When you have children, it can be difficult to leave them in the care of babysitters while you go off to work.
It's often easier to leave little ones with family members who you know well and can completely trust.
However, one parent recently did just this, only to discover he couldn't trust his in-laws as much as he first thought.
As a result of a difficult situation, the dad claims to have since banned his wife's parents from looking after his young daughter without him there.
The unnamed man revealed all in a post on Reddit's Am I The A**hole forum, asking fellow users if he was in the wrong for his decision.
He began by explaining that he was a widower and had a six-year-old daughter who had always been a fussy eater - but she'd become even pickier since her mother's passing.
"She loved her mother's cooking and refused to eat anything that isn't made by her mother," he explained.
"I decided to learn to cook her favourite meals that my wife used to cook and my daughter has been loving 'my version' of her mother's cooking."
The man says he has recently started a new job and as such his mother-in-law has volunteered to look after his daughter several days a week.
Because of the issues with food, the dad has been preparing meals for his little girl to take with her to her grandparent's house so they wouldn't have to worry about what she would or wouldn't eat.
He thought things were going well until his daughter admitted that her grandmother had been binning the meals and attempting to get her to eat other food instead.
The girl wasn't keen on the dishes the older woman cooked, so for several days she had only been eating snacks and no proper food.
"I was enraged, I confronted my MIL and she said that she didn't find that me sending meals with my daughter was the right thing to do and wanted her granddaughter to eat her cooking and was upset that she refused," he continued.
"She said it's my fault her granddaughter doesn't want to eat certain foods and that I was spoiling her rotten with this behaviour.
"I mentioned to her that the meals she threw away were my wife's recipes and that I struggle so hard to provide those meals. As well as taking time to learn to cook them.
"She stated I wasn't doing good job parenting and needed to get a grip because she's feeling concerned about how spoiled my daughter is being because of me. I eventually told her I won't let her watch my daughter from now on and decided to ask my sister for help."
The man adds that his in-laws have told him he's "cruel" for not letting them babysit their grandchild and promised to let the girl eat what she wants in future. However, it seems to be too late as his trust in them is broken.
Over 1,700 people responded to the Reddit post, with many taking the dad's side in this argument.
One person replied: "You don’t fix picky eating by letting a child go hungry."
Another said: "Her mother died, and her dad decided to help his daughter eat by learning his deceased wife's cooking. It's an everlasting connection between them and their lost wife/mother. No way on this blue earth would I let her babysit my daughter again."
A third added: "I found as a parent the 'pick your battles' philosophy worked well. My oldest was a super picky eater. Was food a battle worth fighting? No. Kiddo was eating and his doctors said his weights and heights were healthy. Lots of folks around me kept telling me what I needed to do to fix him. He didn’t need 'fixing'. He grew out of it."
What would you do in this situation? Let us know in the comments below.
