Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
The elementary (K-8) school my kids attend has been struggling for several years due to staffing issues and other problems, and the issues were recently exacerbated by a financial scandal in the administration of the school, which caused several families to choose to move out of the neighborhood or enroll in other schools.
Having fewer students has made the school experience even worse for the remaining students. For example, they no longer have enough students interested to be able to offer certain extracurricular activities. I’m still deeply committed to this school and the chosen family there that I love, and have volunteered many hours and donated money to support the school. I am having a really hard time when other school families tell me they’ve decided to leave. I understand their reasons, as I too feel disappointed by what’s happened. But quite frankly, I feel like they are screwing over the rest of us.
Some of these parents have been close friends of mine for almost a decade, and they want to remain friends and for our kids to stay close even though they are leaving the school. I feel like they are betraying our community and what I thought were our shared values, and I don’t know how to continue with the friendships, nor do I really desire to. I’m trying not to be petty and hold this against them, but I’m honestly heartbroken and don’t know how to act. I guess there’s only a little bit left of the school year to avoid them at pickup, and then I can ignore their texts forever after. But that also feels gross, and what about when my kid begs to see their friend? Any advice?
—Struggling
Dear Struggling,
I’m sorry to hear all this. It’s a rough situation all around. But if these folks are really your friends—your chosen family, you call them—I think the answer is to speak to them honestly about how you feel. Everything you’ve said to me is worth airing to them. You can tell them you understand why they’re leaving, but that you nevertheless feel let down by them, and explain the reasons why. Will they be defensive, even angry with you for “making” them feel bad about what they’re doing? Probably. Will your friendships survive? Probably not (especially given that you say you don’t really desire to continue your friendships with them). But as tough as these conversations will be, and as sad as the aftermath is likely to be, it’s better than feeling gross. (Which I agree is what ghosting them would be.) And who knows? You might be able to work through all these tough feelings with some of these long-time friends if you’re honest with them and they’re able to hear where you’re coming from without lashing out in return.
As to the friendships between the children, I’d do my best to encourage these friendships to continue if the children ask for that. The children are not to be held accountable for their parents’ decisions. It would be a tightrope to walk for sure, but it’s possible. I’ve been there, so I know.
If you focus on two additional priorities beyond your commitment to the school (which I absolutely understand)—honesty, and the well-being of all the children involved—you and your family should be able to weather this rough stretch.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My husband and I recently hosted an engagement party for one of his cousins, as we have a large house that’s perfect for entertaining. His sister, “Nancy,” however, brought her 2.5-year-old along without permission. She did not supervise him effectively, and he ended up breaking an expensive vase and getting cut (thankfully not seriously) in the process.
When I asked her to reimburse us for the vase, she said we were lucky she isn’t suing us over her son getting hurt! And when I said she knew our house wasn’t childproofed and pointed out that she had brought her son over without giving us advance notice, she said she hadn’t been able to give us a heads-up because her sitter had cancelled at the last minute … and besides, “He should have been safe in a houseful of adults.”
My husband says we should just forget about being paid for the vase. I think Nancy was 100 percent in the wrong here, and we shouldn’t be out of the money because she brought her kid to an event that wasn’t appropriate for a toddler. She should have skipped the party when her sitter cancelled! Do you think getting her to pay us back is worth my pursuing?
—Vase Vandalism
Dear Vase,
Sure, if you hope to blow up your relationship with your sister-in-law over it. And probably, as collateral damage, your relationship with her parents—your mother- and father-in-law—and your husband’s relationship with his sister. Oh, and, as a result, do some damage to your relationship with your husband too. Have you been waiting for a good reason to go to battle with your husband’s sister, by any chance?
As I see it, the cost of insisting on being repaid for a vase broken by a toddler is much higher than the dollar amount you’d see from Nancy. Granted, in your telling, she is being belligerent about this (but I’m not sure many people would keep their cool in the moment if the immediate response by the host to the accidental breakage of a vase by a small child was, “You’re paying for that!”).
Michelle Herman
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If she were the one writing to me, I’d tell her to just go ahead and pay you, if she can afford to—that refusing to do so is only going to prolong this ugliness between you and might create a rift with her brother. (I would also tell her that she shouldn’t expect that paying for the broken vase will make you like her any better or behave any more graciously in the future.)
My question for you is: What’s more important? Relationships, or being “in the right”? (I’d ask her that, too, given the chance.)
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My wife and I have a 15-year-old daughter, “Serena,” who wants to start saving for a car and is looking for a job. My brother owns a small pet shop and said he would be willing to hire Serena for after-school shifts and weekends, depending on her schedule. Serena loves animals, and she would be working in a safe environment, so win-win, right? Wrong!
When Serena told us what her uncle had proposed, and how much she would love to take him up on the offer, my wife was vehemently against it. When Serena asked why, her response was, “Because school is your job.”
Serena has always been a good student, and I think she will have no problem balancing her responsibilities. Plus, if it doesn’t work out, my brother has made it clear she can always stop, no questions asked. I had after-school jobs when I was in high school, and they were a great way for me to earn some money and gain a bit of real-world experience. How can I get my wife to stop being so hard-headed here about something that nearly every teen does?
—Work War
Dear Work,
Picture me heaving a big sigh here. When couples come at a subject from such wildly different (emotional) places—stances that have been shaped, no doubt, by their own experience, families, and pasts—and stake out adversarial positions, especially when it comes to how to raise their children, there is always war.
Just the way you ask your question is … well, kind of mean. You want to know how to stop your wife from feeling the way she does and force her to see things your way—the way, you argue, that most of the world sees them. This is not productive. Nor is it productive, or healthy, for you to frame this as your daughter and yourself on one team—the good guys (along with your brother!)—and your wife as on the other (bad) team.
I have no objections to Serena taking the pet shop job, with the understanding that if her grades suffer, or anything else about it turns out not to be as rosy as she and you assume, she can quit without incurring her uncle’s wrath. But I am not Serena’s mother. I don’t get a vote. And I have no insight into why her mother feels this way. Forgive me if I take a guess: She was expected to earn her own money at Serena’s age, and she didn’t feel supported by her own parents. Or maybe: She didn’t do well in school—or not as well as she feels she could have done—and she wants to make sure nothing gets in the way of her daughter’s continuing to do well … or perhaps even better than she has been up to now. Who knows? You surely don’t, because you don’t seem to have asked.
Try having a real conversation with your wife—not a debate. Be open to compromise. (Afterschool and weekends are a lot. When do you imagine your daughter will study and do homework? Or have time to simply be a child?)
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Full disclosure: I always had a part-time job of some sort when I was in high school—it was the only way for me to have spending money for non-essential things, and I liked the feeling of having a job. I liked the idea of self-sufficiency (not that I was, earning enough to buy those pink suede platforms shoes I wanted, or some dangly earrings, or a ticket to see The Dead—but I felt like I was, which was what counted to me). I was a very bright kid who did just OK in school. When I had my own daughter many years later, I did not forbid her from getting a job, but I didn’t encourage it either.
I felt, as your wife does, that school was her job. And she worked so much harder in school than I (or her father) ever had, participated in all the after-school activities that interested her, and then went off to one of the best colleges in the country—with a substantial enough financial aid package to make that possible. What she wanted to major in was one of the subjects she’d been able to focus extra time and energy on throughout high school. Would it have been worth it to exchange all that for the chance to earn some money (if she needed spending money, we gave it to her) and gain some “real life experience” a few years earlier than she did as she worked during college? Not to me, and not to her.
—Michelle
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I’ve changed and my husband hasn’t. We have two kids (11 and 7). Our 11-year-old has autism (think Young Sheldon) and caring for him takes a lot of time and energy, not to mention trying to balance love and attention for my 7-year-old. I don’t mind at all, I LOVE being a mother, but my husband keeps accusing me of “being done with him now that I had our children.” I want to do family things, and he wants the carefree partying version of me before we had children.
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