Being a best friend is a lot, but in some people’s heads, it now means running a part-time daycare with no salary and less flexibility than a yoga instructor. It starts innocently enough, a favor here or there, but soon just a bit transforms into a standing babysitting appointment that somehow always clashes with actually living your own life. Nothing says appreciation like being guilted for keeping up with school, missing shifts, or daring to have outside plans while a bestie vents about the cosmic injustice of not having on-demand help for every bottle and meltdown.

Modern young adulthood does wonders for exposing friend dynamics that lean more lifetime contract than mutual support. Suddenly, a study-abroad acceptance turns into an act of betrayal, with every personal triumph recast as evidence of disloyalty instead of growth. Apparently, backing out of a never-agreed-to co-parenting gig gets you a one-way ticket to emotional exile and a scolding from someone else’s mother who never learned boundaries in the first place.