role could make an already difficult situation worse for everyone involved.
Promises of Help She Doesn’t Trust
Several family members — including grandparents, aunts, and uncles — have told her they would help if she took the kids in.
But she doesn’t believe those promises.
She fears that once she actually needed support, those relatives would disappear or claim they were too busy.
That possibility makes her feel even more trapped by the expectation being placed on her.
Why Many People Said She Wasn’t Wrong
Most readers believed she was being realistic rather than selfish.
User pairedfools wrote:
“You have no job, you can’t drive, and you don’t even have an ID. How are you supposed to take care of kids?”
Others pointed out that raising children with special needs requires stability, resources, and support that she currently doesn’t have.
User Utopia7_Survivor explained:
“If you say yes, you aren’t just ruining your life — you’re risking theirs too.”
A Difficult Situation With No Easy Answers
The woman says she feels guilty about the idea of saying no, especially because the children have already lost their father and may soon lose their mother.
At the same time, she believes taking responsibility for them could completely derail her own life.
For now, she’s left facing a heartbreaking question: whether refusing the responsibility makes her a bad person — or simply someone acknowledging their limits.
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