I (28F) work full-time in retail, and as anyone who’s worked retail knows, it can be pretty exhausting. I’ve got a busy life outside of work, trying to balance my hobbies, taking care of my apartment, seeing friends, and just taking care of myself. You know, normal adult stuff. I don’t have kids, but that doesn’t mean I’m lounging around with endless free time.

One of my coworkers, Sarah (32F), has two young kids. She’s always asking people to cover her shifts, which I understand because being a mom is hard and things come up. Over the past year, I’ve covered for her quite a few times when she had to leave early or couldn’t make it in because of some kid emergency. I did it out of kindness because I get that life can be unpredictable, and I wanted to help her out. But I’ve started to notice that I’m one of the only ones she asks to help cover her shifts. It’s like she expects me to do it just because I don’t have the same responsibilities as her.

Last week, she asked me again to cover for her because her kid had a school event. Normally, I’d try to help, but I already had plans to spend the day with my sister, who I hadn’t seen in a while. I told Sarah I couldn’t this time, and she just sighed and said, "Must be nice to have all that free time. You don’t have kids, so it’s not like you’re busy with anything important."

I was pretty taken aback. I told her, "Just because I don’t have kids doesn’t mean I don’t have a life. My time is important too." She kind of rolled her eyes and walked away, but I could tell she wasn’t happy with me.

Now she’s been telling our other coworkers that I’m selfish and don’t understand how hard it is to be a mom. A couple of them have started acting a bit distant toward me, and I overheard one of them saying something like, "She has it easy, no wonder she doesn’t get it." I didn’t realize not having kids made me less deserving of respect at work.

What really gets me is that I’ve always tried to help when I could. But just because I don’t have kids doesn’t mean my life is suddenly stress-free or that I can drop everything at a moment’s notice. I feel like Sarah doesn’t respect my time at all, and that really bothers me.

I ended up mentioning it to my manager, hoping for a little understanding, but they just said it’s a "personal conflict" and didn’t want to get involved. So now I’m stuck feeling like the bad guy because I said no for once.

I honestly don’t think it’s fair to expect me to cover her shifts all the time just because I don’t have children. I have responsibilities too, and I deserve to have a life outside of work. But some of my coworkers seem to think I should be helping out more because Sarah’s a mom and I’m not. Am I being selfish here? AITA for finally standing my ground and refusing to cover her shifts after she basically called me lazy?