My Daughter Has Never Seen Her Parents Fight. That Might Be a Problem Very Soon.

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 spouse and I have been together for over a decade and have a precocious preschool-aged daughter we both adore. Unfortunately, our marriage began to fracture following her birth due to a serious imbalance of labor at home. After two years of struggle, I talked my spouse into marriage counseling, which we attended weekly for more than two years. However, things recently reached critical mass and we have decided to divorce. How do we break this news to our child?

We are carrying on life as usual while we work to figure out plans and settlements. We were always diligent about not fighting in front of her, so it’s not as though we can say, “You know how Mommy and Daddy used to fight about XYZ?” I know children are more intuitive than we realize, but I am afraid this will news will throw her for a loop because we have been so careful about hiding our strife. I am tempted to frame it as, “Mommy and Daddy have not been very good friends to each other and have decided that we will be able to be better friends—and a better mommy and daddy to you—if we are living in different homes.” Am I on the right track or is there a better way of introducing this radical shift to our sweet girl?

—Stepford Family

Dear Stepford,

Actually, I like your idea. It’s as good as any other explanation you can give a child this age. Just be prepared for her follow-up questions. She will want to know in what ways you haven’t been good friends to each other (etc.). You and your spouse will have to be on the same page, ready to answer her questions in a way that doesn’t throw the other under the bus. (If you can’t do that, then keep things even simpler. Just say: “Mommy and Daddy are going to live in separate houses from now on.”) Either way, make sure you say outright, before she has a chance to wonder, how she is going to be taken care of. And when she asks questions, both of you should offer short, uncomplicated answers. You can anticipate some of these questions, of course. Which one of you will be moving out? Where will she live? How often will she see each of you? What exactly will change about her life and what will stay the same? If there’s a family pet, whose home will it live in? And so on.

But the bottom line, I’m afraid, is that no matter what you say and how you say it, this news is going to upset her enormously. How could it not? It’s unrealistic to imagine that there are any magic words that will keep this from being a crisis for her. And so, more important than what you say in this first conversation (because just one won’t do the trick; you’re going to need to have multiple short conversations), is what you do after the news is out. She will need stability, reassurance, consistency—normality. Her day-to-day life needs to be predictable so that she feels secure and safe. That’s your top priority.

—Michelle Hermann

From: My Mom Just Dropped a Bomb About What She “Expects” of Me in Our Family. I’m Shocked. (December 17th, 2023).

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I have been together for 10 years and have a 5-year-old daughter. We spend a lot of time with his large family—we even built our home next to his parents. I adore his mom and dad, and our daughter sees them every day. They have the sweetest relationship. Our problem is my husband’s sister. She is older than us, divorced and estranged from her child, and has a lot of trouble keeping a job because she tends to pick fights and act unprofessionally. Because of all of this, she spends a huge amount of time at her parents’ house and relies on them heavily for help with various things. She is very abrasive and loves confrontation, and when I entered the family had already created a rift between her other siblings’ spouses and herself—to the point where they distanced themselves from his parents in the process of avoiding her.

She adores my daughter, and my daughter calls her aunt her best friend (in my opinion, because she’s free of responsibilities and often does whatever my child wants, whenever she wants). Because of this, we’ve always kept a rather civil relationship. A couple of months ago, things really came to a head between us when my sister-in-law asked my husband to help her on a day that we had plans as a family. She completely lost it when he didn’t drop everything to help her and came to our home, yelling awful things at me about my appearance, job, parenting—you name it—in front of my child. My husband immediately put a stop to it, and we haven’t had any interaction with her in two months. My in-laws are beside themselves, worrying that we will distance ourselves now as well and they’ll lose the close relationship they have with our daughter—something they’ve missed out on with their older grandkids. I don’t want that either, but they refuse to acknowledge her as the problem, and I am uncomfortable with my daughter spending as much time there knowing that my SIL can and will come over daily. I am also struggling with my daughter asking so many questions that I don’t know how to answer—why did she say mean things to you? Why can’t I play with her? Why are you taking away my best friend? I’m lost, my husband is supportive but caught in the middle, and I just really need some outside perspective.

—Stressed Sister-in-Law

Dear Stressed,

This sounds really hard for everyone. One thing to keep in mind is that this is a problem that might lessen as your daughter grows up and has more playdates and afterschool activities keeping her occupied elsewhere. So, consider whether you need to make specific changes now, or whether this is a situation where you can take more of a wait-and-see-where-life-goes approach.

Ultimately, you and your husband have to decide how much you are willing to put up with, and draw some clear boundaries that are transparent to his parents. They already know your sister-in-law has cost them time with other family members. Your husband might need to insist that his sister be held more accountable for her behavior. Perhaps she can be asked to leave if she ever displays that same kind of hostility in front of your daughter. Meanwhile, if your in-laws are concerned about a rift forming between their granddaughter and themselves, give them opportunities to spend time together that cannot be interrupted by your SIL. They can go to the park or library frequently, or take mini-adventures together. Then, it doesn’t matter if SIL comes over to the house—they aren’t there. You can also have them over to your house, and not allow SIL to join when she’s had one of these outbursts.

At least so far, your SIL isn’t taking any of her bad behavior out on your daughter. That could change, given her volatility, but it’s a point in her favor as you consider your daughter’s desire to see her aunt. If you do decide to limit contact now or in the future, you can be somewhat transparent with your daughter. Tell her the same thing you’d tell her about a classmate: “We do not hang out with people who are mean to us.” You don’t want your daughter to grow up thinking she is allowed to be rude, or thinking that she is required to accept it from others.

I do want to caveat this advice with a note that it’s possible your sister has an undiagnosed mental health issue that is causing, or at least adding to, her behavior. I believe in holding people accountable for their actions, but drawing those lines gets complicated where untreated mental health is concerned. If you have this suspicion, you might consider seeking the advice of a psychologist or social worker who can help you find the ethical nuances of dealing with your SIL.

—Allison Price

From: My Daughter Claims She Loves Me More Than Her Dad. I Know the Reason Why.(December 25th, 2023).

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m a single mother with twin 9-year-old girls. We live in a fairly well-off suburb, but we’re on the lower end of the economic spectrum there. My kids know we aren’t the wealthiest people in our community, since their classmates talk about spending the summer at their second homes or flying to Disney World every year, and some of them even have expensive smartphones (in third grade!).

But it’s always been obvious, really, as their friends live in detached homes on tree-lined backroads, while we live in an apartment above my parents’ convenience store on the busy main street of our town.

Recently a lot of big, unexpected expenses (medical, car, etc.) have come up, and I find that I’m telling my kids “We can’t afford that” way more often than I used to. Things we took for granted, like getting takeout, are becoming a rarity, too. My daughters have of course noticed the downturn. When they were younger and asked why we don’t live in a “whole house” like their friends did, I would tell them how wonderful it was that Grandma and Grandpa were right below us, how lucky we were to be able to see them every day. But my daughters are getting older, and I don’t know how to explain how things are now for us. And it’s dawned on me that as their peers grow up and the wealth disparity becomes even more apparent—since I know we won’t be able to afford the trendy clothes or gadgets their friends’ parents can—my kids might be ostracized. We aren’t the only family in our town living in the mixed-use apartments, nor are we the only family in our economic situation, but families like ours are definitely the minority. How can I talk to my daughters about our situation? How can I help them feel special when all their friends can afford things that we can’t?

—We Really Can’t Afford That

Dear We Really Can’t,

I don’t think 9 is too young for a conversation about money: who has it, why they have it, where it comes from, what it means. To tell you the truth, I kind of wish you’d planted the seeds for this convo when they were younger—back when you were responding to their questions about why some people live in big whole houses and others don’t. Changing the subject to how lucky they were—though accurate—was an evasive response that didn’t address the thing they were trying to understand. Obviously, the way we talk to children about money—and capitalism, and social class as it exists in our society—is different from the way we talk to other adults, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk to them about it at all. Paul K. Piff, who teaches social ecology at UC Irvine, notes that when children are raised with an understanding of these matters, they grow up to be more appreciative and compassionate. When these kinds of conversations don’t occur, children may grow up to accept common biases against those who have less. (For more on this subject, see this article in Parents magazine.) As to how you can help them feel “special” when their friends have more, and fancier, stuff than they do: Think about what you mean by special. Teach them, not just by word, but by deed, that a person’s worth has nothing to do with how much stuff—or money—they have. Start now. It’s an enormously important lesson to learn. You may have to spend some time learning this yourself, too.

—M.H.

From: I Can’t Keep Up With the Super Wealthy Families in My Area. I’m Worried It’s Going to Destroy My Daughters Socially. (May 20th, 2023).

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