Having kids is a stressful situation for any parent and having family nearby to help out is monumental as long as you don't take advantage of them. Recently, one woman took to Reddit to gripe that her sister's passion for fostering dogs has gotten in the way of her babysitting her own kids — and it's annoying her.

The woman admitted her house is "chaos" with her four kids — ages 10, 5, 3 and 11 months — running around, and she is overjoyed when her sister can step in and help out.

"My sister is child-free, but loves my kids and was happy to watch them to help me keep my sanity," the overwhelmed mom wrote via Reddit. "This has been extremely helpful and I tell her all the time how grateful we are for her help."

However, her sister has been fostering dogs in desperate need of care, which has made it difficult for her to be available to babysit.

"The thing is that the kids used to go over to her house, but right now they can't because my sister is fostering an elderly chihuahua," she wrote. "My sister claims she couldn’t have them over for the time being because they would stress out the dog. Her dog was extremely frail and timid, so I think this was a fair assessment."

The mom continued: "This was the 4th dog she has fostered, all of which couldn’t be around my kids. When she told me she found an adopter I knew I could finally breathe a sigh of relief and joked about how I was so glad she could babysit again."

Matthew Henry via Unsplash
Matthew Henry via Unsplash
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The mother-of-four also shared that her husband doesn't help "as much as he should," so she's been relying on her sister, which won't be possible as she wants to keep fostering more dogs.

The woman even confronted her sister.

"I haven’t ever done this before, but I opened up to her about how much I have been struggling since she got the dog. How little sleep I get each night and how my husband hasn’t been helping as much as he should," she wrote. "Then I asked her, point-blank, to not get another dog."

However, the sister has no desire to give up her passion of fostering dogs to babysit her nieces and nephews.

"She comforted me, but ultimately didn’t agree on anything and said she needed some time to think. I know I am asking a lot of her since rescuing dogs is her passion and that is why I feel so guilty. But I don’t have anyone else to help me," the woman continued. "Above all, my kids will always come before a dog and that’s the reason I was willing to request it. I’ve told a few different people about the situation and gotten a wide range of heavily biased opinions."

However, many Reddit users were outraged by the mom's request of her sister.

"Your sister's time isn’t any less valuable just because she's child-free. Child-free people don't exist on this earth to watch your children. It’s wonderful that she’s offered to watch them as much as she has, and it’s great that you remember to thank her often, but you have to understand that when she does watch your children, it’s not because her time is worth less than yours and it’s just naturally expected that she help you," one person wrote.

Another person suggested that her husband step up to the plate and help.

"OP [original poster] even admits her husband isn't pulling his weight as the other parent," the wrote. "Well, that means it’s time to have him take responsibility for creating those kids with you. Your sister had no part in that whatsoever and is not obligated to provide help when the parents aren’t doing their job."

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