Woman Cancels Family Fourth of July Celebration After Sister Refuses to ‘Keep an Eye' on Her Son Around Pool

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a day ago

A woman stepped back from hosting on the Fourth of July after her nephew repeatedly threw objects, including electronics and plants, into their pool
Her sister, the boy's mother, refused to supervise more closely and suggested a pool fence, sparking a major disagreement
Now that the family has defaulted to meeting at a public park instead, her sister claims they're being unfairly excludedA woman is turning to Reddit for support after a family dispute left her sister and nephew excluded from a Fourth of July celebration.
Hosting family events has become her new normal ever since the poster's parents sold their house and moved, but this time, things have taken a complicated turn.
While the woman and her husband "don't mind" their new role as go-to hosts, tensions have risen with her sister.
The poster explains that her sister's 13-year-old son with autism "is absolutely fascinated with dropping things in water," especially in their pool.
'He will just grab anything he can find, sneak over to the pool, and lay down on his stomach so he can drop whatever in the pool and watch it float or sink to the bottom,' she shares.
After the first incident, when her nephew dropped a mix of harmless items and a book into the pool, the poster and her husband tried to find a solution. To help, they provided him with 'a big bucket full of pool toys and balls' to keep by the pool.
However, she admits, 'It didn't really work though because he gets bored with those things and will sneak all sorts of things from the yard or house into the pool.'
So, the woman asked her sister "to keep a better eye on him," but instead, the sister suggested they install "a pool fence." However, the couple feels that it would be "unnecessary and inconvenient" as they "don't have anyone with small children over."
She also clarified that their yard is 'enclosed completely with an 8ft tall fence, locked gates, and the pool is usually always covered, but obviously not during a party" when people are swimming.
She explains, 'He and this issue would literally be the only reason to have a pool fence and he doesn't visit often to begin with.'
While the sister "seemed annoyed/offended" with the poster's request, she agreed that she or her husband would keep an eye on the teen the next time around.
However, things came to a head during a Labor Day gathering. The poster claimed her sister "purposefully kept less of an eye on him out of spite because all sorts of stuff ended up in the pool.' The list included pens, soda cans, a potted cactus, a shovel, books, a BBQ scraper, a game controller and even a roll of paper towels.
Frustrated, 'I'll admit it I got a little heated with her later about the whole thing,' the woman writes. Her sister, however, shifted the blame back, once again insisting they need to get a pool fence.
"It turned into an argument about us being ridiculous for saying it was an inconvenience for us to have a pool fence and how we don't know what an inconvenience even is," the woman writes. "That we don't get how it's not reasonable to expect them to be able to watch him every second."
The argument ended with her sister saying they "shouldn't even host if we're going to be bad hosts and not make accommodations for our guests.' This exchange left a lingering tension between the sisters.
When the family group chat began discussing Fourth of July plans, everyone assumed the poster and her husband would host as usual. But, she didn't "want to have to deal with the pool issue again and told everyone we wouldn't be able to host because we couldn't accommodate everyone.'
She acknowledges that her message was 'admittedly a little snarky,' but no one else knew about the previous argument aside from her sister.
With her home off the table, someone else suggested meeting at the park. Her sister objected, saying, 'Her son can't handle crowded spaces and the park has a lot of people during the fourth.' The rest of the family struggled to find an alternative, as 'no one else can host.'
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the sister was privately messaging other family members, "complaining to everyone privately about us actually not hosting because of her son."
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Still, with nowhere else to go, in the end, "everyone decided on the group chat to go to the park. Kind of more to just go on their own and maybe we'll see each other or meet up.'
'Now my sister is upset about everyone choosing to go to the park even though they can't go and we started it and set the tone for everyone to think it was okay to exclude them," the poster writes, turning to Reddit to see if she was in the wrong.
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