Navigating a newly blended family is often difficult work, especially for teenagers.

One father assumed his teenage daughter would be more than willing to babysit her half-sibling for a few hours.

But when she emphatically refused, it revealed their familial bond wasn’t near as strong as he once thought.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for forcing my daughter to babysit her half-sibling?

I have a daughter [16F] with my first wife. We’ve been divorced for 6 years and both of us remarried partners.

My ex has custody most of the year, but my daughter stays with us on alternating school breaks and summer.

She has her own room, and we give her a lot of space, and my wife is very respectful towards her. She is a very responsible girl for her age. But she is also a typical teenager and very moody.

So when a scheduling conflict came up, this father reached out to his daughter for a favor and she quickly declined.

I would never expect her to babysit them regularly, but I asked her to watch 3yo while we took 10mo to a scheduled doctor’s appointment that afternoon. We both needed to be there as we’re slightly concerned about an aspect of 10mo’s development.

I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but she said nope, I don’t feel like it. I said do you have plans?

She said nope, I just don’t feel like it, he’s annoying and I want to watch TV.

He presses his daughter more, which only makes her angrier.

I said you don’t need to do anything with him, he’s 3, and it’s for a few hours at most.

And she said no, and actually maybe I’ll make plans if you’re going to be a jerk about it.

I was mad at the disrespectful naming and told her this was special circumstances and part of being in a family.

He can’t help but be a little resentful over how much better she treats his ex’s kids.

She babysits for my ex’s kids all the time and posts pictures of herself with them all the time. My 3yo is getting older now and starting to pick up her negativity. She is cold to them all the time.

She finally agreed in a very annoyed way and it was all fine, but then she complained to my ex who is now ticked at me.

AITA?

Sounds like this father-daughter relationship could use a little TLC.

What did Reddit think?

This father’s lack of planning shouldn’t constitute an emergency on his daughter’s part.

He has every right to ask and she has every right to decline.

This father doesn’t seem to understand the nuances of this situation.

There’s a hard truth here that this father doesn’t seem to be acknowledging.

This father expected his daughter to just step up, but he failed to consider that she was still navigating a new normal.

One thing is clear: this father needs to lecture less and listen more.

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.