17-year-old forced to babysit stepmother's kids for 6 hours on his day off, he leaves the house instead, forcing the stepmother to cancel her plans: 'She was trying to guilt-trip me about canceling'

This 17-year-old found himself needing to move in with a family member when his mother had to move into a care home to aid her failing health. The teenager had the chance to move in with his maternal grandparents, but his father insisted that he move in with him instead. His father had never been present in the teen's life until this point, and unfortunately it wasn't a sudden pang of altruism that drove him to insist on taking his son in, but rather the fact that by having his son under his roof, he would be free from paying child support for the first time in 16 years. From there, the teen's father continued in his old ways, not supporting the teen, forcing him to care for himself or seek the care of his grandparents. His father's fiancée, the soon-to-be stepmother, saw an opportunity too, and promptly moved in with her two children. The idea, unbeknownst to the teen, was that he would be a live-in childcare provider for her two children while she went off to do as she pleased. Unwilling to be party to this childish game, the teen instead left, leaving the stepmother to stay with her own children. This sparked a confrontation that would prompt the teen to pack his things for good.

While you should help out where you can with family, parents shouldn't expect their teenagers to act as built-in babysitters to the extent that it affects their own opportunities and chances at building a future. This is even more so when it's a newly blended family with children who are almost completely unknown to each other. Besides, it is not as if there is a strong foundation of mutual trust here already for this father-son relationship. Rather, the father has a history of not being there for the teen, so why should he suddenly expect the teen to be there for him?