When a parent is absent for most of a child’s life, they don’t usually get to call the shots when they decide to show up.

What would you do if your child refused to see their other parent after years of inconsistent visits?

Would you force them to go, knowing they don’t want to?

Or would you respect their right to make that choice for themselves?

In the following story, one mother finds herself in this very situation with her daughter and ex-husband.

Here’s what happened.

AITA for not forcing daughter to visit her dad

I have a very complicated co-parenting relationship with my daughter’s (13) dad.

He lives in another state and rarely visits.

He visits once a year.

We do have a court order that states he can have visits, we just need to work them out first.

We do a shared calendar.

Now we don’t do a whole lot of stuff, so there might be 1-3 weekends that are busy throughout the entire year.

In January, he messaged me saying he would be coming out in February.

I hadn’t put anything on the calendar yet but I knew we would be busy only 1 weekend that month (Valentine’s Day, then my birthday is the next day).

That just happened to be the weekend he picked.

She tried to warn him.

I told him that wasn’t a good weekend, but every other weekend was completely open.

He got mad and said no, he was coming down that weekend, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Honestly wasn’t going to argue with him.

So I informed my daughter that her dad was coming out that weekend.

She freaked out when hearing when he was coming out.

She told me her friends had told her that her crush was planning on asking her on a Valentine’s date (which would be her first-ever date).

She immediately called her dad and begged him to move the weekend.

He actually yelled at her, then yelled at me for “turning her against him.”

He showed up anyway.

She ended up hanging up on him and has been ignoring his calls since.

Well, she was asked out on a movie date for Valentine’s Day (to be supervised by the boy’s mom).

So Valentines day comes, her dad is in town now, she refuses to go and goes on her date. She refuses to even meet up with him.

I’ve tried multiple times to get her to go see him, even for a bit, but she is not budging.

He is obviously very mad, he’s now threatening to call police and the courts to see if i can be thrown in jail.

I’ve tried talking to her, but I can’t drag her into the vehicle and force her to stay with him.

AITA?

It’s understandable that he wants to see her, but he’s being a little unreasonable.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit have to say about it.

This person could be onto something.

This person suggests she call his bluff.

According to this comment, he would probably get in trouble.

She speaks from a place of experience.

She should leave it up to her daughter.

Either she wants to see her father, or she doesn’t – it’s that simple.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.