Parents need to feel confident that their children are safe when left in someone else’s care.

This woman was confident that her parents were watching her young kids during a short trip.

But an emergency happened, so her parents made a decision to leave the children with strangers.

They didn’t inform her right away, so she found out about this a day later.

She confronted them with shock and disappointment.

Read the full story below and share your thoughts.

AITA for demanding my kids back immediately after my parents left them with “strangers” at a campground without telling me?

My parents were watching my kids (6M and 7F) for a few days, Sunday until Wednesday.

While my partner and I were working.

They were staying with my parents at a camping ground in another city.

It was about 120 km away or 75 miles).

This woman’s dad had an emergency and had to be brought to the hospital.

On Monday, my dad (kids’ grandpa) had a sudden medical emergency.

He had to be taken to the hospital.

During that time, my mom (kids’ grandma) left our kids in the care of two of their camping friends.

Let’s call them M & S. They left them for about an hour.

She found out that they left the kids with strangers a day after the incident.

We learned about the medical situation on Tuesday afternoon.

We received a lot of pictures of the kids on Tuesday morning.

And my mom assured us everything was going fine and never mentioned the hospitalization.

Here’s the problem: We don’t know M & S, and my parents never told us this happened.

We only found out over 24 hours later when I started asking specific questions.

Like who was watching the kids during the hospital trip, etc.

She was annoyed with the fact that they wouldn’t know about it if she hadn’t asked.

When I confronted them, they said it was a “force majeure” situation and assumed we’d understand.

I told them I would have understood if they had told us at the time.

But finding out afterward meant that if there had been an emergency, we wouldn’t even know who had our kids.

When asked how long our kids were in M & S’s care, they kept downplaying it.

First, they said “about an hour,” then later, “only 5 minutes at the hospital.”

She told them to stop the emotional blackmail.

When I said I wanted the kids back immediately, the emotional pressure started:

“Don’t do this to your kids. They’ll be so sad” and “You’ll ruin their fun.”

I told them to stop the emotional blackmail and that we wanted the kids back.

They refused at first, saying they’d bring them back the next day as planned.

They picked up their kids from the campground a day earlier.

I warned that if they didn’t return the kids that night, I would contact the authorities.

Only then did they agree, and we picked up our kids that evening from the campground.

We don’t own a vehicle, so we had to take an Uber to the camping ground which cost us over $300 CAD.

Not a problem.

My kids’ safety is far more important than 300 bucks, but still, it carves a hole in our budget.

Now, she’s wondering if she just overreacted and if she shouldn’t have gotten the kids back?

Now, they say I “overreacted” and “hurt the kids” by ending the visit early.

From my perspective, they violated a major boundary we had already discussed in the past.

And withheld important information for more than a day.

AITA for insisting on getting my kids back right away instead of letting them stay one more night?

Let’s read the responses of other people to this story.

This user shares their personal thoughts.

This person gives their honest opinion.

Calling the authorities is crazy over-the-top, says this one.

This one makes a valid point.

Finally, this person thinks OP was overreacting.

Trust is hard to rebuild once it has been broken.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.