“AITA for calling my cousin selfish because she didn’t babysit my daughter?”
My cousin, who I’ll call Ella, got married a couple of months ago. I made her wedding cake as well as almost 150 individually wrapped custom cupcakes. I have a 5 year old daughter, in return Ella was going to babysit every Friday from 9-2, so 5 hours. This started from after she came back from her honeymoon until August. Obviously if there was an emergency or something came up, I’d understand.
So on Wednesday she called me up saying she couldn’t make it on Friday, because her old college friends were in town and she hadn’t seen them for a long time. I said this is really last minute and asked if they can just go out another day or after she babysits, but Ella said no. We argued for a bit and I eventually said she was being really selfish, making plans when she already had others. She got upset/mad at me and said I can’t dictate what she does with her time, and it’s only one day. We haven’t talked since then. People who know of the situation are torn on it. So, AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this initial post:
NTA – you made a deal and now that she got her side she’s f*$#ed you over.
Present her with a bill for the baking.
This! NTA. It was agreed that the bride would do 10 weeks of babysitting in exchange for a wedding cake and cupcakes. This is essentially the bride “paying less” than originally discussed, without OPs agreement.
INFO: did you offer for her to just pay you instead?
The OP responded here:
When she initially asked me to bake the goods for her wedding I did ask for actual payment. She asked if there was anything else she could do for me, so we worked out the babysitting deal.
Obviously NTA, but my bet is that your cousin isn’t actually going to uphold her end of the agreement so you need to nip this in the bud. Either she does what she promised to do without any funny business, or she pays you for the cake and cupcakes and you call it a day.
The OP responded again:
This was only the third week she was supposed to babysit (she’s only done it twice before) so it came as a bit of a shock that she was letting me know so late. I don’t know if this will be a recurring theme but that one Friday did cost me. The whole reason we came to this deal was because she didn’t want to pay.
The very next day, after her initial post blew up, the OP returned with an update:
Okay I do have an update because I talked to Ella. I was going to make a separate update but the mods said my post isn’t old enough, so I’m putting the update here and hopefully it posts. This is long so sorry in advance.
I’ve learned my lesson – don’t let people talk me into baking for them without actual money compensation. I honestly thought Ella would keep her side of the agreement.
So I did talk to Ella earlier today, let her know that she went back on our agreement by not showing up yesterday. She was mad that it’s only one week and it doesn’t matter.
Ella was aware of what the total cost would be beforehand, which is why we made this agreement in the first place because she didn’t want to pay, and asked if she could do anything else. I wrote up the cost would be and what I’d charge if anyone else had made this order.
Here were the top rated comments after this latest update:
You already gave her a discount, so you’re not hurting anyone.
Wow, thanks for the update. People can be stupid, even family members. Glad you learned a hard, but valuable lesson. Your dad is being a jackwad. Ella and her husband sound like scammers.
Out of curiosity, does Ella have a job? Reading between the lines, I would guess her husband works and she… doesn’t do much?
She is coming off rather choosing beggars in this scenario in that she wanted stuff for her wedding she couldn’t afford and tried to find a way to get it without paying for it. Weddings don’t have to be expensive, and a lot of people have to compromise on their ‘dream wedding.’
I wouldn’t count on her making that first payment, but I am looking forward to your next update after taking her ass to small claims court!
‘My dad is on my ass saying I’m being really greedy and this will financially hurt Ella and her husband.’
This WILL financially hurt Ella’s and her husband. But IT ALREADY HURT YOU FINANCIALLY. You already spent time baking. You had to take off from work and lost money for that day. And you lost money for all the ingredients. Did your dad forget hes your dad and not Ella’s?
The ONLY thing that’d mitigate this situation is you didn’t work on Friday. If you need Ella to watch your daughter bc you wanted to have a few hours to relax then maybe MAYBE you could’ve allowed her to change her days. That’s BS. Hope Ella pays you back.
So what, if paying for their own wedding financially hurts them, the answer is ‘have a cheaper wedding’, not ‘avoid paying for services’. You are totally in the right, and tell the daddy dearest he may cover their expenses if he cares so much. He’s being so generous with your money, how about being generous with his own instead?
I would post to the legal reddit thread and see what your options are. Who knows may be even just communicating through a lawyer might be enough to scare some sense into them and get you compensated.
