Do I even have a right to become an adult?

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Last night, we were getting ready to go to Costco to pick up some necessities. As we were pulling out, I was telling my dad that I planned to start volunteering with the library several times per week once I finish my last paper. I asked him if that was okay, and he replied "I guess, it's only going to be a couple of times a week."

I am upset about this. I have very nearly completed a master's degree. I think I have more than enough right to go out and find a job and start working.

My dad has been largely taking care of my youngest sister's child for the last 5 years. He does not have custody of the child. He is a retired school custodian and letter carrier. He is 75 years old and second-generation Japanese-American.

I have done what I can to help him care for my nephew. I have watched the boy while he has attended doctor's appointments and other meetings. I bathe the child almost every night, put the child down for naps, have him go potty, dress the child, cook the family dinner, help my dad by doing dishes, doing laundry, etc.

All of this doesn't seem to be enough for my dad. My youngest sister, for her part, hasn't really been a mother to her child since he was born. She took care of him for the first couple of days after his birth, but went to the psychiatric hospital for post-partum depression and hasn't returned to mothering since. I pitched in with the babysitting both to help my dad and because I thought if I helped out, it would give my sister a chance to finish her education and get a good job to take care of her child. She lives with my dad, but is either working, or hanging out with/helping friends, or trying to look for guys. She has attended community college irregularly over the last 6 years, but has not graduated. She has been married twice, but the marriages broke down because of conflicts relating to her temper. She moved out between October 2013 and April 2014, but returned because she could not make it work with her then husband. She complains about my dad's apparent inability to properly discipline her child or undermining her discipline of the child by my dad's apparent indulgences towards the child. My mom and other sister agree about the discipline part, but have not discussed the idea that if the sister wants the child disciplined a certain way, the sister needs to take responsibility for her own child, including spending quality time with the child (other than the occasional visit to a restaurant or ice cream shop).

This sister, at various times, has had conflictual relations with all members of the family for various reasons. She complains that people 'touch her stuff," but she leaves things laying around the house quite frequently and does not regularly launder her clothing (instead she often buys expensive new clothing). In the past, she did not have a computer and used mine, but in the rare occasions I said no, she got mad and went to my dad (who usually forced me to renege on my "no" decision). In the aftermath of a fight related to this issue, I heard her describing me to my other sister as a "smelly anime nerd" who she worried was going to corrupt her child into a "smelly anime nerd." She recently bought a new car and my dad cosigned the loan for her car, stipulating that she needs to decrease non-essential expenses such as going out and eating at home rather than buying restaurant food (she does not like a lot of what I cook). She has had fights with my dad and has withheld her child from my dad on at least two occasions but the situation returned to being normal. She has stated repeatedly "she hates the family" because "nobody has each other's back," and because my dad has recently talked about moving from Boise to either Helena, Montana or North Idaho (which she disapproves of due to their extremely rural nature (I think this is a rare point of agreement between me and her)). We were talking about moving to Bremerton, WA but that plan failed when my family sold the house and took an apartment-finding trip in late June of this year and found out that apartments and housing was very expensive in WA. The family then looked at Indiana (because we have relatives out there) and took a 10-day long trip to Indiana to find a house, but they did not like the area and again returned back to Boise.

For my part, I do not feel that I want to take on custody of the child or increase my caretaking of the child. I do not feel that I am emotionally stable or financially adequate enough to handle full-time caretaking of the child. I have my own interests and desires for what I want out of life. I am gay and my dad disapproves of me being gay (he thinks I should become straight). He has a hard time discussing my Aspergers (He thinks I use it as a "crutch," but I embrace it as part of my identity). It feels like he often treats me as a child, criticizing my housekeeping ability (e.g., complaining I leave the wash cloth in the sink when I do the dishes), not letting me wear what I want (he tells me I cannot wear sweatpants outside of the house, when my sisters are allowed to be adults and wear what they want), and has told me off and on about his desire to die and how miserable he is with the child raising responsibilities. But then he made the decision to take upon himself the raising of my nephew. There have been no discussions about him taking custody of the child or about the child being put up for adoption, due to the likelihood that my sister would have a "blowup" if the issue was brought up (she gets very defensive when these sorts of issues got brought up in the past, accusing people of saying, in effect "It's your fault" or "you're a bad mother").

I would like nothing more than to find a good librarian job in some other part of the United States and move away from my family to start out on my own. Things have been pretty traumatic in the 9 years since my parents divorced. My mom has shuttled back and forth between Egypt and the United States, my youngest sister and my dad have had repeated fights, she got pregnant and had her child.

In the past, my dad has vetoed my plans to move out (pulling out a calculator and estimating my expenses and telling me that it won't work on Idaho wages (Idaho has a minimum wage of 7.25 and a lot of jobs here pay 3-5 dollars less per hour than jobs I have looked at in other parts of the country). It also kind of feels like my dad knows that the responsibility for raising the child is overwhelming both for him and for me, but that he feels that I should take it upon myself to help raise the child.

I want to continue using the library 5 days per week to both volunteer and work on preparing resumes and doing job searching. I just worry that my dad is going to try and have me stay home more.