I’m starting to wonder if that single custodial dads might be one of the most overlooked groups in the church. I never thought about this until last week when the paramedics dropped off two of our neighbor’s children, children of a single dad.

This dad’s ex-wife and all family members live about 3,000 miles away. He works while his kids are at school, tries to work from home while taking care of the kids after school, and takes online courses after they go to bed. He has some serious heart problems that send him to the hospital, and his schedule keep him from the heart surgery he requires and from getting the rest he so desperately needs until that surgery can happen.

When I’ve seen situations like this with single moms, the ward takes action. Her children are taken care of, meals are provided, all by the Relief Society. The men give blessings, but most of the time is put in by the women. But if you’re a single dad, the Relief Society is a lot harder to rally. You don’t have visiting teachers to call on short notice, and calling the Elders Quorum president or your home teachers isn’t likely to result in an army of meals and childcare providers, even if that’s exactly what you need.

My husband and I have done what we can as neighbors and ward members for this family, but we can’t always be home to take his children when he goes to the hospital, nor can we make sure they’re getting enough to eat. Should the ward do more, or do we expect wards to do too much? Have we set up an unreasonable expectation from wards? Would this man get more help if he’d lived here longer? Would he get more help if he were still married, but his wife was the one with the heart problems?

Sometimes I think it was a lot easier to live in Kyrgyzstan where we didn’t have a ward at all. Where there were no expectations and we were all grateful for any help we got from other ward members, no matter how great or small.