This seems like a 'boy who cried wolf' problem. If dad is calling you daily, and you don't feel like talking to him today, that should be a reasonable ask. You

This seems like a 'boy who cried wolf' problem. If dad is calling you daily, and you don't feel like talking to him today, that should be a reasonable ask. You could get unlucky and have it be that someone's at the ER, but if they're calling daily, that's unlikely. If they had texting as the default medium, with calling reserved for important and urgent communication, they wouldn't have this problem. Maybe I'm just reading to much into this, but I know people who live with this exact situation with their parents, being called several times daily, and if I were in that situation, I'd just stop taking their calls at some point, no matter how important it is.