This teenager set boundaries with Dad’s new girlfriend after she and her 5-year-old son moved in, protecting his peace and locking his door after the clingy child refused to let him sleep.

I’m not an only child, but sometimes I wish I was. Dealing with a sibling can be emotionally taxing, especially if you have a big age gap. As one sibling goes through their puberty years, the other is just getting out of diapers, this widening the rift between them. Oftentimes the eldest will get stuck with some of the parenting duties, which isn’t too unreasonable to imagine. But when a teenager goes from being an only child to being the sole night manager of their clingy kid-stepbrother, the drastic change in family dynamics is more than destabilizing, it’s maddening. 

Keep scrolling to read how this 15-year-old kid handled the adjustment of introducing his dad’s new girlfriend to the mix, drawing a hard boundary line that would ultimately remind her who’s kid needed parenting.