Teenager babysitting scenario; # child limit?

[Inspired by Reggio]

Oh Dream ~ total empathy for you here!

We use to get our stepson basically all summer long, every PD day and over Christmas ... basically whenever there was no school until the year he turned 10 .... now we do not get him for any 'extended family vacation' because they make him babysit as well and half the time his stepfather is 'out of work' and could do it himself but they argue he is 'looking' for work and need him there to babysit

The first year she lured him in to wanting to do it with saying she would pay him and than when he asked for his money at the end of the summer she told him 'oh you spent it ~ that is what covered all your back to school clothes" and he was PISSED!

So the next year he stood up to her and came with us for the two weeks we went away to the States on holiday and she made him feel guilty and when it was time to go back to school shopping she basically refused to get him anything and said because she had to pay someone else to watch the brother for those two weeks there was no money left for school clothes .... so we ended up having to take him for his clothes and supplies to ensure he had some!

Not to mention that their household income is MORE than ours and we pay her equivalent to a mortgage payment in child support every month THAT is what is supposed to buy his clothes not his babysitting money or the money she pays someone else to babysit

Karma is coming her way though ... cause he is 16 now and talking about coming to live with us for his final year of school and if he cannot make it to then coming mid semester and just busing it to his school ... he is now old enough to CHOOSE for himself without having to go fight her in court ... which means he is old enough to notice her 'pay stubs' and do the math to realize how much they make every month and than claim to have no money for things he 'needs' and old enough to see that she is a manipulative and selfish women who has never 'put him first' a day in her life and often being a hypocrite in her expectations of him compared to herself ... most recently grounding him from everything under the sun for not taking his ADHD meds regularly and it affecting his grades and than turning around and leaving him 2 weeks without his medication and heading into his exams without any medication to help him focus on studying for them because she is 'too busy' to call the Dr ... we had to actually give him money for a pay phone and tell him to call the DR himself from school on a break and ask for a refill to be called in and give him the money to pay for it when it did .... things we have been doing for him since he was 3 but he is just now able to reflect on through emerging adult eyes about how these are things his mother should have been doing!