My Mom Wants My Child to Spend Vacations at Her House. But She Is Keeping the Other Occupant a Secret From Me.
Slate · L · trust 26/100
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 .
I have a tolerable relationship with my mother. She doesn’t have a history of making good choices, and the short version of the long story of my childhood is that she did not protect me from physical abuse. Currently, I see her a few times a year because I live halfway across the country.
A few years ago she started dating someone. I found out after the fact that she had gotten married. I have never met this man. I have attempted multiple times, but there’s always some excuse or weird avoidance tactic. Once, he dropped her off several blocks from my house, and she walked the rest of the way with her suitcase rather than him driving up to my door.
My problem is now I have a child. My mother wants to be involved in my child’s life, including things like overnight visits and vacations spent at Grandma’s. I do not feel comfortable with my child spending time in her home with this man I’ve never met. I would prefer the opportunity to meet him for the first time without my child present but so far, no luck.
I’ve spoken directly to her about how strange it is that my child has a grandparent that I’ve never met and that we should rectify this before my child is old enough to ask who the man is in the picture with Granny. Her response is that I’ll meet him eventually.
It’s been nearly five years already, and I haven’t been successful in meeting him. Short of showing up unannounced, I’m not sure how to force the issue. Am I overreacting? I don’t want to punish my mother by limiting her access to my child unless it’s in my home, but I don’t see another option.
Remarkable! She walked several blocks with a suitcase so you wouldn’t see his vague outline through a car window! I am now picturing the neighbor from Home Improvement.
I think you know what to do here, and just need some reinforcement and encouragement. No, you should not let your daughter spend the night with a man you have never met, especially considering your mother was an enabler of abuse, especially considering the lengths she is willing to go to to keep you from seeing his face.
If this was 20 years ago, I would assume she’s married to Whitey Bulger. Today, my money is on one of those guys in arrears for like three decades of child support.
The point here is that you are welcome to keep telling your mom you need to meet him, but even if she reluctantly agrees, I wouldn’t let your kid spend the night (or day) with them unsupervised.
From: My Mother Won’t Introduce Me to Her New Secret Husband but Still Wants My Kid to Stay Over. (October 22th, 2018).
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My 15-year-old son has been pretty responsible for his whole life: He always gets his homework done and turned in on time, rarely loses things, and does his chores without being asked. However, he got his braces off about seven months ago and is already on his fourth retainer!
As far as I’ve seen, he’s using his case, but he has returned home from school twice holding a broken retainer, and once claiming to have lost it. We have given him punishments when he loses them and praise when he doesn’t for a little while, but we need a better solution. We can’t keep paying for new retainers, in addition to having him go a week with no retainer while it’s being made. What should we do?
He’s 15. I know it feels like you’re setting a stack of money on fire (all that orthodontia down the drain!), but at this point, I honestly do not know what you can do that you are not doing. Sit him down, write down how much money you have spent on his mouth to date, tell him you are willing to get him exactly one more retainer, and after that, he’s on his own. When he’s an adult, he can decide if he wants to invest in his teeth or not.
He’s had a lot of dental work already, so I doubt that he has medically significant bite issues or other major problems (by all means, have your dentist lecture him if you have not already tried that). If he loses some or all of the cosmetic benefits from his braces, well, that’s his choice. My parents were never able to afford braces for us, and for most people in the world braces are a luxury item. You got him the damn braces, so you have my permission to throw up your hands and let him deal with the consequences of losing his retainer again.
From: My 10-Year-Old Refuses to Talk to Me About Sex. (March 30, 2020).
My husband and I were lucky enough to find a great day care less than a mile from our house. I typically drop our 3-year old off on my way to work, and my husband picks him up on his way home.
My husband owns multiple cars and often rotates which he drives to work—but he only has one car seat. I assumed he moved the car seat in the morning when he chose what car to drive, but discovered he was not doing that. He admitted that if he happened to drive a car that didn’t have a car seat in it on a given day, he would simply buckle our son in normally (as if he were an adult).
I was livid and told him I felt like this was dangerous and really irresponsible. My husband responded by getting upset, then reminding me that the day care is close to our house, and that he was able to take a route home from the day care through a neighborhood (so no streets with a speed limit greater than 25), and that he made sure to drive slowly and pay attention to what was going on around him.
I told him he had to either change the car seat over or come home and get the car that had a car seat in it to get our son, or I would start picking our son up. He said he would start making sure he had a car seat, but when he discussed picking up a car he’s had in the shop, I had to make him agree he would stop by the house to get a car seat (along the lines of “so you’re going to come home and get a car seat before you get…
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