AITA for refusing to babysit while family goes on vacation?
Update:
Since I've had so many people askin. I'm NC with my extended fam. My parents are politely gently NC they're not reaching out and distancing but lightly replying to stuff to keep peaceful. My sister lost custody due to neglect (unrelated to my post) she's been in and out of jail and rehab and attempted to steal my son's identity and my parents identity to buy new vehicles because she's wrecked about 5 since this post was made. My parents are leaving the state to get away from her and the rest of the family. I moved and changed my contact info and I'm helping my parents move. My cousin's have been on and out of jail, that's about all the update I can give because I'm NC and that goes both ways I don't wanna know anything about them. I wish I had a better update, like we all worked it out and we're a happy family. But I come from a family full of assholes who make horrible choices and I'm trying my best to remove myself and my loved ones from that.
My aunt is retiring. She's made plans to go to in a cruise, 3 day stay in Hawaii, and then back. All her adult children are going. They invited our side if the family, nobody told me. I'm not in fb which is the only place they communicate. They have my number, no one asked me though.
My entire family made plans for weeks to go. They made accommodations and bought tickets everything. No one mentioned it to me in all that time.
Finally it's a week away and I bring up to my family at our parents house about how I hope she has fun and should I get her a gift etc and my sister says "yeah grab her something we'll give it to her on the cruise". This is the first I'm hearing about them going. They said they assumed I was staying to watch the babies for them. My cousin's 3 year old, my sister's 2 year old, and twin infants.
I feel like they didn't tell me specifically so I'd be the only person not going and they could try to force all the kids on me. Well, I told them no thanks. I told them I still had time to make accommodations and come too and I would like to go. I honestly didn't want to go after feeling left out like that, but I figured maybe if it was really an accidental issue of being left out they wouldn't mind.
I took the time off and then my cousin, who was coordinating the entire thing, texted me saying she was so sorry but there's no space left she only secured enough for everyone that RSVP'd and the cruise is sold out but I'm welcome to fly out and hang with everyone in Hawaii if I can find my own accomodations, but since everyone planned on me taking the kids I'd need to find childcare first. I told her nobody every called me to even discuss me taking the kids. She didn't reply. Nobody was!
So since I already had the time off, my bf and adult son and I decided to take our own vacation. We all packed up the day before my family left and took off for a week long vacation states away. I purposely didn't tell anybody.
I started getting calls the next morning as everyone was coming to my house expecting to drop off their kids. I didn't answer. I refused their calls and ignored their messages the whole trip. We had a fantastic time and made great memories.
When I got back my family was furious. They said multiple people had to drop out of the trip and couldn't get their money back because they couldn't find last minute childcare. I told them that's too bad that sucks so much, they should have arranged something before they left. I reminded them, no one ever set anything up with me, and since I already had the time off I decided to enjoy that with my family. I'm sorry it didn't work out but I never offered to watch anyone's kids. You all assumed I would because you didn't invite me to keep me free to watch them. You didn't coordinate, I had other plans, that's how it works.
My cousin thinks I'm being a complete AH. That this isn't how family treats each other. It was an accident that no one told me but it's not her fault. She assumed I had been told and assumed I'd be ok with having the kids because I have before (with discussion and coordination that is!). She thinks I was being really selfish and childish and purposely going out of my way to an AH. She's even saying I'm lucky they didn't call the police on me for child abandonment because they expected me to be home and able to care for them all. I told her that's ridiculous. You can't just assume and expect things without my permission and input and you can't report me to the police for not wanting to care for your babies.
Was I being an AH for all this? Should I have just kept things peaceful and spent time with the kids since I got the time off anyways I could have done some fun things with them, but I really didn't want to. My house is NOT kid proof and I honestly don't really enjoy spending time with kids (yes I had my own, but I'm not really a kid person and he's an adult now those days are behind me, I'm not very interested in reliving them with other people's kids).