update: I don’t want to babysit my brother in my office

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Remember the letter-writer whose mother was pressuring her to babysit their brother in their office after school? Here’s the update — and some more advice from me.

Thank you for answering my letter! It was too late to reply to the comments after work, but I’ll address some of them here:

For those asking if I still live with my mother: I moved out when I was 18 and live in my own apartment with roommates. My brother was born when I was 10 years old, so that’s where the age gap comes from.

For those asking why my brother can’t just stay at home like most teens: He usually does, but given my brother’s recent trouble in school, my mother wanted some adult supervision over him. Also, he could take the bus to my job or to my mom’s house but not to my mom’s job.

For those concerned about whether my brother has been a victim of abuse: I absolutely hope not, but nothing has indicated that as of now. His teacher, principal, and school counselor broached the subject, but my brother had repeatedly denied anything nefarious. A commenter brought up unsupervised Internet use, and I think that’s the likely culprit. My brother has his own dumbphone, but my mother lets him on her smartphone all the time. (A point of contention is that my brother will whine to my mom if I don’t let him use mine, and I’ve been practicing standing my ground with mom on that front.)

As for the actual update:

On the day after you published my letter, I decided to reach out to my manager with a quick warning with the script you suggested. He was very understanding and said that it wouldn’t be a problem. He asked if he should reach out to CPS, and I said maybe not on the first time my brother might show up. Calling CPS still feels like a nuclear option.

My manager also asked the receptionist if she had recalled any conversation about “single mothers” allowing their kids in the office. She said that there was a job candidate who had called the other day asking about it. The receptionist said that she kept repeating that she couldn’t disclose childcare policies to candidates but gave a short comment that single mothers sometimes brought children just to get her to stop. (When I pressed my mother about this, she confirmed that she was the “job candidate.”)

That was a Thursday. For everyone saying that my brother would have a surprise visit to my workplace, you had predicted my Friday afternoon.

I had gotten a call from the receptionist that a boy was sitting on the bench outside the front door. My brother argued that our mom said that he could stay at my job. I made him march to the bus stop to go home, and I stayed outside until the bus came.

Later that day, I ran into a different coworker who said that she ran into my brother on her smoke break. She said that he said something “weird” to her that she couldn’t actually make out, so we both went to my manager to talk about it.

We decided to pull up the security footage from the front door. When my coworker approached, my brother made an obscene comment to her, out of nowhere. (Note from Alison: I’m censoring the comment because it’s obscene, as well as very weird.)

My coworker just stood there and asked, “What?”

After some silence, he slouched in his seat and mumbled something. We couldn’t hear it on the feed, but my coworker said she could maybe make out “never mind.” I apologized to her and affirmed that he was not coming to the office again. She told my manager and me that she didn’t want to press the issue as she was more confused than anything when he said it.

My phone call with my mother about this was loud and angry, but I did my best to stand my ground. I said that I had already made my “no” clear enough, and if my brother shows up at my job again, my manager will call CPS.

She said a lot of things that made me second-guess myself, especially since everything she said is objectively true — that I don’t understand the stresses of motherhood, that someone could’ve kidnapped my brother and it would’ve been my fault, that there is nobody else in her life who can help her, that it’s so easy for me to not care about my brother because I can give him to her, and that I never hang out enough with him anyway.

But I told her that I can’t do my job with him there and, conversely, that I also can’t watch him while I do my job. That he was only there for 20 minutes and already harassed a coworker, and that it wasn’t going to be any better for her or my brother if he got in more trouble.

I had to hang up on my mother in the middle of talking to her because I was just repeating myself, and I just felt like a bratty teen for doing it, no different from my brother. I realized halfway through talking to her that I was trying to give her that “perfect” argument a commenter mentioned to show that I understood where she was coming from, especially since, as many commenters had noticed, that our family situation has been really strenuous since my dad died.

I do want to thank you and the commenters for your advice. Sometimes I get frustrated when people tout about boundaries on the Internet as if it’s trendy and easy, but I still feel like my boundaries don’t help my mother or my brother. My only substantial argument was that having my brother at my job would’ve helped my brother less, and I’ve been holding onto it for personal reassurance. There’s not much else for me to say with this response already so long, so thanks again.

I don’t normally provide additional advice when I publish updates, but this is important to say: the main goal of setting boundaries is to help you. As it happens, your boundaries are likely to help your mom and your brother in the long run, too, by modeling healthy interactions and being clear about what you will and won’t accept so they can make their own choices accordingly … but the measure of success in setting boundaries isn’t “does the other person accept this / feel good about it?” or “am I bettering the other person’s situation by maintaining this boundary?” Boundaries are about keeping you in a healthy and sustainable place. The fact that your mom doesn’t want that for you is a mark of the dysfunction in your family dynamics, but it’s not selfish to create a separation between yourself and that dysfunction. (In fact, that’s often the only way to escape it.) You can still love your mom and brother while declining to engage in that dysfunction with them.

Frankly, I’d argue setting boundaries is a loving gesture toward them, because it’s an investment in having a healthy relationship with them in the long-term — but that’s not the main driver of why you set boundaries, and whether they perceive them that way or not isn’t the mark of whether boundaries are working.

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