Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m a stepmom in a blended family. My husband has a 5-year-old son, “Corey,” from his first marriage, and together we have a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. We used to have Corey on Sunday afternoons, but his mom took a new job when he started kindergarten and pushed for custody changes. Parenting two kids all week is exhausting, and now we have Corey Friday through Sunday every week too. Corey has a lot of trouble every time he switches over from his mom’s house to ours and tattles that his stepsister “isn’t following the rules”—but it’s because his mom is a helicopter parent, while our house is about independence-building. He’s clingy and needs help with everything, and the weekend is miserable for everyone.
Corey’s aunt takes him after school four days a week, but not on Fridays. This means we have to arrange once-a-week after-school care for him, which is expensive and inconvenient, and I usually end up having to be the one who leaves work early for pickup because that care ends at 4:45 p.m. I’m exhausted by this and the full weekend of managing our two kids plus Corey that comes afterward, including driving him to activities, like soccer games, that his mom is happy to sign him up for and leave to us to deal with. I need Corey’s aunt to take him on Fridays, at the very least, to make it fair, but she refuses because she blames me for her sister’s divorce. When I asked my husband to talk to his ex and her sister about making the child care arrangement fairer, he said he’d do it but then made excuses and never did. I know that the divorce was unfriendly, but it’s been nearly five years and I’m tired of dealing with this. Corey would benefit from more predictability with his aunt, I know. I also think if he wasn’t scheduled for weekend activities he’d become more independent. I can’t get any support for any of this! How do I get my calm weekends back?
—Overworked Stepmom
Dear Stepmom,
I am trying, really trying, to be sympathetic. But it’s hard for me to cheer you on, particularly since that cheerleading would come at Corey’s expense.
This is a 5-year-old whose father left him and his mother. For Corey’s entire life, his dad has had another family, including children he seems to be more devoted to; Corey “gets to” spend limited time with his dad—one afternoon a week, for years!—and his dad’s second wife makes it very clear that having him around more than those few hours once a week is a burden. Why wouldn’t he act out?
When you married your husband, you became a stepmother, however reluctantly. Your having two kids with Corey’s dad doesn’t negate his—or your—responsibility for his other child. What did you think or hope would happen to Corey?
A change in custody arrangements because Corey’s mom has a new job could have been a boon for this child: whole weekends with his other parent, whom he saw so little of before. And this could have been an opportunity for you to step up and be a real stepmom—to really get to know him, to love him, to include him in the full life of the family you’ve made with his dad. Instead, you’re focused on the inconvenience and expense of finding child care for him on the one weekday afternoon his aunt can’t (or maybe even just won’t—but it isn’t her responsibility, it’s his parents’, as in all three of his parents) and the misery of having to look after all three kids on weekends. You even begrudge the poor kid any scheduled weekend activities, because getting him to them is another inconvenience to you.
Of course Corey is “clingy.” Of course these transitions are hard for him. I’m relieved your husband didn’t do as you asked. (Though he is not at all blameless in this situation.) He should have said no when you proposed he tell his ex-wife and ex-sister-in-law they weren’t being “fair” about parenting duties, instead of pretending to agree with you, making excuses, then not doing as you instructed.
If you can’t get it together to care for this child in the way he deserves—the way every child deserves—you’re not only harming Corey, but you’re showing your two biological children how to be unloving, withholding, and cruel. As to your calm weekends: You’ll get them back someday, but now is not that someday.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My 16-year-old granddaughter lives far away. For the past 10 years, she’s visited me in the summer, without her parents, for several weeks. Her parents don’t make her visit—she says she wants to!—and we always have a great time and it feels like we’re close. Then, when she goes home, I reach out with phone calls, texts, and birthday/Christmas gifts. I almost never hear back from her. (Just for example: My 10 most recent messages have gone unanswered.) I message maybe twice a month, things like “How’s school going?” or “Did you receive the gift I sent for Christmas?” No reply.
I know she struggles with depression and that she spends most of her free time engaged with her phone rather than with people in person. My son—her dad—is also not great at keeping in touch, but he and I do talk. I’m aware that this lack of being in contact isn’t just between the two of us—she’s like this with every extended family member (all of whom live far away from her). When she’s with me, she seems as if she truly enjoys the time and attention I give her, but since she has no desire to be in touch between visits, I wonder if there’s anything I could do better.
—I Miss Her!
Dear Miss Her,
It sounds like you’re doing great with her in person: Keep it up! And I understand completely how much you miss her and how deeply you long for regular contact between visits. But I urge you to keep your eye on the prize: Your granddaughter enjoys spending time with you. She asks to spend time with you. Since you’re aware that keeping in touch isn’t her forte, maybe try adjusting your expectations instead of hoping to get her to change. Ten unanswered texts in a row is a message: It’s a message that says Stop texting me, please. If it hurts your feelings (and I can’t blame you; I’d be hurt too) that she doesn’t message you to thank you for the gifts you send, feel free to stop sending gifts. (You can always send her a birthday card that says, “Let’s pick out your birthday present together next time you’re here!”)
I’m glad your son, who isn’t good at staying in touch either, makes the effort (or in any case is better at responding to your efforts), but he’s an adult—don’t compare the two of them. I do know this much for sure: If you complain to her about her failure to text back, initiate contact by texting you, or pick up the phone, you’re more likely to push her away than to get her to be in contact regularly. Some relationships are not meant to be “even.” I have a feeling that your being reliably “there for her”—even if she can’t be there for you in the same way—is more important to her than she can say. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be spending precious weeks of her summer vacations with you. Keep it up. As she gets older, a sense of responsibility toward you may well kick in—or, who knows, she might want to be in contact more often for her own sake.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
In 2022 I took a contract job in my brother’s town, where I work full time at the hospital. I hoped we could become closer, since I felt as if my family drifted apart in the pandemic and I’d been widowed after a short marriage. Shortly after I moved, my sister-in-law had a second baby, and they were struggling with child care. Because my job wasn’t a 9-to-5 position, I agreed to help with some child care on weekdays. This hasn’t been smooth: They’re both pretty demanding about it and get angry when I warn them of upcoming overtime at work or go on planned vacations. But I love my niece and nephew, so I make it work. I haven’t been able to build the kind of closeness I wished for with my brother and sister-in-law, but I don’t see that changing now that I know who—and how—they are.
My contract is coming to an end in August, and I’ve decided not to renew but to get back into a travel position to meet some financial goals. I’ll move in with old friends (whom I’ve lived with in the past) in between travel cycles. This way I can contribute some rent toward their mortgage, make and save some money toward my own goals, and spend time with my friends and their kids when I’m home.
I don’t know when to tell my brother. Ideally, I’d like to give them a lot of notice to find a new child care arrangement, but he and his wife have been pretty nasty when I’ve had child care conflicts in the past, and I don’t want to make my last months here bad. But my sister-in-law is pregnant and expecting in the fall. I’ve already told her I can’t take the kids during the birth, and she was angry about it. I had to tell her: I didn’t want her to count on me for this, then leave her in the lurch! But now I am really full of dread about breaking the bigger news. What do I do?
—Traveling Aunt
Dear Traveling,
TELL THEM NOW. You don’t want your last months in this town to be “bad”? How good will they be if you spend them feeling anxious about delivering your news? (And even if you can suppress your dread, nothing good can come from putting this off.)
Yes, it sounds as if they’ll be angry and won’t hesitate to express it. While I wish you’d stood up for yourself before, it’s not too late to let them know that your life is your own, that it can’t (and should not) be spent in service to them. You don’t have to be mean about it. You don’t have to bring up past wrongs against you (especially if you hope to maintain contact with their children once you move away and continue to be an involved and loving aunt). Just tell them you’re ready for a change and want to make sure you’ve given them plenty of notice that the change is coming so that they can make other arrangements for the care of their kids.
They may call you selfish. They may berate you for (as they see it) giving them the idea that you were available to them indefinitely, then pulling the plug. So what? Prepare yourself for all the worst things they may say and, when it comes, deal with it. Having people angry with us isn’t fun, I know—it feels awful, maybe unbearable—but it happens. It’s a part of life. As are disappointments and mistakes and grief. I’m very sorry that your hope of having a close relationship with them did not come to pass. Now it’s up to you to create a “chosen family,” like so many of us do. It sounds as if you’ve already made a good start on this with the friends you plan to stay with.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My 6-year-old daughter hates being called cute. (I think she’s adorable, but I respect her wishes and don’t try to convince her that “cute” is a compliment.) I think she perceives comments about her “cuteness” as being infantilizing, and I’m not sure if this is a phase all 6-year-olds go through, but she seems to think of herself as much older than she is. She’s also pretty shy, so when adults comment on her cuteness, she has no idea how to react. But I can see how upset it makes her.
Unfortunately for her, she has a lot of traits that many people find cute. She’s missing her front teeth, her eyes are big, she has a high voice, and she’s small for her age, so she’s often mistaken for being younger. And we live in a place where strangers don’t think twice about coming up to us in the grocery store and talking to me about how cute she is. It isn’t the idea of cuteness in general that bothers her. She is fine with things being cute, and she herself finds animals (especially cats) cute. I’m not sure there’s anything for me to do here. I’m a single dad, for what it’s worth, but my daughter says this happens when she’s out with my sister or my parents too, and actually even more often when she’s with my parents.
—Father of an Expressly Not Cute Kid
Dear Not Cute,
Why don’t you ask her, first, how she would like to react (“What do you wish you could say?” or “What would you say if you weren’t shy?”), which should give you some insight into what it is about this that so upsets her (so you don’t have to guess or make assumptions)? A bonus is that verbalizing this may help her understand what she’s feeling, and the conversation you two have about it is likely to be more productive than the ones you’ve had before.
But at her age, she shouldn’t have to handle this on her own, especially not with strangers who approach in the grocery store. Find out what she would like you (or her aunt or grandparents) to say/do when people talk about how cute she is. Don’t just ask her either. That question might get you a half-whispered “I don’t know” or maybe a shrug (how should she know? She’s only 6). So try role-playing these interactions with her and make it fun—a game. You be the stranger in the supermarket and let her be you (her favorite stuffed animal or doll can stand in for her as you remark on its extreme adorability). She’ll probably offer some responses you won’t want to make use of (e.g., “Shut up! She is NOT!”), but both of you will learn a lot from this game, and together you should be able to come up with something that works. It’ll also give you the opportunity to help her distinguish between behavior that’s annoying to her (which can be responded to politely but firmly) and behavior that endangers her (in which case she should know not to be polite).
And I don’t want to forget to say: Good for you, not trying to make her gracefully accept a “compliment” that doesn’t feel like one to her. If only every child had a strong advocate supporting them in how they feel.
—Michelle
More Advice From Slate
I am a childless woman in my late 30s who is dating a single dad with shared custody of his 5-year-old daughter. Things have been going great, and we are starting to discuss moving in together. My concern is with my role as a kind-of stepmom to a girl I genuinely love. I’m looking forward to helping to parent this child but both parents are VERY active in her life and I worry about overstepping, especially since I have little experience in this area. I think she is a great kid, but I worry that she is being coddled and catered to by both her parents.
