All these LWs need to tell their loved ones exactly what they really think of them

[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: I am writing because my wife has lost interest in her appearance. I love her, but I cannot figure out a way to tell her she has become obese. She seems to think her appearance is just fine.

I know I can't say anything without her getting extremely upset, so I'm in a quandary about how to get her to understand that obesity is not only a danger to her health but also looks awful. Can you suggest a way to approach a woman without getting in deep trouble with her? I'm sure other men (and women) have this similar situation. Please advise. -- WORRIED HUSBAND

DEAR HUSBAND: The message might be less unwelcome if you concentrate solely on the HEALTH aspect of her weight gain. Encourage her to see her doctor, begin exercising (with you, if necessary) and adopt a healthy diet for BOTH of you "because you love her, and want to enjoy many more happy years together."

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Dear Amy: My wife and I are staying with my sister and her family for a while because our house is being renovated. While staying with them, of course, we have witnessed how they do things, and I have a serious issue with how my sister is raising her children, who are 10 and seven.

They’re pretty nice kids, but honestly so far in life they are fairly useless. My sister and I grew up on a farm and by their ages we were extremely competent in taking care of ourselves. We also had barn chores after school. Her children don’t really do anything to help the family at home. They don’t make their own beds (my sister does it), don’t put their school lunches together (my sister does it), and they only take care of the dog when an adult reminds them.

I feel strongly that she is raising them to be useless, entitled people. I believe it might be my duty as her older brother (and their uncle) to be honest about this. My wife disagrees. We agreed to run this past you.

— Concerned Uncle

Uncle: It is the height of entitlement to criticize your sister’s parenting choices — while staying as a guest in her home. I suggest that you reflect on your own lofty attitude (while accepting your sister’s hospitality), and keep your thoughts to yourself.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My one-year-old grandson was named for my father, William.

That is his name, and I can see his parents calling him Bill or Billy, Will, or even Willie, which I don’t love but can tolerate.

Instead of any of those normal names they are calling him “Bubba,” which is apparently a thing in my daughter-in-law’s family. They’re from Georgia, and she said it’s what her father and her older brother were called when they were little and what her brother calls his own son, only he’s “Bubba J.” and my grandson is “Bubba W.” when the family is together or conversing about one or the other of the children.

When I hear “Bubba” I think of rednecks and mountain people. Our son is a Boston University graduate, with a master’s in education and his wife is a nationally certified high school teacher.

How could people with so much education even consider calling their son “Bubba”? --- JUST DON’T GET IT

DEAR JUST DON’T GET IT: I’m not sure this is a case of your son and daughter-in-law turning their backs on their professional or academic accomplishments. They’re simply carrying on a tradition enjoyed by your daughter-in-law’s family.

Bear in mind the young couple did, after all, decide to honor your side of the family and your father by naming their baby for him.

When your grandson is older, he may choose to shed his earliest nickname, as many people do. But that will be up to him.

In the meantime, you don’t have to opt in for going along with the nickname his mother and father have chosen, but I don’t believe it would be wise to openly criticize them for their use of it either.

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Comments

[conuly]

These other people deserve to know how little the LWs think of them. I will stand by this statement. LWs - tell them the truth! Your wife surely needs to know you think she's fat and ugly (and, oh, yeah, something something something about her health) and she definitely hasn't noticed she's gained weight! Your sister just desperately needs you to criticize her parenting, that won't go over badly at all! Your Son and DIL absolutely want to hear that you think they're the tacky, classless ones with no taste in baby names! So go tell them.

I'll make the popcorn.

[minoanmiss]

You're right, both these bigoted LWs should tell their family members what they think. LW #1 should wait five minutes while we text his wife a list of good divorce lawyers and call the Whole Man Disposal Service, tho.

I am impressed, in a horrified way, at just how much classism LW #2 managed to pack in there.

Fukkin "concentrate on health" fatphobic advice grar grar.

[conuly]

Fukkin "concentrate on health" fatphobic advice grar grar.

And he sounds so concerned about her health, too, doesn't he.

[conuly]

I added a third article, btw, shoved it in the middle. "Should I tell my sister she's a bad mom and her elementary-aged kids are lazy and useless? I noticed when she graciously invited me into her home for a few months while we have construction done on ours!" Yes, LW, you should go do that. What's the worst that can happen?

[cimorene]

Lol his "duty as their uncle". What if these useless children reach entitled adulthood, have a tragic awakening when they meet the real world that makes no allowances for them and which they're unprepared for because they can't prepare their own lunches, and finally confront him like "Where was the loving uncle who could have prevented my future from being blighted when I was still a child without a barn?"

[conuly]

Notice it doesn't seem to occur to him that perhaps his sister is raising her kids the way she is because of their childhood rather than in spite of it.

[kiezh]

Yeah, this struck me too - she was raised in a constant-child-labor family with no leisure time or autonomy, and she's raising her kids very differently. This is unlikely to be something that just randomly happened!

And the incredibly seething awfulness of an uncle sneering at his VERY YOUNG niblings for being "useless, entitled people" (at the age of 7 and 10!) is honestly a pretty good indicator that he was raised BADLY and maybe should take a cue from his kinder and more generous sister, who is hosting his family while he looks down on hers.

[conuly]

What's more, even with all the chores they apparently had as kids they definitely were not perfect automatons at the age of seven. Their parents absolutely reminded them to do things. LW just conveniently forgot about that, in the same way people always forget how they really were as kids.

[neotoma]

I notice he doesn't say anything like "I'd like to teach her kids how to make sandwiches for their school lunches so we can have bonding time and they begin to learn how to cook for themselves".

He doesn't think his sister is teaching her kids important life skills but he's not doing it either. He's not even offering.

[full_metal_ox]

Exactly—let him earn his keep by active uncling, and instructing the kids in the fine arts of chopping wood, churning butter, and shoveling snow uphill both ways.

[cereta]

Fukkin "concentrate on health" fatphobic advice grar grar.

That's Abby for you. Never misses an opportunity to be fatphobic.

[cimorene]

The bottom one is just so amazing. Like, the top one is worse, but he's also a pretty generic trash husband. The middle one is reminiscent of so many judgy siblings. But I would just love this third guy to earnestly explain to his DIL that sounding southern inherently means sounding classless because, uh, rednecks live in the south (and I notice he's too classy to know the word hillbilly), and express his bewilderment that she could be capable of achieving the lofty state of high school teacher without learning this essential fact in the process of ascending out of the lower classes.

[conuly]

It's so awful.

[mrissa]

"You have used the magic words, now I understand!" said LW1's wife. "Every single other message of our society did not reach me for some reason, and I went on thinking I had inherent worth as a person, but thank God you wrote into that advice columnist who had the last-chance method of fixing THAT mistake. Now I have earned my worth back as a person with a thin body, because that has no factors beyond my control and happens easily, and always should! Thank you, LW and Advice Columnist! I'm so glad we had this little talk, and I feel nothing but positive feelings about it!"

[conuly]

LOL.

[jadelennox]

Dear LW #3:

Our son is a Boston University graduate, with a master’s in education and his wife is a nationally certified high school teacher.

As someone who briefly taught at the BU M.Ed program, and whose mum dropped out of the BU ed school ABD (I can't recall if she got a terminal master's on leaving), I must solemnly inform you:

lololololololol

Seriously, so many lols. When I taught in that program -- a required course for both master's and doctoral students -- I was a grad student. A master's student, in a non-doctoral program. To be clear, neither I nor my predecessor had the paper requirements to teach the course, and BU didn't care because the ed school prioritized money, not teaching quality.

(I know this isn't the point of why LW #3 sucks so hard, but it was a record scratch moment of hysteria, that's all.)

[conuly]

It is not really shocking that they're boasting about their kid's education at a school that's just this side of being a diploma mill. It is, in fact, pretty much what I'd expect.

[full_metal_ox]

That’s what happens when the topic sentence of your educational aspirations is “Not being like those trashy people over there (“It’s pronounced Bouquet!“)

(I long ago came to realize that the phrase “I’m an *ENGLISH MAJOR!*” in any amateur online writing critique would usually equal: “VERNACULAR POLICE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”)

[harpers_child]

LW3, have you considered the inherent humor of calling a small child Bubba, a nickname usually reserved for very large men? Because it's pretty funny. No love, a Southerner.

[ethelmay]

Isn't it originally from a small sibling's charming mispronunciation of "brother"? My father and his sister were called "Bubby and Sissy" when they were little, which seems like the same kind of thing. (When my father was in the service during World War II his father's letters to him still occasionally began "Dear Mr. Bubbs...")

[conuly]

Yes, that's correct - like buddy, bro, or brah. Although I suspect the LW would be equally shocked at the parents encouraging their children to refer to each other as "Brother" and "Sister" - I have heard that, but only in people from outside my region!

[full_metal_ox]

Isn't it originally from a small sibling's charming mispronunciation of "brother"? My father and his sister were called "Bubby and Sissy" when they were little, which seems like the same kind of thing.

Anglo-Romani linguist Ian Hancock has suggested a link between “Bubba” and the Afro-diasporic Krio->Gullah word “bohboh” or “buhbuh”, “boy”: https://archive.ph/vead

(LW shows every sign of being the sort of person who would suffer a fit of the vapors over that line of linguistic connection, though.)

Although I suspect the LW would be equally shocked at the parents encouraging their children to refer to each other as "Brother" and "Sister" - I have heard that, but only in people from outside my region!

Addressing your siblings as “Brother” and “Sister” in China and Japan is proper grammar and etiquette, although the formality level can vary (and, moreover, birth order is built into the titles.)

It’s not typical in majority-white middle-class parts of the U.S. Midwest, but my best friend’s younger son routinely addressed her elder as “Brother.” (She’s half Chinese, and the household has been heavily immersed in various Asian media.)

[harpers_child]

Re: Ian Hancock - very cool research.

[minoanmiss]

ooo. takes notes

[conuly]

It’s not typical in majority-white middle-class parts of the U.S. Midwest, but my best friend’s younger son routinely addressed her elder as “Brother.” (She’s half Chinese, and the household has been heavily immersed in various Asian media.)

I've heard it from white people from... not quite the south but not quite the midwest?

[full_metal_ox]

If you’re talking southern Ohio through Kentucky, that’s their paternal lineage, so...

[conuly]

I'm not sure exactly. But they definitely always hit me as being sorta... midway to the middle?

[harpers_child]

A plausible etymology. The Bubba in my familial circle is a tiny very educated woman who is very good friends with one of my cousins and is the adult their kids can talk to about everything. (A role she's very serious about and has cultivated since each kid was an infant.) She chose the name for it's humor factor.

[ethelmay]

Well, "Baba" in Russian is "grandmother," so that kind of makes sense too. There are only so many phonemes.

[magid]

And in Yiddish, grandmother is "bubbie".

[redbird]

That's much better than I would have expected from Amy.