i'm not a kid, i'm 23(well almost 23)
Kids talk about their age in halves ("I'm 4 and a half!"), teenagers talk about it in almosts ("I'm almost 16! I'm almost 18!"), adults talk about it in decades ("30-something")
Anyway, I'm glad that you're almost 23 (I confess, I had assumed that you were maybe 15) and haven't had to meet cruel reality too much. I'm 22, and I've seen way too many family members take advantage of the good will of other family members.. and then proceed to kick them to the curb when they don't get what they want.
Just one example that comes to mind: A cousin around the age of 18 (when I was maybe 12ish), was living with an aunt and uncle (once removed, that is our parents' aunt and uncle). They took him in instead of making him stay on the street during his rough times. He paid them back by stealing their car and running off a few weeks later.
Another: My father has had a year to find a job better than a seasonal part-time after his divorce from my mother (works for the school department as a lunch monitor). My uncle, my mother, and my grandparents have been giving him money for gas and food so he can survive. My uncle even pulled strings to get him a full-time job at a local store and my father TURNED IT DOWN! How is that for thanks? He'll freely take the money my uncle offers to help, but doesn't want to work full-time so he turns down the job. It's like a slap in the face! And my uncle
still helps him out with gas money even afterwards. He may be my father but he needs to wake-up, grow-up and realize that you need to work to live in this country.
Now that went off on a tangent and there's loads more I could go on about.. I could literally write a real-life tragedy/comedy novel on the antics of my family. My point is, the OP has gone above and beyond the call of duty to helping her sister get on her feet.
Her sister now has to grow up and take control of her own life, accept responsibility, raise her child and move-on.
@OP Your husband needs some serious appreciation for putting up with the whole situation. Situations like yours are difficult to work through and can really strain and hurt your marriage, so it's good to see that you are still a knit family after all of this. My parents weren't so lucky when mooching family came in the middle of us last summer (though our family-instigator was a 19-yo nephew, not one of their siblings).
Especially considering what you do with kids. It's also good if you have lived on your own, paying all your own bills. Not that is the end-all, be-all, but it certainly helps.
