Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so today we’re diving into the archives of Care and Feeding to share classic parenting letters with our readers. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My older sister is quite devout and seems to feel that it is her duty to rescue those family members she feels have strayed from the religious upbringing she and I experienced. Each of her nieces and nephews is gifted with a monthly devotional booklet subscription, given each year as a Christmas present. They are all adults now, and not one of them wants to receive this subscription. I know that several of them have asked my sister to stop sending it, and she ignores the request. The nieces and nephews view this continued push of religious propaganda as insulting and disrespectful.
Now, my own adult child has established an address of her own, and my sister has asked for it. I referred the request to my daughter to either give it or not, and she is conflicted. She is frustrated and insulted that my sister continues in this unwanted campaign to influence her choices (she is a wonderful, thoughtful adult who frequently sings in church choirs and is a paragon of good behavior, but not a member of the church where we were raised). Also, she believes that if my sister wants a relationship with her as an adult, she should contact her directly. Regardless of my attempts to remove myself, I seem to be in the middle of this anyway. What is my play here? I will be at a family gathering soon, and I’m sure that my sister will bring up the fact that I have not given her my daughter’s address.
— Conflicted in Pennsylvania
Dear Conflicted,
I can’t say it won’t lead to awkwardness or bad feelings between you and your sister, but as a parent, your play here seems obvious: Respect your child’s wishes. She hasn’t made a decision about whether you can share her address with your sister, so don’t share it. If your sister keeps asking, you can instruct her to reach out to your daughter directly via some other method (call, text, email) if that is really what your daughter would prefer, or else say that you’re not going to share your child’s address without her permission.
As many in your family have already tried to get your sister to stop sending unwanted religious paraphernalia, I suppose adding your voice might not do much good. But if I were in your place, I’d still want to be direct and tell her that’s the reason you aren’t sharing your daughter’s address. Maybe if she sees that there are consequences for continually disrespecting her family members’ beliefs and boundaries, she’ll stop proselytizing by mail and content herself with (silently) praying for you all? Probably too much to hope for, but miracles can happen.
—Nicole Chung
From: My Religious Zealot Sister Keeps Trying to Involve Me in Her Schemes. (February 2nd, 2023).
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My husband is terrified of flying and finds the process of air travel in general to be extremely stressful. He doesn’t want our toddler to fly either, even if I offer to take her by myself. He’s convinced that she’ll find it just as stressful and scary as he does, so we should stick with car trips. The problem is that my family all lives 1,200 miles away. I want my daughter to know her cousins and grandparents, but I simply can’t drive that distance with her at this stage: She gets carsick, and I don’t have the vacation time for 2,400-mile round trips. My parents have flown out several times to visit us, but it doesn’t seem fair that they’re always the ones to travel. And meanwhile, my husband’s family all lives within 200 miles, so they get to see our daughter all the time. I don’t even know what I’m asking. Is this fair? Does my husband really get to unilaterally determine whether I get to take our daughter on airplanes?
— Just Let Her Fly
Dear Just Let Her Fly,
It’s one thing for your husband to choose not to fly, but if his anxiety over it is so severe that he is trying to control whether you and your daughter do so, that could be a sign that he needs some more help dealing with it. Of course it’s okay if he doesn’t want to travel by air. But by refusing to allow your child to fly, he is preventing her from seeing half her family and you from visiting yours.
He can’t know how your daughter will handle air travel if she’s never flown before. I think it makes sense to try to take her on a flight with you. If she does well on the trip (or, you know, as well as toddlers ever do on planes), which she probably will, that is a good data point. You should absolutely be able to see your family if you want to, and bring your daughter along. Hopefully your husband can work on accepting that the two of you will occasionally need to travel by plane—and will, for your child’s sake, try to avoid instilling the same fear of flying in her.
From: My Husband’s Unreasonable Phobia Is Causing a Rift in Our Family. (April 13th, 2023).
Dear Care and Feeding,
My 6-year-old son, while extremely bright, has a significant speech and motor delay and a birthday that falls late in the school year. He’s an only child who tends to prefer playing with children slightly younger than himself. After lengthy conversations with his teachers and therapists last year, my husband and I decided to have him repeat kindergarten. It turned out to be a wonderful decision. He moved to a new school this year and his kindergarten teacher is an amazing person who creates lessons that are engaging and fun, and he’s with a group of children who feel like his peers for the first time. He’s showing confidence I never would have imagined, and we’re able to focus on his speech and motor issues since academics are coming easily.
But suddenly, this week, he has begun asking why he isn’t in the first grade. He’s said he’s embarrassed to be in kindergarten again when his friends from last year are in first grade. I was surprised to hear this because I honestly wasn’t sure how much repeating kindergarten had even registered with him. We talked about it with him when we registered for his new school (simply stating that now he’ll get to be the oldest kid in class instead of the youngest, which he happily agreed to) and he hadn’t mentioned it since then. He really loves school, has made close friends in his class, and adores his teacher, but he has suddenly latched on to the idea that he isn’t where he’s supposed to be. My husband and I are 100 percent confident that we made the right decision, but how do we explain that to him?
—Twice the Kindergarten Was Just Right
Dear Twice,
It may well not have fully registered with him until now. My guess is that it came up in conversation with one or more of the other children—that he said something about his old kindergarten and someone let him know that doing kindergarten twice is not the way it usually goes. I’m glad that things are working out so well for him and that you are certain you made the right decision (from what you’ve said, so am I!). I would “explain” the situation only in terms of its positives, and in a way that he’ll be able to understand—in other words, by telling him the truth, but only the part of the truth that is going to be helpful to him. “We wanted you to have the chance to do kindergarten at this fantastic new school with this great teacher and all these wonderful new friends.” You might even add, “It’s too bad all your old friends didn’t have that chance, isn’t it?” It’s pretty clear he is exactly where he is supposed to be. That’s what I would emphasize. If he keeps talking about this—which I doubt he will—I would point out to him all the ways that he is thriving and happy. He’ll connect the dots himself (would he rather be in first grade at his old school, with the kids he used to be in class with? I’m betting he would not) without your having to ask that question.
—Michelle Herman
From: Was It Wrong of Me to Explain to My Daughter the True Meaning of “WAP”?(November 29th, 2020).
Classic Prudie
My husband, our three young children, and I recently went on a vacation with my in-laws. We provided the accommodations. My mother-in-law tries to act more like our children’s mother than a grandmother. She loves her grandchildren, but she is very interfering, judgmental, and disrespectful to me and my husband. On this recent visit she brought a children’s book for our 5-year-old daughter that was missing the last two pages. The book was about a girl who visits her grandmother for the summer every year; my MIL wrote an ending with my daughter that said the girl’s parents died and she got to live with her grandmother forever. It was written like a happy ending! When we confronted her (away from the children) that it was inappropriate, she blamed our 5-year-old saying it was all her idea. I am so upset I can’t even look at this woman; and now she is suggesting we get together again next month to go camping. What should we do?