College Student Asked Her Sister for $320 a Month to Babysit Her Toddler Four Days a Week — Even Though She Lives There Rent-Free

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A 19-year-old college student thought she had a workable family arrangement: live with her older sister and brother-in-law, help with childcare a couple days a week, and keep school on track. But once the toddler’s schedule changed and the need for coverage doubled, the student found herself staring at what looked a lot like a full-time job—without any paycheck.

In the original post, she explained that she moved in last year specifically to babysit her sister’s child while attending college. The child is now 18 months old, and the student said she doesn’t pay bills and is given “food and a bed to sleep on.” What she wanted, she wrote, was a small, predictable payment—$320 a month—to cover watching the toddler three to four days a week for 10-hour stretches.

It began as two days of help while she went to college

When she first moved in, the deal sounded defined: two days a week of babysitting for 10 hours. She framed it as a way to support her sister’s household while also having stable housing and the ability to focus on school.

Then her sister’s work situation changed. A few months ago, her sister learned she could no longer work from home, and the student said her sister expected her to take over childcare for all the days she’d be in the office. That meant alternating weeks of three and four in-office days—still 10 hours a day of coverage.

That shift didn’t just add hours. It effectively swallowed up the time she’d use to earn money elsewhere, making the “free room and board” part feel less like a perk and more like the only compensation she was going to get.

The ask: a flat $320 a month, even if it was “severely underpaid”

The student wrote that she approached her sister with a number she believed was intentionally modest. She asked for a flat $320 per month, acknowledging upfront that for the hours involved she would be “severely underpaid,” but saying she didn’t mind because she knew her sister was “financially struggling” and couldn’t afford daycare or an official babysitter.

She also tried to build in flexibility. According to her post, she offered “leniency of 3 months of missed payments” if her sister couldn’t pay on time—essentially a grace period before she would stop providing childcare.

In her mind, the request wasn’t about squeezing money out of family. It was about having some form of income while doing what she considered full-time labor—especially since that labor prevented her from taking a job.

Her sister didn’t fight—she pushed her to focus on school instead

The response she got wasn’t the argument she seemed to expect. Instead, her sister told her to focus on finding a job and concentrating on college, because she never wanted her family to be “a burden” on her.

It was a protective answer, but it didn’t solve the math. The student’s point was simple: if she’s providing childcare most of the workweek, she can’t take on employment that would actually pay her. Living rent-free only goes so far when you have no cash flow at all.

And the subtext was hard to miss. If her sister didn’t want the arrangement to be transactional, that might also mean she was not going to formally commit to paying for what was becoming her primary weekday responsibility.

The second sister turned it into a family-values argument

The tension escalated when another sibling weighed in. The student said “sister 2” understood why she’d want to be paid, but didn’t agree with asking for money. The reasoning was straightforward: the older sister is feeding her, housing her, and not charging her bills, so expecting cash on top felt wrong to sister 2.

The student pushed back. She said she has no income and can’t get a job while watching the toddler. Sister 2’s reply, as described in the post, was blunt: if she wanted money “that bad,” she should go get a job and earn it herself.

That’s where the student’s frustration sharpened. She argued that the monthly amount she asked for was reasonable, and she pointed out that her sister’s household could “easily spend $300 to have fun on the weekend after they got paid.” To her, it wasn’t an impossible expense—it was a choice about whether childcare labor counted as something worth paying for, even within family.

What the real-world consequences look like: daycare prices and a trapped schedule

Behind the disagreement is the practical reality of childcare costs. The student said her sister could end up paying over $1,000 a month if the toddler goes into daycare, and noted that in California, full-time daycare can “easily be 2-3k.”

At the same time, the student recognized the downside of holding firm. If she stopped babysitting, her sister’s household would have to scramble—either paying for care they can’t comfortably afford or making work adjustments that might not be possible.

In an edit, she added that the child is not in daycare yet and that the conversation happened earlier in the week. She said she’s currently looking for jobs, and told her sister she can wait to start working until they can officially place the child in daycare.

She also said she plans to contribute more formally once she’s employed: rent, utilities, other bills, and her own groceries. That part matters because it reframes her original request. She wasn’t trying to live off her sister forever—she was trying to survive the gap created by a childcare schedule that left her unable to earn.

Where people drew the line: room and board vs. paid childcare

Even without a rundown of individual replies, the conflict shows the two camps people tend to fall into when family and childcare collide.

One side treats housing and food as fair compensation—especially when the caregiver is an adult living in the home. In that view, asking for additional money risks turning a supportive family home into an employer-employee relationship.

The other side looks at the hours: three to four days a week, 10 hours at a time, with responsibility for an 18-month-old. That’s not “helping out,” it’s coverage that replaces daycare. And when that coverage blocks someone from working, the lack of any income becomes a real problem, even if the rent is free.

The student herself seemed caught between those two interpretations. She wrote that she now felt guilty for making the relationship transactional, and worried about her sister paying daycare costs because of her request. At the same time, she described her own labor as “a full time job, unpaid,” with no “reward or income aside from the privilege to live in their house.”

By the end of her update, she sounded less focused on winning an argument and more focused on preserving the family bond while figuring out her next step. She emphasized that the relationship with her sister wasn’t stained in a way that would lead to resentment if she chose herself and her future. And with daycare not yet in place, her immediate plan appeared to be job-hunting—while the family works out what childcare will look like when she’s no longer available to cover those long weekday hours.