Is accessibility for people with chronic illness or disability ever optional? No, but it can get uncomfortable, especially with family.

Check out this story to see how a conflict arose around a service dog with a young family member and how her mom handled it.

AITA for refusing to take my daughter’s service dog back home?

I have a 12yr old daughter (let’s call her Reese) who has a service dog for her diabetes. The dog is by her side about 22hrs a day.

Recently, we were going to visit some newer relatives, so I double checked with the host to make sure that nobody had allergies and she said it was fine.

That sounds awkward and upsetting for everyone involved.

So we show up to this family function and one of the cousins (let’s call her May) is immediately concerned and says we can’t bring the dog in because her 4yr old is deathly afraid of dogs.

I explained the situation and that the dog wouldn’t go near her child, and May still insisted that her daughter wouldn’t be comfortable and asked me if I could “put the dog away” or take it back home.

OP didn’t have to do this.

I didn’t budge, so she ended up sitting as far away from the dog as she could possibly get, telling her upset daughter “I won’t let the dog hurt you” which made Reese feel like she was causing trouble, and stressed the kid out.

Says everything you need to know about her.

My SIL says that I could have prevented the drama by just taking the dog home for its rest time and monitored Reese myself.

AITA for refusing to take my daughter’s service dog home?

Here’s what commenters had to say.

Excellent analogy. It really is that important. The nerve of this person…

A lot of people said she is conditioning her child to be afraid and also using her child as a tool to manipulate people. Both will scar her mentally.

THIS. Kids need to be told that it’s okay to stay away from toxic people.

Educating is a lot less work than instilling hate and fear.

But this person is a Karen and by-laws don’t scare them.

I’m glad to see so many people combating these backwards ideas about disability.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.