I Stopped Babysitting After What She Said (Continued)

She was stunned, then angry. ‘You’re doing this to punish me? What about the kids? What about my job?’ The word she never once said was ‘sorry.’

I explained, as steadily as I could, that this was never about money. I would have watched those babies for free until my last day. But I would not be a woman ‘lucky to feel useful,’ a convenience to be laughed about on a porch.

I told her I loved her and the children more than my own life, and that I would still take them one or two days, as their grandmother — not as free, disposable daycare she pitied.

Word got around the family fast, and the verdict was swift: I was selfish, I was hurting the grandchildren, I was making it about myself. Only my sister quietly told me she’d have done the same.

Michelle and I are still cool with each other. It hurts. But I’ve spent seventy years being the one who gives and gives and is thanked by being taken for granted, and I found I couldn’t do it one more day. So I’ll ask you plainly, because the family won’t hear me — was I wrong?