It’s heartbreaking to see a child long for their parents’ attention.

Sometimes you just want to scream at a mom or dad to wake up and be there for their kid.

The person in this story didn’t scream, but her bold response to her brother-in-law’s absentee-parenting made her family cringe.

Find out why in this story.

AITA for mocking my BIL’s absent “parenting”?

My sister (32F) and her husband, Parker (35M), have two adorable kids, Serenity (8F) and Destiny (5F).

Parker, however, doesn’t exactly win Father of the Year awards.

He works late most nights, spends weekends glued to his phone, and leaves the parenting heavy lifting to my sister.

But even in the same room, there is distance between them.

Now, I love my sister dearly, but watching her struggle while Parker plays absentee dad rubs me raw. Last night, it boiled over.

We were at a family dinner, and Serenity, bless her heart, confided in me how she wished Parker would play catch with her like other dads.

Parker was literally right there, scrolling through Twitter as if she didn’t exist.

Sparks flared when this aunt could no longer handle what she was seeing.

I snapped.

Not my finest moment, I admit, but I blurted out, “Maybe if your dad wasn’t so busy being a thumb champion, he could find the time to throw a ball.”

Parker looked up, face like thunder. My sister shot me a pleading look, and the rest of the dinner was tense as a drum.

Now, everyone’s calling me the AH for publicly humiliating Parker and embarrassing my sister.

They say I should’ve pulled him aside privately, not make a scene.

She’s is unsure of another way to make an impact.

But honestly, how many private “talks” does it take before a man steps up for his kids?

So, Reddit, am I the jerk for calling out Parker’s abysmal parenting? Should I apologize?

Let the judgment commence!

Let’s check out the comments.

Exactly what I was thinking.

I’ve read a lot of stories about why people don’t visit their parents at the nursing home. The reason is often something like this.

This person shared the other side’s perspective.

A small minority said YTA, not for the reason she did it, but for HOW she did it.

Right? It sounds like this is a longstanding issue and now he’s tuning them out.

Fierce loyalty is great, but not always welcome.

There could always be something more going on behind the scenes.

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.