My Friend Says She Has “Perfect” Daughters. Now She’s Crossing a Big Line With My Son.

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My best friend is the mother of two impeccably behaved daughters—at least according to my friend. The girls (ages 7 and 4) generally play quietly together. My son (also 4) is, in contrast, a tornado. A sweet one, for sure, but my partner and I do need to provide lots of focused activities to temper his extra energy. For the most part, the three kids play well together, but if my son overreacts to something (which he often does), my friend overreacts in turn! It bothers me how harshly she speaks to him and how critical of him she is in general. She sees every misdemeanor as a flaw of fundamental character. And the funny thing is, her younger child has a similar disposition, but she doesn’t see it. One day, I actually remarked on how similar these two children are, and she acted as if I’d insulted her. I’m hurt by this, but don’t know how to address it with my friend.

—Mother to Hurricane Hank

Dear Mother,

First things first: If your “best friend” is mean to your child, stop spending time with her with your children present. Go out for drinks instead. Leave the kids at home with their other parents or with sitters. But if she’s also mean to you—if she’s critical of him to you, or critical of your parenting of him—well, that’s lousy. And it’s extra-lousy that she was insulted by your noting that your two 4-year-olds had some similarities. Are you sure she’s your best friend?

The second thing I’ll mention is that the behavior the girls’ mother is exhibiting is a demonstration of classic parental insecurity, if you ask me (and you did, right?). Insisting that one’s own children are virtuous, particularly when combined with harsh judgments of the behavior and character of other people’s children, is textbook insecurity. But I certainly wouldn’t “address” this with your friend (I promise it will not go over well). The only part I’d bring up—the bit that might not lead to even more unpleasantness between you—is the very specific fact that it hurts your feelings when she’s hard on your kid, and you wish she’d cut it out. Period. If she protests that she’s not—telling you you’re imagining things, or that she only has his and your best interests at heart—or says anything else other than, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I won’t do that anymore,” you have a decision to make about how and whether to stay in this friendship. If it’s a longstanding one, predating parenthood by many years, and you can’t bear to think of ending it, you may want to grin (with clenched teeth) and bear it, since this rocky stage of your friendship may pass. But only you know whether it’s worth it.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I are at an impasse, and I need advice about kids sharing their space with adults they dislike. I live across the country from my childhood best friend: We’ve stayed close mostly over Skype and text. We didn’t meet each other’s husbands until our respective weddings, and I don’t know hers well, but since she told me he made her happy, I was happy for her. I was thrilled when they made plans to visit my city for the first time since they’d married, and I talked to my husband and stepdaughter about them staying with us. My stepdaughter, “Ann” (12), graciously offered her room, saying she’d sleep at her mom’s, so I invited my friend and her husband to stay with us.

For their arrival, I made my friend’s favorite dishes from a vegetarian Indian restaurant we frequented before I moved away. Her husband seemed offended that there was no meat and insisted he needed meat with every meal (they didn’t provide dietary restrictions, but retrospectively I can understand them assuming we would serve meat since we’re not vegetarian), so I had to scramble to find him something. He later used an offensive word in conversation, and when my stepdaughter, my husband, and I all immediately asked him not to use that word, his reaction was that “nobody can say anything anymore.” I understand that we all reacted at the same time, so he must have felt we were piling on (even though, I swear, we were polite).

I think after these fraught initial interactions, he was on edge, because he didn’t speak much after that and ignored our conversation in favor of his phone, except to occasionally make a comment that was probably supposed to be funny but came across as rude. After a few hours, my stepdaughter snapped at him that she no longer felt comfortable letting him stay in her room and that she was rescinding her offer. Both he and my friend were offended. My husband and I took Ann into another room to talk, and her dad said that she’d already offered her room and we couldn’t put him out on the street for being unpleasant. Although I agreed we couldn’t kick them out, I pointed out that Ann’s room is one of the only places in the world that is hers alone, and if she didn’t want to let someone in, we shouldn’t make her—we should blow up an air mattress, set up the couch, or give them our room. My husband said that Ann’s taking back her offer was ruder than anything my friend’s husband had done or said. Ann finally said she would just stay at her mom’s for the whole week (instead of only sleeping there), but I wasn’t happy with this outcome. Who was right, and in general, does gracious hosting trump control over a child’s own space?

—Our House, Whose Rules?

Dear Our House,

The problem is that your husband’s rules are different from yours, so there’s no “our rules” here. His stance on this, which suggests that he believes his daughter needs to learn to honor her commitments (even if it was only a sweet, naïve offer of a child who was eager to please the grownups she loves), doesn’t sit well with me at all. The lesson he’s teaching her is that once something is offered, it cannot be withdrawn (indeed, that withdrawing such an offer is somehow worse than the dreadful behavior of your guest). Has he considered how she might generalize that lesson when it comes to consent? Allowing someone to make a temporary home of one’s personal space is something she agreed to without understanding how it would make her feel; once she realized she didn’t want to after all, I’m with you: She should not have been forced to.

But this is not just about what happened with your guests—it’s about how Ann is being raised. Do you and your husband frequently disagree about this (that is, about rules for her behavior, and where you each stand on the authoritativeness versus what I suspect your husband would call permissiveness spectrum?). Where does Ann’s mother stand on this spectrum? There’s a bigger conversation to be had here. Even if this was the first time your impulse to protect your stepdaughter’s autonomy has clashed with her father’s rather rigid sense of decorum, it will not be the last. Don’t delay this discussion (and have it on a day when Ann is with her mother, in case it gets heated).

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Dear Care and Feeding,

Listen, I know no one “owns” a baby name. I swear I know that. I just need some advice on whether I’m lashing out because of my own pain or if I’m allowed to be upset. My husband and I just had a stillborn baby, and we’re devastated. I went into labor at 37 weeks, so we had already done all the baby prep, including choosing a name. I have always wanted to name my first daughter after my beloved grandmother, who raised me and passed away before I finished college. We hadn’t shared the name with anyone, but on the advice of the counsellor helping us after the stillbirth, we did name her then and used the name in the memorial and when we’ve talked about her. Basically, the advice has been to talk about her as our baby who passed, not a lost pregnancy. It’s been the hardest week of my life.

Today, my sister-in-law set up a Zoom call with the family and announced that she’s pregnant, and will be using our child/my grandmother’s name if the baby is a girl. (She announced the name, not that it was our baby’s. My husband told me afterward that the name has no significance in his family and he’s never heard her mention it before.) I congratulated her, but then she specifically asked if I liked the name, and when I said I loved it, she laughed and said, “You’re bringing us down, I’m allowed to be happy!” (Direct quote.) I know she is. I was smiling when I said I loved the name, but maybe I didn’t look sincere enough. Honestly, I was genuinely happy about the baby—it was only the name and then the immediate callout that had me reeling. My husband is furious, but he’s been (understandably) expressing his mourning with anger, while I’ve been weepy, so I’m not sure if he’s really angry at his sister. I don’t think I own the name, but is this something we can talk to my sister-in-law about, or are we out of line?

—A Baby by Any Other Name Should be as Sweet

Dear Name,

I am so very sorry for the loss of your child.

I want to parse the situation with your sister-in-law carefully. I’m sorry she is treating you so badly. Saying, “You’re bringing us down, I’m allowed to be happy!” was thoughtless at best, cruel and callous at worst. And while—I’ll go ahead and say it, OK?—I don’t think it’s so terrible (it is somewhat terrible) of her to have chosen the name you chose for your child (more on that in a second), it was certainly terrible of her to announce the name in the way she did. If she had a shred of decency and kindness, and she was so set on this name (for all you know, she’d picked it out herself as the name she loved most in the world and wanted to use for her child someday), she should have talked to you privately about this after the made the group announcement of her pregnancy. Why did she announce the name then, anyway? Who does that?

So I think it’s fair to say that your sister-in-law is … let’s call her “messy,” to be polite. What I want to know is: What kind of relationship do you and your husband have with her? If it’s basically a good one, I would go ahead and talk to her about how you feel (and the reason it should be you and not your husband is that I don’t think anger is going to be a help in this conversation, though tears might be). I’d tell her how the pain you’re feeling in no way undermines how happy you are for her and how eager you are to welcome your niece when she’s born. In other words, I’d be completely honest. If your sister-in-law cares about you at all, my hope is that she will choose another name for her child. But if your relationship isn’t the sort that allows for honest conversation (and I’ll admit, most relationships about which people write to Care and Feeding don’t seem to be), I think there’s a chance things will turn ugly. The way she’s handled things so far makes me think this is more likely than not.

So that brings me to the name itself. Whether you (after consulting with your husband; it’s his sister, after all) decide to talk to her about this or not, you may have a niece in your future who bears the name of both your beloved grandmother and your child who did not live to bear it. Please don’t let this crush you. It’s a name. That’s all. If your sister insists on using it, you are going to need to live with that. Other people bear this name too—it wasn’t only your grandmother’s; it wasn’t only your daughter’s. If you have another child, you can make a decision about how to honor your grandmother’s memory and your relationship with her (turn her last name into a first name? use her first name as a middle name? use a variation of the name?), or you can let go of the idea that the best way to honor the woman you raised you is by naming a child after her. You were already going to honor her, I’m sure, by telling your children all about her life, showing them photographs, sharing stories about your relationship with her. That all matters more than her name. And I say this from experience. Since Jews don’t name children after living relatives, and my own beloved grandmother died soon after my daughter was born (I swear she held on, at 95, so that she could see her), my daughter doesn’t bear her name or any version of it. But she “knows” her great-grandmother almost as well as she would if she’d grown up with her herself.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I could use some perspective on a situation with my husband (and my frustration with it). I am a fastidious clock-watcher, so I’m never late. (I don’t think this is necessarily a virtue, it’s just the way I am.) My husband is the opposite, and for much of our relationship it’s been a “you say tomato” difference, i.e. not a big deal. However, in the past year, my youngest has started experiencing some significant mental health issues, and we have a lot more appointments and meetings to navigate—and my husband’s tendency to be late to everything is starting to affect me. He shows up late for family therapy, so our only options are to wait or to start without him and recap. When he agrees to pick our child up from school and take them to therapy, he’s been so late that the school has called me because our kid is getting anxious. When I’m doing pickup, he’s made me late by being late to return the car. Honestly, I’m finding this very upsetting. I feel like he’s not taking our kid’s health seriously, but any time I bring it up, he tells me to “relax” because everything ultimately worked out fine. (This is mostly true. We’ve never missed an appointment altogether, after all.) Do I need to ease up?

—Lately, I’m Mad

Dear Lately,

You don’t need to ease up. He needs to step up. It’s one thing to be late for dinner, parties, and even his own doctor’s appointments and work meetings; this kind of recurring lateness, which causes anxiety for you and your child, is a horse of a different color. He must be on time for family therapy appointments; he must be on time to pick up his child at school; he must return the car to you at the designated time. His response to your concerns is unacceptable.

You don’t have a lot of choices here if he refuses to be a responsible adult. You need to have a more serious conversation about this in a calm moment. Tell him you understand this difference between you two has previously not been a big problem, but now it has become one. He can’t dismiss this, and you need him to make the very small “sacrifice” of being on time when it comes to his troubled child. Explain the full effect his lateness is having on you and the effect it’s having on your child. If he continues to be dismissive of your extremely reasonable concerns, you may need to insist on some targeted family therapy for the two of you.

—Michelle

My fiancée and I are both 28. I am tall with long hair and a beard and a gut. People tend to think I’m in my late 30s. My girlfriend is short, has a “baby face,” and a high voice; people sometimes think she is a high schooler. When we’re out, people sometimes give us weird looks. A few times, folks have commented on how nice it is that a dad is spending time with his daughter. Now I have a new fear.