Navigating life as a single parent can be tricky.

What happens with your kid when you need to work late?

Or if you end up having to stay overnight in hospital?

That’s why the dad in this story has been so understanding, but when the situation got to be too much, he didn’t know where to turn.

Read on to discover what exactly happened between these two families.

AITA for refusing to look after the child of a parent who may need to go to hospital?

I have two daughters in their early teens. The older one is autistic.

A couple of years ago my younger daughter had a sleepover with six or so friends for her birthday.

A few days later we had a request from the father (Gary) of one of these girls (Elsie) for her to stay over because he had to work a night shift.

My wife and I were surprised by this as we didn’t know him and we wouldn’t want our kids staying with someone we didn’t know.

We said yes, though, and she stayed.

Let’s find out what happened next.

Elsie and Gary then signed up for a weekly class that both my kids do.

Since Gary doesn’t drive I give them a lift every week.

This is the only interaction I have with Gary; I’m not not close with him at all.

Despite this, he asked on a few more occasions (maybe three or four times) for Elsie to stay at our house.

My daughter has grown away from being friends with Elsie over the past year or two, and my older autistic daughter doesn’t like the invasion of her space that having someone stay brings.

It also complicates work from home as we need our office setup as an extra bedroom.

Our kids normally cycle to school but Elsie doesn’t have a bike, so I need to drive them which is an inconvenience to me.

Even so, we always agreed to have her to help Gary out as he’s a single parent and she was in need.

Uh-oh. Read on to find out how this situation developed.

Recently he has become ill and been admitted to hospital.

He asked for her to stay with us while he was in and we agreed as he’s a single father and we felt sorry for him.

We ended up having her her for five days, but we weren’t sure how long it would be initially.

Gary knew he would need to go back into hospital at some point but made no arrangements for Elsie and assumed she could stay with us again.

He ended up going back in earlier than expected and basically dumped her on us again.

We felt we had no choice but to look after her.

Again we had no ideas how long this would be for.

It was ten days this time and we were all beyond our comfort zone with the situation, but my autistic daughter was really struggling with having a guest in the house for that long.

Let’s see how this dad tried to overcome this difficult situation.

A few days after Gary got out of hospital, he messaged us to say he might have to go in again and that she would like to stay with us again.

I shut this down quickly and said that there is no way she can stay again.

I feel bad because he is a single parent and claims he has no one else to turn to, but I feel that he has had plenty of time to sort out other arrangements and that I need to put my own children first.

Her mother is alive but not an option for reasons that I don’t know about.

AITA?

It’s a tricky situation, but it’s hard to believe that there is no one else that this guy’s daughter could stay with.

To keep dumping her on this family is inconsiderate to say the least.

Let’s find out what Reddit had to say about this.

Many posters were empathetic with the situation and how much it sucked for everyone involved.

However, this person thought that the girl’s dad might be taking this kind family for a ride.

Meanwhile another thought that, while he was not in the wrong, this dad could have been more open with the girl’s father.

Others agreed that he needed to be upfront and honest.

It’s clear that this family were doing their best, and just trying to help this little girl and her dad out.

But all healthy relationships need communication, and they all deserve better.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.