alt Hacker NewsYour kids getting picked up shouldn't depend on you seeing an instant message, that should probably be agreed upon the previous day. Sure, emergencies happen, in which case you can't really be held responsible. But if that happens more often than not, that's bad parenting.
Or maybe your agreement with your spouse is to communicate over instant message about managing these daily tasks, in which case it's ok, but you better crank that notification sound all the way to 11 LOL
Ok, feel free to rephrase "you need to" to "will you", and have the only real reason why you didn't respond be because you just didn't feel like responding at that moment. It'll still be frustrating having the other party just be willfully absent to the conversation.
My point is, there are types of messages which are highly time sensitive to the point where the response is meaningless past a certain point, and to many in this day and age instant messaging is the format for such inquiries to be made. Sure, one could be busy and be unable to respond, and one should be understanding of that. But it the reason why my spouse was unreachable was because they didn't bother responding to me at that moment to a time critical message we've got some problems in our relationship to figure out.