agonyaunt | Sep. 20th, 2021

Sep. 20th, 2021

Dear Care and Feeding,

I have four kids, three school-aged kids with my wife and one older teenage daughter, “Emily,” from my first marriage. I had fallen out of contact with Emily after her mother and I divorced. Sadly her mother passed away last year, so she has moved in with my family. It seems that in the years between when I moved out and now, my ex and daughter fell on some hard times. I only have Emily’s word on this, but by her account, she and her Mom were homeless for a period of time, or lived with some suspect character, and generally dealt with a lot of financial insecurity. I feel badly about this, but Emily’s mother never reached out to let me know how bad things were. My issue now is that Emily is telling stories that are scaring my younger children. She has them convinced that I am going to leave their mother and they will end up living on the streets or something. I don’t want to ask her to lie (although I do think some of her stories might be exaggerated), but I don’t need her stirring up trouble with the younger kids. What should I do?

—Distressed Dad

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conuly

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m (17F) the oldest in a family of six. I have a younger brother with autism (“James,” 15) and two other siblings (“Dave,” 14, and “Liz,” 12). I love them all to death, and they’re all incredibly smart, creative, and caring. That’s not to say my family is perfect, however. There were parental issues as we were growing up and we all were affected in different ways. As a result, my family has been left a little bruised. I think we would greatly benefit from family counseling, but that’s another issue, as my parents don’t 100 percent believe in mental health, or that there’s a problem at all. I put myself in my school’s counseling program, and that’s helped some.

I’m writing because Liz has entered what I think can best be described as a phase. She’s very irritable, petty, and rather aggressive and rude, and whenever I ask her to do something or tell her that she needs a minute to calm down, I get a very snarky response. It was the same with Dave when he was growing up, so this is nothing new. The weird thing with Liz is that it’s usually over very trivial stuff. For example, Liz acts like she’s my mother—ordering me around, telling me that I need to do various things, yelling at me. I am doing things that need to get done, and I am responsible, so I’m not sure where this is coming from. Or if Dave asks her to take something upstairs, since she’s heading up anyway, she will purposely ignore him until she’s halfway up the stairs, and then the two will start arguing about how she could have taken it up, she was “already on the stairs.” She’ll purposely continue arguments, even when we request her to stop talking, calm down, and come back in a little bit when everybody is more relaxed. Our mother has stepped in multiple times, telling Liz to back off, punishing her if necessary, etc. My father blames my brother for the arguments (they have a long history of arguing), but I feel this is unfair to Dave because, as of late, the problem is usually Liz, and Dave has been making an effort to get along with her, and he’s come a long way. My mother and I have both talked to Liz, and Dave is currently actively avoiding Liz to avoid any arguments, but confrontation is inevitable.

As I mentioned previously, I went through this with Dave, and I know someone who is in a similar boat as I am, so I’m trying to handle this as best I can. But, as you know, we’ve been in a pandemic. I’ve had friend breakups, had to move in the middle of all this, and while I’m happy where we are now, I’m still stuck at home with them. In short, I’m tired. I’ve been putting up with this every day, nonstop, dealing with my own mental issues, balancing several crazy social situations, am in my first relationship, and am currently frustrated with the school system in my new state. It’s gotten to the point that sometimes, whenever I wake up or hear Liz’s harsh tones, I die a little inside. I love and want to hang out with my siblings but it’s hard when they inevitably start arguing and I’m caught in the middle. I don’t want to do this anymore. I low-key want to ignore them and tell them to “figure it out,” but I know that’s not fair on Dave. So here I am. I’m nearing a breaking point. I need a solution or advice, or both?

—Worn Out and Weary

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cereta

Dear Care and Feeding,

We have four adult children (all in their 20s/early 30s) and are currently facing a great deal of family conflict around the unequal way we raised them. To be honest, we were pretty strict parents with our oldest daughter “Lily.” From the outset, we told her that at 18, she’d be moving out—living with us indefinitely was not an option—and she’d need to pay for college by herself. She got into an expensive Ivy League school that did not offer enough financial aid. She was heartbroken and ended up going to a lower-ranked, yet still excellent, college on a full merit scholarship. She followed through with our expectations and never asked us to move back in, even when she took a low-paying job right out of college. She made it through her 20s with a few bumps and bruises but is now engaged to a man with a high-paying job, and she has even earned her graduate degree! We’re very proud.

In contrast, our youngest child “Jen” was raised without many of these same expectations: We knew we could pay for her college, and having had the benefit of seeing our other children leave the nest successfully, we weren’t as insistent that she move out immediately. We paid full price for a private college for Jen (equally ranked to Lily’s) and she graduated with no debt. We also allowed her to live with us during her first year after college; she had secured a job, but wanted to save money for a down payment on a house. She ended up buying a home at 23 (Lily wasn’t able to until 29) and as a result is now significantly wealthier than Lily is.

Lily and Jen have always had some friction, but now their main conflict is the unequal expectations we had of them. It’s true we were much harder on Lily, and Jen had a “safety net” her older sister never benefited from. Lily has held on to a lot of resentment for this and has started to throw it in our faces during family arguments. In my opinion, we were doing the best we could, and it seems ungrateful of Lily to complain when her life is going so well right now. I think she’s harboring jealousy around Jen’s financial success and it’s making her feel insecure.

The jealousy is starting to color every interaction between Lily and us, and between Lily and Jen. Did we do something wrong? How should we handle this moving forward? Is it reasonable that Lily’s upset? Should we do something to “level the playing field,” so to speak? I’d appreciate any advice you can offer.

—Torn in Tulsa

Dear Torn,

Lily has all the makings for some deep resentment, but she is also at a point in her life where she has to learn to look at how fortunate she is and to appreciate all that she has, more than she resents the disparity in how she and her sister were raised. What you and your spouse can do to help that is to simply acknowledge the difference and apologize, if there’s anything that you sincerely regret or feel bad about—such as being stricter with Lily and making her feel unwelcome to stay in your home beyond the age of 18 just because you were worried she would be unable to learn to live independently. You needn’t apologize for having different means at different times, but Lily should hear you recognize how both the change in your financial status and your parenting ideologies affected her and her sister, and that you did the best you could for all of your children. Acknowledge her feelings and encourage her to express them respectfully. You don’t owe her a check, just understanding and empathy. Hopefully, she can extend the same to you sooner rather than later.

Agony Aunt

Sep. 20th, 2021

Sep. 20th, 2021

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Care and Feeding: Treating children unequally

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