Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m part of a close-knit extended family whose members all live in the same town. I used to be extremely close with one of my cousins (we were born the same year and grew up two houses down from each other), but he married a woman who demanded he cut off all contact with his own family and friends. None of us know why: We’re a pretty normal, boring family with minimal melodrama. (I met his wife a few times while they were dating and I don’t remember any kind of major incident or even minor incident, for that matter that would cause her to insist he cut off contact.) Anyway, my cousin hasn’t seen his parents in eight years, ever since he snuck out while his wife was at the grocery store to go to his sister’s wedding. Since then, his wife keeps an even closer eye on him. He talks to his parents on the phone for about two minutes on holidays, and that’s it. We have all continued to reach out to him from time to time, but his wife gets an alert wheneve
Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m a stay-at-home mom to 4-year-old twins, and my husband is an executive for a large company. He makes really good money, and his job allows us to live in a big house in a very nice neighborhood, have two luxury cars, and we will be able to send our kids to an elite private school next year. The problem is that he doesn’t lift a finger at home with our sons. No baths, no feedings, no story time, no playing in the backyard, nothing. Whenever I ask him about it, he gets upset and tells me some version of “Everything you and the kids have is because of me. You should be grateful! Taking care of the kids isn’t hard like my job is!” I get that he’s under pressure at work, but does that excuse him from being a dad? How can I get through to him?
Dear Care and Feeding,
I was raised in a multigenerational household. My mother was a single parent for most of my childhood, and at various times in my life, we lived with my maternal grandparents and my maternal great-grandmother. My great-grandmother was quite advanced in her age; she actually lived to be over 100 and died when I was 12. Since my mom and grandparents both worked, my great-grandmother was often my primary babysitter. My great-grandma was born in 1908. She had one of those hard, rural, country music–ass lives and, as a result, was a very tough and firm woman. To just be blunt about it, she used physical discipline: spoons, hairbrushes, switches, belts, rulers, etc.