agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My wife and I split amicably 2 years ago over personal differences. I have partial custody (every other week) of my two daughters, 8 and 10. We’re not struggling but I don’t make enough money for a babysitter and I work odd hours, so I’ve been relying on my brother “Don” to watch them sometimes. He works in health and fitness, so he makes his own hours. He’s happy to do this and has a good relationship with the kids. He is cordial to my ex-wife. There’s just one issue I recently discovered.

Unfortunately, he is also a player and in the past year, he has dated four different women (and men!) that I know of. Currently, he’s seeing “Alan” who has been around for three months. I was a little surprised when the girls said that they went to the beach with Don and Alan. I don’t know this man at all and Don barely knows him. I’m not comfortable with him around the kids, let alone in their bathing suits.

At the same time, I don’t have any other option for child care, Don isn’t charging me anything, and the girls had only good things to say about their beach trip. Am I completely out of line to ask that he keeps Alan and other dates/hookups away from my kids? If I can’t find child care I will have to renegotiate the custody agreement.

–Protective Dad

Dear Protective Dad,

You aren’t out of line at all to expect your brother to be more thoughtful about who he brings around your children, even as he does you a favor by providing free child care. When you talk to him, be sure to be clear that you aren’t judging his lifestyle or choice of partners, but that it’s important for you to know the people that are going to spend time with your kids. Let him know that you don’t want them meeting a rotating cast of partners and that it would be most appropriate to wait until it’s clear that someone is going to be around long-term before introducing them to his nieces. He wouldn’t want them to get attached to someone who will be replaced in just a matter of weeks, nor should he be comfortable inviting someone he doesn’t know well himself to be around the little ones.

Your brother isn’t a parent and the concerns we tend to have about “stranger danger” don’t seem to have occurred to him. Explain that, while you know he’d never bring anyone around whom he thought to be less than trustworthy, it’s important that only people who have been well-vetted get the chance to hang with the kids. That said, considering that the children have already met and enjoyed their time with Alan, perhaps you can get to know him a little better yourself and if he seems OK, allow him to be on a (short) list of people whom your brother can bring around the girls.

You should also talk to your brother about how important his support is to you right now and make sure he feels appreciated. Hopefully, he’s not integrating his partners into time with the kids because he’s feeling overwhelmed or burdened by the responsibility; you should check in to be sure. Good luck to you.

—Jamilah

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/09/brother-flings-care-and-feeding-advice.html

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It's one thing to say "Don't bring your casual flings and hookups around my kids when you're one of their main non-parental caregivers" and it's quite another to be a homophobe about it.

And let's be serious - LW is being a homophobe about it. He's just trying to pretend otherwise.

This. I was going to post this one until a browser crash made me lose the link, so I'm glad you posted it and I don't know why Jamilah neglected to smack LW for his homophobia.

It's infuriating, honestly. It's not like the homophobia is well-hidden or anything.

He put an exclamation point on it!

It's one thing to say "Don't bring your casual flings and hookups around my kids when you're one of their main non-parental caregivers"

I actually think that given the number of hours of free childcare he's getting, and the fact that it sounds like the free childcare is coming out of the brother's leisure time, this might actually be an unreasonable ask - and I would not blame the brother at all if he said "Your choices are free childcare with whoever I'm dating tagging along with us; or an end to free childcare"

Like, what is his plan if he tries to ban the brother bringing dates along to the beach and the brother says "Okay, I'm out, good luck finding a daycare!"

Edited 2022-09-05 19:46 (UTC)

Agreed – I think it's reasonable for LW to want to meet Don's dates before they meet the kids, but not to say they can't meet the kids at all.

*nods* It has to be coming out of Don's leisure time, since presumably he's not a professional babysitter. And even if he were, LW's not paying him!

So long as Don isn't leaving any of his dates unsupervised with the kids, or behaving in inappropriately sexual ways with his dates while the kids are there, I think LW is overreacting. And he's over-reacting specifically because it's a man--he doesn't single out any of Don's other dates to complain about. (I also find it unlikely--not impossible, but unlikely--that Alan, a queer man, is going to molest little girls. LW would have a lot more cause to be worried if the caregiver was his sister, dating straight men.)

The kids aren't going to feel the turmoil around Uncle's varying friends that they would if Dad or Mom was bringing a succession of new people into the house, so that's not an issue either.

And in what world is dating four people in a year being a "player?" Minor point, but it bothered me. (Clearly it's LW's homophobia speaking. Again.)

LW would have a lot more cause to be worried if the caregiver was his sister, dating straight men.

Dingdingdingdingding!

Exactly. I guess I can sympathize with parental anxiety, because there are many people who would agree to not leaving someone unsupervised with the kids and then it would happen anyway, in a "just for a minute" or "it was an emergency" sort of situation. But that's also just a risk with free familial childcare.

In a hypothetical non-bigoted version of this question that was simply about potential danger, the parent could try to explain their concerns in a way that doesn't sound unreasonable or personal, but I don't think they could expect accommodation necessarily. I definitely wouldn't expect them to get their way with an ultimatum.

Yep, LW seems to be buying into the "non-hetero = pedophile" BS. There is no reason for LW to put that extra emphasis on "Alan was around my daughters while they wore swimsuits!" (Unless Don has said that Alan is bisexual and the ten-year-old daughter has developed breasts and hips, in which case I can see grounds for LW to want more vetting before a beach trip.)

I can't tell if it's homophobia or biphobia tbh, although I wonder if it's homophobia and he honestly just doesn't understand bisexuality at all. "four different women (and men!)" implies homophobia, as opposed to, say, "four different people (women and men!)"

it doesn't matter in the answer she gives, which completely ignores the bigotry. But it kind of would matter in a better answer, because if it's homophobia, it means "I'm pretty sure that men who date men are all pedo perverts and that means they are not safe around my middle school daughters in swimsuits," whereas in biphobia it would mean "bisexual people are sluts [he is also a player] and can't be trusted for reasonable behavior or moderation."

Of course LW might mean both, let's be fair.

yes, i took that to be 'four different women and then I know he dates men but he doesn't discuss those relationships as openly ' (gee wonder why...)

also like, dating a lot of people is what happens when you are single? it takes a while to figure out compatibility & even most monogamous people are not exclusive in that timeframe. three months seems like right around when you'd start thinking a relationship has legs + start introducing your partner to family?

On the one hand, "please don't bring people around my kids whom I haven't met" is a very reasonable request!

On the other hand...LW, your homophobia is showing. Pretty telling that he wasn't bothered by it until Don was dating a man. (Also, dating four people in one year isn't really outside the norm; it certainly doesn't make Don a "player.")

In terms of introducing (or not introducing) short-term romantic partners to the kids: That's best practices for divorced parents, but my instinct is that it's less important when one is a non-parental caregiver (without the messy emotional situation of a divorce), so I don't think LW should push for Don not to introduce his partners to the kids at all, especially since LW doesn't have other childcare options. I'm curious about what you all think. (I'm not a parent, though I am a child of divorced parents, so I've only seen things from the other end.)

Edited 2022-09-05 20:14 (UTC)

I'm a parent, and I think it'd be overkill to say "Don, I never want your partners around my kids at all". I do think it's reasonable to say "hey, I'd like to meet partner before they join you & kids on an outing".

And that said, thinking about it from Alan's side -- if I'm seeing someone for casual sex, I wouldn't *want* to go on an outing with them and their niblings; I'd say "sorry you're busy that day; wanna come by after you take the kids home/try again in a few days?" But if after three months I'm wanting to keep the person around and see where things go, I'd be up for it.

Oh Jamilah, "be sure to be clear you aren't judging his lifestyle" is not actually an effective way to call this dude on his homophobia. Not at all. The pedo libel is Actually Bad, and this LW seems to have bought into it.

Edited 2022-09-05 23:23 (UTC)

I'm also of the opinion that if your brother has been dating this guy three months, and he's around enough to go to the beach with your kids when your brother only watches them "sometimes," but you haven't gotten to know him, that's on you.

The first time through, I flinched so hard at "let alone in their bathing suits" (hello, Mean Girls) that I couldn't keep reading. What a bigoted asshole.

When I read it again here, I noticed a tone of "I am uniquely ill-positioned to take care of my children. I have childcare issues far beyond the norm, and am completely reliant on the free (!) childcare that my brother offers, and thus am justified in making him change his life to make me comfortable."

Honey, every parent who's not rich has childcare issues. Parenthood is always difficult to combine with working for a living. Other single parents manage this all the time.