WIBTA for asking my sister to stop bringing her kids to my apartment unannounced?
I (34F) live alone in a one bedroom apartment and i genuinely love my space. I moved into this place two years ago after a really exhausting period of my life and making it feel calm and mine has been a big deal for me. My sister (38F) lives about 25 minutes away and has two kids, a boy who just turned 6 and a girl who’s 4. I love them a lot, they’re sweet kids and I enjoy spending time with them when it’s planned.
The issue is that over the last few months my sister has started just showing up. Like texting me “we’re in your area, coming over!” when they’re already in the car. Last Saturday I was in the middle of a work deadline, laptop open, calls scheduled, and she showed up with both kids and a bag of snacks like we had plans. I let them in because I felt like I had no choice and spent the next two hours trying to half-work while her son kept asking me to play and her daughter knocked over a plant. I was so behind after that. When I brought it up gently later my sister kind of laughed and said “you work from home, you’re always there anyway.” I know she’s tired and I know parenting two small kids is genuinely hard and I have a lot of respect for that. But my apartment is also my office and my one place where I can actually decompress. I haven’t said anything direct yet because I don’t want to make her feel like I don’t want to see her kids, I do, just on days where I can actually be presen t and not stressed out of my mind. Would I be wrong for having an actual conversation with her about calling ahead at least a day before?
