"Family responsibilities" on common app

My extracurriculars are pretty limited due to my responsibility in watching over my autistic younger brother on certain school afternoons when my mom is at work. It’s been this way since middle school and has had a pretty profound impact on my life, which is why I’m choosing to write my Common App essay centered around the experience and the lessons that my brother has taught me.

My question is whether I should also list this as “family responsibilities” under the extracurricular activities portion of the Common App? Since I’m already centering my essay around it, I’m assuming listing it would just be repetitive and also give away what my essay is about. But the same time, I don’t want an admissions officer to reader my essay and wonder why I hadn’t considered the story as an extracurricular.

I would have no hesitation in listing it.

Yes, I would if I were you. I can’t see how any application reader would respond in a negative way to doing so.

Since you spend a lot of time with him out of school, yes you should list it as your #1 EC (since you write your essay about it, I’d assume it’s very important to you.)