It's their world, we're just living in it...

1. Dear Amy: I’m hoping you can shed some light on this subject.

Is there any justification or logical reasoning behind some of these new parenting trends, specifically one that grants basically full autonomy to a toddler to make his or her own decisions? One that is particularly irksome is letting said toddler choose whether or not they want to hug an immediate family member.

I'm not referring to distant cousins or relatives that are never seen or have only met once. I’m not talking about complete strangers (which of course I would never expect anyone to automatically consent to physical contact), but more like a grandparent or aunt/uncle who are very present in the child's life!

On two recent occasions, I – a very close uncle – was denied a hug. This was the choice of the 3-year-old. This choice was reinforced by the parent. I'd be lying if I said this wasn't hurtful.

I can't ever recall a time when I didn't want to hug or kiss a close family member growing up, and as I got older, it meant even more as we gained the wisdom of how precious life is. These days, I'm not much for human interaction/contact given the current social climate, but for the five to 10 seconds a hug lasts with the nephew, all the problems in the world seem to go away.

How will this type of upbringing affect young children as they get older?

– J in NY

Dear J: If you had focused on other choices toddlers might make – such as deciding when their own bedtime is, or deciding to pull the cat’s tail – I’d be in complete agreement with you. You’ve focused on one issue – physical contact – where in my opinion it is not only OK for a toddler to make their own choice, but it is vital that they make their own choice.

Two points: An uncle is not “an immediate family member.” Also: A 10-second hug is forever.

You might have happy memories of sharing hugs with elder relatives, but many young children (myself included) were extremely uncomfortable being forced to hug someone – even a family member. Every person is different; children have different temperaments, and some simply take longer to adjust to various social situations.

It would help you to understand with compassion that your 3-year-old family member has spent the entirety of his little lifetime growing up during a global pandemic, watching people avoid hugs, keep their distance, and oftentimes wear masks. It is not only natural but appropriate that a young child would be wary or unsure about when it’s OK to hug. Furthermore, every child’s bodily autonomy should be respected. And – even though you seem to want to receive it more than offer it – you should be mature enough to find another way to convey affection for this child. Getting down on his level, establishing eye contact, and offering a high-five or a fist bump might be a good start.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2743030?fs

****************

2. Dear Annie: I am very sad and hurt because my son and his wife will not let me see my four grandkids. This all started after we got together on the Fourth of July. My son and daughter-in-law and their children came to my home to celebrate the holiday. They have four little kids, and we only live 45 minutes apart. I love my grandchildren, and if it were up to my son, they would visit more often and stay longer. But as it is, they had rarely visited me.

On the day they came to my house, the baby was acting weird; well, to me she was acting like she was fighting sleep. She would cry and then stop and then cry. They decided to go home after three hours. My son and daughter-in-law took the baby in their car, and I took the other three children in mine. They told me they were going home, and we all left at the same time, but when we arrived at their home, they were not there. They had called a neighbor, who came out to greet us. She said they had arranged for her to take care of the kids and for me to go home.

Despite this, I gave the kids a bath and got them ready for bed, waiting for their parents. After it turned dark, with the neighbor staying with the children, I drove home. It was only later that I found out why my daughter-in-law and son had not come home. They took the baby to the emergency room, and they were told the baby had meth in her system. She is 1 1/2 years old. They said she got hold of something in my house that had meth on it, and she must have put her hands in her mouth. They had told the neighbor they were going to the ER but swore her to secrecy. I felt doubly hurt that they would open up to a neighbor and not say anything to me, the baby's grandmother.

They won't talk to me, and they will not let me see my grandchildren because of this. I did not have any meth in my house. If it came from inside my home, I don't know how it got there. The baby walked outside, played with the dog, played with the other three kids and walked to the lake behind my home.

The baby could have touched something outside. I don't know where it came from. I don't know how or what she touched to get this on her. They are blaming me and saying her kids deserve the best of the best. I am a good person; if my grandchild got this from my home, I didn't do it. If someone put it in my house, I didn't see it, because if I had, I would have gotten rid of it. I would never hurt my grandkids. I love them with all my heart.

Annie, what should I do? I can't even get in touch with them, and they were planning to move after the Fourth, and I don't know where the house is that they moved into. I was going to help them move, but that didn't happen.

I am on disability from a car accident that left me badly injured. I walk very slowly and have to drag one leg. Yet they are treating me this way. Please help. -- Angry and Heartbroken

Dear Angry and Heartbroken: Rather than wallow in self-pity and finger-point at your daughter-in-law, you should use this as an opportunity for some serious self-analysis. You say that if you had seen meth in your house, you would have gotten rid of it. Most people would not know meth if they saw it. Perhaps the car accident led you to addictive pain killers; I don't know. I would check out Narcotics Anonymous. You have a lot of love in your heart; don't let meth or any other drugs keep you from your little grandchildren.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2742490

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1. 20 minutes on how very very hurt LW was that a preschooler didn't want to hug him, and then one sentence to pretend he cares about what this is going to do to the kid.

LW, you and your self-indulgent whining need to get a life, or a grip, or over yourself, or perhaps a hobby - honestly, I don't know what LW needs, but I know it's not a hug.

2. Wow. Just, fucking wow. Even if LW2 is committed to this "Gosh, I have no idea how my grandkid possibly got hurt in my home!" story (and thinks we believe it....) you'd think they'd spare at least half a paragraph on concern for the child's welfare and relief that she recovered. But nope, it's all "hurt feelings hurt feelings!"

Also, asking your son and his wife and their three kids, one of whom is a baby, to travel 45 minutes one way to see you is absurd.

#2 is the most absolutely baffling answer. Does Annie think meth is an opioid? That meth is in painkillers?! (Yes, technically there are meth pills – speed is meth in pill form – but they aren't painkillers.)

The letter is definitely super fishy! But that's still not a good answer.

Edited 2022-11-04 07:22 (UTC)

Oh, who the hell knows what Annie thinks about meth, but we can all agree that LW definitely is either using it or lives with somebody who is, right?

Frankly, there is enough weirdness going on with this letter that I'm not even convinced the meth story is what the baby's parents actually said to LW.

Well, if it's not then I even more support their decision to make a clean break with LW.

I should also note that methamphetamine hydrochloride, under the brand name Desoxyn, is sometimes (though infrequently) prescribed in the US for ADHD or obesity. And levomethamphetamine, a form of methamphetamine, is an ingredient in some OTC decongestants – which is why pharmacies in the US are required to track sales of those products, and there's a limit to how much one person can buy at once, since they can be used to make meth. So it's theoretically possible that LW does have meth in the house without knowing it, if she takes Desoxyn. (I don't know if levomethamphetamine would show up as methamphetamine in the ER, but if it would, the nasal decongestants could be source as well.)

But again: the letter is fishy.

I actually did know both those things, though it really wouldn't speak well of LW if they had random pills just lying around where little hands could get to them. It seems to me that even the most ardent "houseproof the child!" advocates will at least put away controlled medications when crawling babies are visiting. Or if they won't, well, then they can't complain when their families decide never to visit again.

100% agreed that "Baby got into Grandma's pills" => "Baby should not visit Grandma" is a straight line!!!

Really, "Baby should not visit Grandma" is the appropriate response to "Baby got into a dangerous substance at Grandma's" regardless of how, exactly, Baby got into the dangerous substance, unless and until Grandma provides both an explanation of what happened and concrete, credible assurances that it will not happen again. Based on this letter, I'm guessing those assurances will come approximately...never.

(I just put the info about Desoxyn because I realized my earlier comment might have implied that there were no legitimate uses for methamphetamine.)

Nope. My dad, who is quadriplegic and doesn't have the ability to take even pills or most food without help, was hospitalized unexpectedly in Paris while on vacation with a respiratory infection and had to be put in a medically-induced coma. The hospital said they found meth in his system and refused to listen to my parents' explanations, but continued to ask them to tell the truth, shame them for lying, and assure them that they wouldn't get in trouble, they just wanted to know. We never found out what happened.

That sounds awful – I'm so sorry that happened to your family!

It looks like an awful lot of medications can cause a false positive for meth – including trazodone, which I've taken myself (as needed, for sleep issues), and my doctor sure never told me that!

So it sounds like the most likely situation for #2 is that Baby got into some of LW's medications – either because they weren't secured properly or because a pill had been accidentally dropped on the floor somewhere.

It looks like an awful lot of medications can cause a false positive for meth – including trazodone

Oh hell thank you, that's good to know. I've got to take a drug test for my trade program soon, and I don't want to get flagged for meth when I take trazadone for chronic insomnia that effects my depression and anxiety!

Yeah -- YIKES, I take trazodone, too, and I would not want to be flagged for meth on a drug test!! :o

I also suspect that the toddler got into Grandma's medications somehow (dropped pills happen even if you're careful with storage, I'm trying to keep them away from my CATS), rather than encountering a bag of meth.

I would still make the decision that Grandma's house probably isn't child-safe after this incident, but I'm not sure completely cutting off communication is fair... *IF* this was a singular incident, *AND* it happened the way the LW says.

She comes across as pretty self-absorbed in her presentation of this, but I do understand the hurt/bafflement if the "meth" result was a medical error.

Trazodone gang gang

Another thanks for the info!

All right, I guess that's a possibility!

LW's commentary is still flipping weird, though. Like, I'm sure your family was much more concerned about Dad's health than everybody else's feelings about the situation.

Oh yeah, definitely. LW is probably a handful and a problem for her offpsring and spouse, and she sounds like a drama queen as well, but given that as

ermingarden says there are a number of medications that can cause a false positive for meth, it seems like the kid almost certainly had contact with some sort of medication, and probably ingested it or some residue of it, so even though it probably wasn't meth, its real cause is still probably not entirely benign (even if it was in a non-dangerous amount, which perhaps we don't know). But LW's distress is real and it's reasonable, and the son and his wife's actions are an overreaction, and a particularly unfortunate one that is likely caused by irresponsibly incomplete communication on the part of the hospital. The parents likely don't know that false positives are a possibility, and why should they, without being told? And if she was a drug addict, it wouldn't really be all THAT extreme (still maybe a bit intense, but not basically wrong).

Coming back to this in the light of day, and re-reading letter #2 in light of what I now know about how common false positives for meth are (thank you,

cimorene!), I think I was too suspicious of LW2, and the letter may well be – is even likely to be – totally sincere. (I tend to give LWs the benefit of the doubt in discussions in this comm – sometimes too much! I was trying to correct for that here, but I think I went too far in the other direction.)

I was originally assuming, like Annie, that the test was accurate. But it seems instead like Baby probably got into something from LW's medicine cabinet that either contains methamphetamine (like Desoxyn) or is on that long list of drugs that can cause a false positive, and LW and Baby's parents don't know that anything other than full-on street meth can return a positive test result. If that's what happened, then LW probably could take appropriate precautions to secure her medications and make the house safe for Baby...but it doesn't sound like her son and daughter-in-law would trust her.

But the whole situation tells me that there was already something wrong with LW's relationship with her son and daughter-in-law. If I were in that situation, and my mom told me that she had no idea how the baby could have encountered meth in her house, I would believe her and try to figure out what happened from there, because I trust her completely. The fact that LW's son seems to have readily believed that she had meth in her house and was lying to him about it speaks to a deeper problem, and suggests that LW has been less than trustworthy in the past.

I really love the current trend to not force children to hug people, and I kind of want to explain to LW #1 just what he sounds like when he complains at length that he doesn't get to squeeze a child regardless of their consent.

Letter#2 is quite a something. Maybe the meth fell from the sky.

It's not even that current. People were doing this 20 years ago when the niblings were little. Heck, my parents - and probably other people - were doing it 20 years before that when my sister and I were little!

That's 40 years for this guy to get with the times already.

There was a letter recently

Dear Care and Feeding,

I grew up in a culture where children basically have no input regarding who gets to hug, squeeze, or kiss them and who are regularly told, “Go give Random Old Man a kiss, he is grandma’s fourth cousin.” I am less than fond of the approach so have no problem telling people to go away and not touch my baby. My question is more about when and how we as the parents should also start applying that to ourselves.

As in, right now we shower her in kisses and cuddle with her endlessly (unless she starts fussing, at which point we will put her down or adjust the way we are making physical contact with her). But at some point, we should start asking for her permission or perhaps telling her that even mom and dad don’t get to kiss her if she doesn’t want them to.

I am not even going into the little heartbreak the thought of her not wanting a hug from me will inevitably cause, because I know it’s more important to teach her the confidence to turn down a hug. On the purely practical side of things, when is a baby old enough to understand this?

— Can I Have a Hug Please?

Dear Can I Have a Hug Please?,

I’m so happy to welcome my alter ego, Crazy Consent Mom, back to the table after her brief appearance last week. As a sexual assault survivor, consent education is one of my top parenting values, and in my opinion, you can start anytime by simply talking to babies and toddlers about what actions you are taking with them, as you pick them up or change their diaper.

By the time my son was verbal, he knew that 1) his body belongs to him; 2) he gets to choose who touches his body; and 3) If someone else tells us to stop touching their bodies, we do it immediately. These conversations should be regular and ongoing. We can model consent by asking questions like, “Do you want me to stop tickling you?”, “Do you want a hug right now?”, and “Can I sit close to you?” I try to ask my son if I can take a photograph of him, and respect his wishes if he says no, no matter how freaking adorable he looks. But the most important piece of all of this is that parents then have to respect their children’s stated boundaries.

There are children’s books like “My Body! What I Say Goes!” and others that are intended to teach children about consent, and one of my all-time favorite children’s television moments is this song from “Doc McStuffins” that illustrates why you should always stop tickling someone when they say no, even if they seem to be enjoying it. Nuance!

And it’s true that it’s not always easy! Our kids are cute af, and we love them! It’s tempting to insist on physical intimacy just because you want to squeeze them and kiss their precious little faces. Reader, I haven’t had a kiss from my son since at least 2019. And I want one. But what I want more is to raise a child who is well-versed in body autonomy, never violates the consent of others, and knows how to say “no” when it comes to his own body.

—Emily

Also recently:

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m in my mid-thirties and my mom was somewhat ahead of the societal curve when it came to consent in the 1990’s. In other words, I always knew it was okay not to kiss or hug relatives or family friends if I didn’t feel like it, and they knew it was my decision to do so or not.

Now that I’m at “that age” where most of my friends have kids (I don’t) I want to keep teaching what I consider to be an important lesson! However, I don’t want my friends to feel like I’m stepping on their parenting toes if I tell their kids it’s okay if they don’t want to hug me goodbye, etc. I’m happy to be demonstrative with my friends’ kids, but if they say they don’t want to hug me when I visit, that’s fine and should be their choice! I also know that a lot of my friends have relatives who expect hugs and kisses from these young kids, and I don’t want to be the family friend who has taught them it’s okay to refuse (even though I think THAT should be okay). How should I navigate this?

—Teaching, Not Parenting

Dear Teaching,

I don’t think any reasonable adult would find a problem with what you laid out here. As a matter of fact, I would applaud you for taking that stance with my children, and I wouldn’t take it personally at all. Nowadays I think more parents than ever are teaching their kids that they shouldn’t be forced to hug or accept hugs/kisses from anyone they don’t want to. I certainly fall into that category in terms of what I teach my two daughters and many of my friends have a similar mentality.

I wouldn’t look at it as if you’re “showing up” the parents. If anything, you’re sharing what feels comfortable to you and your body, because it doesn’t feel right to embrace a child who clearly doesn’t want to be embraced. In doing so, you could be opening your friends’ eyes to the idea that their kids shouldn’t be forced to hug people because mom and dad told them to.

Memo to everyone reading this — the holidays are approaching and more people will be getting together for large gatherings who have been largely absent from our experiences due to the pandemic. Aunties, uncles, and grandparents all over America are going to expect physical embraces from the children they may not have seen in person for close to two years, and I think we should all empower our children to choose who touches them. Will some of our family members get upset? Sure they will, but I think it’s more important to teach our kids about boundaries and have them know that their parents will respect those boundaries at all times.

This letter does my heart good.

1. Amy's reply is spot-on, with the addition that a toddler should have bodily autonomy regardless of there being a pandemic.

2. Apart from the question whether LW2 has inadvertently left her meds lying around (which stupid, stupid!), what a weird and harsh reply. You have a lot of love in your heart; don't let meth or any other drugs keep you from your little grandchildren. Eh, her son and daughter-in-law are keeping her from her little grandchildren, and she can't even get in touch with them.

If LW1 is that touch-starved, he could ask his sibling for a hug.

I'm not a parent, but I think I'd be a lot more likely to say yes to "hey, it's been a long week/month/pandemic, could I get a hug?" than "it's been a long week etc., I need a hug from $toddler." If those "two occasions" involved the same three-year-old, LW1 shouldn't have been surprised the second time. If, as I hope, he's looking for useful advice rather than just "please tell me I'm right and that it's OK to keep demanding to hold an unwilling child so I can feel better," they might benefit from a way to ask the parent for a hug.

What this LW is missing is that, as Amy said, children are different. That he "can't recall a time" when he didn't want to hug or kiss a close family member means that he doesn't know what it was like to be pressured to hug someone when he didn't want to. He isn't even arguing "I had to hug Aunt Clingy or a distant cousin and it didn't hurt me"--either he is forgetting something, or he's assuming that he is the Normal Human Being, and all children really want the same things, regardless of what they say.

If LW had asked his sibling for a hug, he would have been setting a really good example for the kid, who would now know that adults sometimes want hugs from other adults and that that's a normal thing to ask for. There's also an excellent possibility that a three-year-old who saw hugs happening would want to join in.

If the priority is "getting me a hug from someone who likes me," this would have been a winner on multiple levels. I always suspect, when people complain about little children being given the chance to consent, that the real priority is "teaching children to know their place, the way we did in the old days."

LW1, my two year old nephew who I have seen at minimum once a week for his entire life doesn't always want to hug me. Get over yourself.

LW2, first off, a three hour visit with four kids including a baby involved is considered in many circles to be adequate. To address the gist of your letter: therapy for you to process your hurt that your kid has gone no-contact. I bet if you talk it out with a professional you might come up with more than one reason this has happened. To me the event you describe seems like it may have been the last straw in an already damaged relationship. You also seem to have some unprocessed stuff around the car accident that caused your disability.

If I was aware that a sibling of mine had written letter #1, that sibling would lose hugging-the-kid privileges if it were up to me.

If we take #2 at face value, then it's kind of heartbreaking. I know the chances are pretty tiny, but I can think of scenarios where it could be true (the meth/medication containing meth/something that can give a false positive for meth belongs to one of the parents, actually; the parents saw someone else before the grandmother and it was theirs; etc).

The fact that the parents immediately assumed there was something wrong which they shouldn't tell the grandmother... either tracks (they were suspicious that the grandmother took drugs all along) or really doesn't (why wouldn't they tell her they're headed to the emergency room if they previously trusted her?). Either way, I do feel bad for the grandmother that she gets no closure here, even if it's hard truths she needs to hear.

LW1: Amy did a surprisingly good job answering.

LW2: I was torn a bit between LW sounding a bit too “woe is me” and believing that she is genuinely bewildered at how the baby got poisoned. Hearing that many prescription meds could give a false positive makes it sound very likely a careless mistake.

However, I am on disability from a car accident that left me badly injured. I walk very slowly and have to drag one leg. Yet they are treating me this way. Please help. -- Angry and Heartbroken … That pinged my family experience with narcissism. “I drove the kids home and bathed them and put them to bed despite my disability, but LOOK how they treat me!” This careless mistake could have been the moment the family seized upon to go NC after considering it for a while.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's their world, we're just living in it...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject