How to say NO to a family member request about taking care of her child?

Question

Background

I have this family member, my cousin, who lives 30 minutes ride away from me. She has a full-time job and her mother takes care of her 6-year-old child during the day, while she is at work. The "taking-care" in this case is mainly taking the child to school. Public transportation to school is not available in my country. Usually, parents drive their kids to school. Recently, for some reason, her mother has to leave town for 2-3 weeks.

This family member asked me to take her child to school for this time period.

Note that I have a full-time job too and a very demanding job as a software developer. I really don't have the time and energy to deal with this situation.

School starts at 8 am and I also have to be at work at 8 am.. So this'd mean for me to maybe arrive 45 min to 1 hour late at work. (Although the child could arrive at school maybe 15 minutes early, this would still make me late for work.)

She probably asked me because she knows that I can substitute my working hours. If I come to work 1 hour late, I can substitute it by working an extra hour in the evening. I have decided not to help her this time because if I say yes, I have to do this for 2-3 weeks, most probably 3 weeks. Coming up to 1 hour late for 3 weeks would not be acceptable by my manager. Plus, I've just finished a project for which I had to work 65 hours a week (for 6 weeks), so I don't have the energy.

There might be other alternatives besides me helping her. My family member has two brothers also living in the area, one of them lives three blocks away from her apartment. So one of them could help, she told me by herself that I'm the first person she thought to ask for help. Also, hiring a person as a nanny, would be an alternative. Finally, she could work something out with her supervisors at work, to allow her to come late at work for these 3 weeks because she has a child to take to school.

Question

How to say NO to this request gently, without hurting her feelings?

I also want to point out that she is divorced and has had lots of difficulties to bear in her life. She is indeed an excellent woman and mother.

Update

I talked with her over the phone and told her: My boss won't be ok with me coming 1 hour later for 3 weeks straight. She said she understood me and will ask another family member, one of her brothers who is married with two kids. He is very much likely to agree to help.

I wanted to be discrete, but now I decided to explain why I was firm to say NO. I am a rational person and I put my work first because I thought that in this situation, she could find a different solution to her problem. I have helped her other times and I am not regretting it but this time I though she asks me for help simply because I don't say "No" to her. And truly, my work situation was that adjusting my schedule would be very difficult for me. Considering everything, I decided that I couldn't agree to my cousin's request.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Answer 1

I think that you might be making this out to be more complicated than it is. The factors that matter:

1. Your cousin absolutely needs assistance if her son is to attend school during this period (unless she quits her job)
2. It would be a substantial disruption for you to provide this assistance for the entire period
3. The disruption is more than you are willing (or able, though that's a poor line of argument to take here) to provide

It seems clear from the question that, if forced to choose between agreeing to help your cousin or hurting her feelings, you would choose the latter. There is no point in pretending that this is not the case, especially because you probably technically could help her.

So the best response to your cousin will be firm in your refusal, with only the broadest (true) explanation as to why:

I can't adjust my schedule that way for 2-3 weeks, my boss won't accept it.

Any equivocation on this, or expansion to pretend that you literally cannot help is risky. Specific reasons that you've provided so far do sound like excuses because they don't actually preclude you from helping. They may be excellent reasons why helping would be a big burden for you, or why you don't want to help, but those are not the same as saying you want to help but truly cannot. Pretending the latter will only make you look dishonest if she presses you at all.

If you really want to avoid hurting your cousin's feelings, you can agree to help out for part of the time that she's gone:

I can take him to school for one week, but that's the most leeway my boss will give me. You'll have to make other arrangements for the rest of the time.

That way you're still helping with the problem, and seemingly to the maximum extent you can (whether or not that's actually true). It completely avoids the (not entirely incorrect) impression that helping your cousin with this difficult and (perhaps) unavoidable situation just isn't important enough for you to do. It's that impression that's going to hurt her feelings, if anything does, so addressing it is the best way to address your goal.

Answer 2

You need to be direct with her:

Unfortunately, my work schedule does not allow for me to be able to drop off the child at the scheduled time.

This makes it clear that your reason for not accepting her request is solely because of your work obligations and not because you don't want to help. Her feelings should not be hurt as she is presumably in the same situation with regards to work schedule ( this is of course, assuming that the cousin is not aware that you can modify your schedule ).

Also, if she tries to argue that you should adjust your work schedule to be able to drop off HER child at school (i.e. initiating a confrontation ) you can politely ask her why can't she do the same?