Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
After a mostly uneventful pregnancy, I developed HELLP Syndrome and gave birth to my son five weeks early. During the birth, I hemorrhaged and needed two blood transfusions before I could be released from the hospital. It’s a miracle my son and I survived. My parents, who had otherwise displayed pretty typical soon-to-be-grandparents’ excitement, went radio silent. They did not speak to me for two weeks or make the 45-minute trip to visit until I begged them for help. Even then, they didn’t help: They came for only a few hours to hold the baby, then left. My mother even asked that I, four months postpartum, travel to spend my first Mother’s Day at her house! After that, my in-laws came from overseas to stay with us for a month and give us the help we very much needed. A few months later, my in-laws visited again when it became clear we still weren’t receiving any support from my family. And so finally my husband and I decided to move overseas.
My parents threw a fit and barely spoke to me after we shared the news. We’re now six months into life as expats. My parents have made very little effort to keep in touch with me or my son. They don’t have passports, so visiting is out of the question—not that I expected it to be high on their list. I’m struggling now to decide how (or whether) to include my parents in my toddler’s life. Making calls to them up until this point has been completely one-sided and left me feeling angry, hurt, and resentful.
—Exhausted Expat
Dear Exhausted,
I can certainly understand why you would consider a news blackout and a shutting down of this relationship, given that they’ve hurt you so. What I find myself wondering, though, is whether, during or after that strange period of radio silence after the birth of your child, you reached out to them to ask what the hell was going on. Complete silence from the grandparents after a traumatic birth is bizarre and hurtful enough so that asking for an explanation would not be out of line—particularly after what you describe as pretty typical-level grandparent enthusiasm. (I’m not sure what that means to you. Frequent phone calls filled with updates from you about the pregnancy and chatter from them about the impending grandchild? Showering you with gifts for the baby? Talking about how excited they are to contemplate—and their plans for—their relationship with your child? Offers of help with the baby’s care? Or … just big smiles when you announced the pregnancy? Posting the news on Facebook? Simply saying, solemnly, “We are very happy about this”?)
I’m curious about what your relationship with your parents was like before your pregnancy, and just how shocking their behavior was. Did they change after your child was born—or have they always been pretty distant parents? I ask these questions because my first instinct (which I’m 99 percent sure was wrong in this case) was that they were traumatized by the near-loss of both their daughter and their grandchild, and that they shut down in the wake of that. But people can only shut down if they were open before that. And I have a feeling that they weren’t, which makes me wonder if your expectations of them postpartum had no basis in reality.
I’m glad you found what sounds like a happy solution to your longing for family help—for, in fact, a family to be a part of. I’m sorry you weren’t able to count on your parents for that, since you wanted so much to be able to. And yes, as I’ve said, I understand your desire to punish them for letting you down so completely. But here’s what I’m thinking: If you never talked to them before about what you had hoped for from them and their utter failure to live up to that, why not do it now? If they were furious about your decision to move far away, they must care at least a little about you and your child. They may care more than you think they do—and they may have, as one says, “a funny way of showing it.” Pick up the phone. Tell them how you feel. Tell them that you’re tempted to put an end to their relationship (such as it is) with your son, and why. See what they have to say.
This conversation may go very badly. It may end with your feeling sure that stepping away from them is the right decision for you. But I am always in favor of direct and honest communication. If that communication ends up a one-way street, at least you’ll have gotten everything you feel off your chest before you go radio silent. It’s my great hope for you that they’ll surprise you. (I know: I am a hopeless optimist.)
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My second child refuses to learn to ride a bike. It’s starting to reach a head this summer because her brother (who is nearly 12) has a fairly free license from his mom and me to wander about in our neighborhood on his bike, and she’d like to go with him, but on her terms, which are that she gets to ride her scooter. But he’s complained that when she rides her scooter she can’t keep up with him, particularly on hills, and he spends a lot of time waiting for her to catch up. (Which, to me, is a valid concern, because the times I’ve been out on my bike with her and she’s ridden her scooter, I spent a fair amount of time waiting for her.) For what it’s worth, she did learn at a Pedal Power camp a couple of years ago, but has somehow since … forgotten? (I thought that wasn’t possible!) Plus, we went through a bit of this with our son, who freaked out the first two days he tried to ride a bike, but learned to on the third day and has loved it ever since. But she won’t even get on the bike, whereas he would at least try. How do I convince her to get back in the saddle?
—Biking It
Dear Biking,
I don’t think you should try to convince her to get on the bike. My best guess is that the harder you try, the more she’ll push back. You don’t mention how old she is, but, presumably, she’s old enough to understand consequences and limit-setting: She cannot accompany her older brother on his bike-riding adventures unless she’s on a bike too—period. No, she cannot ride her scooter; a scooter can’t keep up with a bike. So this is her choice: Learn to ride a bike, if she wants so badly to hang out with big brother, or scoot alone—or, better yet, with friends her own age—in the area you designate as safe for her.
If you object to this because you want the kids to play together at all times, I’d rethink that. I don’t believe it’s productive or healthy to insist that the children play together. If for some reason they don’t each have friends of their own, or if it’s inconvenient to set up playdates in the summertime with the friends they do have, because none of them live nearby (still, I’d make the effort!), offer your daughter some alternate activities to occupy her when she’s left alone while he “wanders freely.” Meanwhile, the best way to get her back on a bike is to drop the subject. Tell her you’re here to help her (re)learn, or just to offer moral support if she wants to see if she remembers (I suspect she will), and that she should let you know. Then back away and let it go.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
I’ve been dating “River” for over a year now, and with the holidays on the not-so-far horizon, I’m thinking it’s time to have some tough conversations with the family. River and I have talked about maybe having to do the holidays separately again this winter if it’s absolutely necessary but we really don’t want to. We would rather make some sort of compromise so that they and I can be together and get the bonus of introducing each other to our families and starting to build those relationships. One compromise would be trading off holidays (my family for Thanksgiving, River’s for Christmas, and the next year vice versa—but one family would definitely feel they’re getting the shorter end of the stick, holiday-wise). Or we could trade off years, flipping a coin to see who gets us this year. Or some other variation we haven’t yet thought of.
I’d be glad to let my parents weigh in on this as we try to figure out what would work best for all of us if I could be sure they would be reasonable about it. (Last year, I brought up the holidays six months in advance, and they immediately guilt-tripped me, so I dropped it and went to see them alone.) Ironically, all my siblings have already been through the holidays-with-partners’-and-their-families dilemma; none of them got the heaping-on-of-guilt treatment I got. I understand that I’m the one who’s closest (emotionally) to them, but it hardly seems fair that I should be punished for that. What I want more than anything are productive conversations and collaboration from them, to bring them in early to hash out the details, and for everyone to know that whatever decision River and I make will have come with a lot of thought and consideration. But is that even possible? Neither of my parents (who are divorced) has ever been in a relationship in which they had to make these kinds of decisions, and I can’t help feeling that they can’t relate to this conundrum and so are seeing the very question of where I’ll spend my holidays from now on as an attack on them. I’m not sure if I should muster the energy/courage to embark on this conversation/guilt trip every year or just drop it and muscle through the holidays without River again.
—Hope(ful/less) for the Holidays
Dear Hopeful (not -less!),
Here’s some tough love for you: Your parents don’t get a vote in this decision. You and River are grownups, and like every set of grownups in a serious relationship, you get to decide how you want to deal with holidays. As to the guilt trips: They are only as successful as you allow them to be. In other words, Mom and Dad can lay them on you—separately, it would seem, a matching pair of guilts (which I just realized rhymes with quilts, which is a nice metaphor here)—but it’s up to you to throw them off and refuse to accept them.
I’m not saying this is easy. It would be nice if all parents made this easy for their grown kids—whether they can “relate” or not. But it is part of growing (fully) up.
You and River need to decide what makes sense for you as a couple. Then tell, don’t ask, both sets of parents. If you two aren’t sure what you think will work best, come up with a tentative plan, one just for this year or perhaps for the next two years (if you decide you want to try the trading-off-years plan), and let the families know you’ll revisit that decision later. Your own needs may change as time passes, so nothing you decide needs to be set in stone. My daughter, once she started seeing her now-husband, came home by herself for Christmas (and he went to see his parents) that first year, but she told us then that it would be the last time they would be apart for Christmas. And so, for several years after that, the compromise they came up with was to make the 10-hour drive to our house with their pets in tow, spend a few days celebrating with us, then fly to his family while we babysat for our grandpets; they’d fly back to our place after a few days, and the next day they’d pack up gifts and pets and drive home. (They traded off by spending “actual Christmas” with one family one year, the other the next, and while I can’t speak for my daughter’s in-laws, I was always happy to designate another day as Christmas and pull out all the stops for it.) This system worked very well when both of them had flexible work hours. Now that neither of them does—and they have only a few days off around Christmas—they trade off years: last year they were with his folks, this year they will be with us. (From the beginning they did Thanksgiving together, just them and sometimes a friend or two, in the city where they live.) Someday I expect they’ll start doing what we did about Christmas when she was growing up: celebrate that too in their own home, and invite their families to join them if they like—before, during, or after.
I hear you when you say you long for productive conversations and collaboration with your parents. I think that’s a longing that has nothing to do with holidays. It may be something you can work on with them, or it may be a lost cause—I don’t know enough to know which one is true. What I do know is that your life is your own and that you get to spend it, including holidays, any way you choose to. I wish you and River a very lovely holiday season together, wherever and however you decide to spend it.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My daughter is 43 and lives in Georgia. I live in Nevada. We have a strained relationship due to her belief that I do not communicate to her standards. I’ve made attempts to call her and I’ve texted at least once a week, but we haven’t spoken since Mother’s Day. I have visited her in Atlanta but she refuses to visit me. I am tired of trying to meet her halfway. Recently, I adopted a puppy and that seemed to be the last straw—she didn’t like that at all. I’m at the point where if she no longer wants to communicate with me, I guess I have to respect that. I’m in my 60s and feel I shouldn’t have to always be the one to call. Strangely enough, she feels she’s the one who is always making the first move. What should I do?
—Confused Mom
Dear Mom,
That does sound confusing. There is such a great disconnect between the way you perceive this situation and the way she does—you feel that you’re always the one reaching out and she feels that it’s her. How do we square that? The only way forward, as I see it, is through an actual conversation between you two. You say you don’t communicate to her standards. Ask her what she’d like from you. If she’s already told you and you just don’t care for what she’s asked of you, tell her that. Is this really about who calls who or is it about what you talk about when you do talk? (When you call her, do you talk only about your life, or are you interested in hers?)
And “refuses” to visit you sounds a bit strong to me. Have you asked her to—I mean, made an actual invitation for a specific time (“Would you like to visit for a few days around my birthday? I would so love to see you and celebrate it with you”)—and has she said no? Or have you said, “When are you coming to visit?” (repeatedly) and she’s said (repeatedly), “I wish I could. I’m sorry, I just can’t get away”—because her work makes that impossible, or because she has children or others in her life who depend on her, from whom she cannot be away? There’s a big difference between the two. (Another thought I had: Did she grow up in Nebraska and is averse to returning to it, for reasons you are aware or unaware of? And one more: Have you never asked her—are you waiting for her to offer to visit and you’re miffed because she hasn’t?) Talk to her about this too. Tell her you’d like to see more of her. If she doubts you, tell her why (and I don’t mean, “Because I’m your mother!” This is not an answer). Do not accuse her or complain (“I’ve been to Atlanta but you never come here!”).
By the way, I don’t think those of us who are in our 60s deserve any sort of special treatment, and certainly not from our own kids. And I think battling over who is or should “always be the one to call” is childish. You may have very different sorts of lives and be available to chat at very different times. Talk about it. Come up with a solution that works for both of you. It may work better for one of you than for the other—perfect equity is hard to come by—but if that’s the case, my sincere recommendation is that your daughter gets to be the one in whose favor the scale tips—at least for the next 20 years. Then you can swap.
As to the puppy: I cannot explain why this would be the last straw for her. Unless when you do have a conversation, all you talk about is your new puppy. Because that would do it.
—Michelle
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