agonyaunt | (no subject)

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Dear Care and Feeding,

How do you gently set boundaries with relatives? My 8-year-old gets along well with her cousins from my husband’s side. In the last year or so, there have been more frequent trips and sleepovers. I was generally easygoing about the arrangement for a while. But now my child is old enough to be aware that different houses have different rules—and my household’s rules tend to be stricter.

She has come home being overly dramatic about any restrictions, complaining about our house and habits, talking back with attitudes, and being mean to her little brother. It usually takes a whole day or more to turn her back to the sweet girl I raised, and sometimes this has to be done with discipline. I am tired of it.

The thing is, when I want to enforce some boundaries that I think are appropriate (with my kids only) when everyone is together, my husband’s relatives sometimes dismiss me or can be patronizing. My husband is more like his family, so he doesn’t see it as much as I do, despite multiple private discussions. I do not want to overly restrict her play with the cousins, as they are really good kids. But I want to be more mindful when I let her have extended sleepovers at the relatives’ house.

Recently during an outing, a relative directly said he planned for her to stay over during the summer. I felt weird about it—the statement was not even phrased as a question to me. I had a chat with my husband and told him that I would prefer to have my daughter stay closer to me for the couple of weeks that she doesn’t have summer camp, and that she should use the time to prep for her next grade anyway. If this is brought up in front of me again, how do I phrase my feelings politely? I don’t want to hurt the future relationship, but I do want to let my husband’s relatives know I have the parenting rights as a mother, and they should not circumvent me, as though my husband is my children’s only parent.

—Boundary Time

Dear Boundary Time,

Whether you are sending your kid to her cousins’ house or a neighbor’s or even just to plain old school, they will come home with some new opinions about how their lives are set up. This age is just about when they really start to notice these differences between families, and to remember them, and to comment on them, and it can be very annoying and feel like your kid is being ungrateful by not recognizing that you have your rules for a reason. But I believe this would be happening whether or not you happened to have the in-laws you have.

The only sane response to this kind of display of 8-year-old aggrievement is to just keep on doing what you know is right, and try not to get too triggered by your kid whining about the other house having Eggos instead of homemade waffles, or letting the kids stay up until 10:00 instead of making them go to bed at 8:00, or whatever the difference is. No, your kid doesn’t know how good she has it, but I don’t think it’s fair to expect her to have that perspective yet. Your options are either to figure out how to act unfazed by this kind of petty complaining, to yell at your kid to keep her feelings inside and always act pleasant and grateful around you, or to keep your kid from hanging out with cousins/going over to neighbors’ houses/going to school. I don’t think the second or third options are healthy. You have your reasons for doing what you do in your parenting, and you have to have faith that in the long run, your kid will appreciate that you were setting up something good for them.

But this seems like only half of the question, here. This is actually a question about in-laws and whether or not they respect you—as a parent, or even as a person. I suspect your kid’s behavior wouldn’t be bothering you as much if you felt respected by your husband’s family. Your husband needs to be much more active in standing up for you—not “seeing it” as you do is not a good reason for him not to act and intervene on your behalf. If this is bothering you, it should bother him that you are bothered, and he should work with you on putting up a unified front.

—Rebecca

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The comments section over at Slate is ripping this woman apart for being a control freak who probably beats her kid.

I'm not entirely certain that the actual text of the letter supports that, it's pretty vague, but I can tell you that the word "sweet" in this context gives me the heebie-jeebies, and that is not one bit improved by being paired with the word "discipline".

And that may be unfair. It may be that this kid comes back and is grumpy with her brother and complains that at her cousins' house she can eat ice cream for dinner and they don't have a set bedtime even during the school year, and "discipline" means "we take away screens for a day" or "she goes to bed half an hour early" or something else that's very much in line with cultural norms and that most people would consider reasonable. I have no idea!

But oh god, does that word "sweet" raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

I can't tell you what is hitting my "keep sweet and pray" alarm, but it's going off.

LW is reminding me of my mother. As ever, that is not a compliment.

So I am torn. I don't think one should announce to a parent "I'm taking your kid for the summer," unless it's a parent whose kid really needs to escape them. Do I think LW is such a parent because of what's in the letter or because of the memory cascade "sweet" set off in my head?

It sounds like LW is an overly controlling and highly neurotic parent, but on the other hand, that doesn't affect the procedure for inviting her kids over. If it is the case that the daughter needs escape and support, pissing off LW in advance is only going to be counter-productive.

Her in-laws were being presumptuous, but otoh this is because they assume she will give permission, not because they forgot parents have to do that. It's a normal kind of arrangement at this kid's age, and a lot of people DO simply trust their siblings in law to host their kids. In other words, there's no insult intended and no reason to obsess about it really. She can just say something like "We'll have to see" or "Not sure if that will work for us". It's not like they get to steal the kid if she doesn't have a brilliant comeback.

And even if you're a bad parent, your spouse can be a bad spouse. Her husband is being one by dismissing her feelings. If she routinely feels dismissed and disregarded by his siblings, that is something he should try to support her in, even if he thinks she's being oversensitive and they weren't dismissing anything - even if the support she needs is just excessive reassurance.

Edited 2024-07-14 07:35 (UTC)

The last paragraph - especially the "husband is the only parent" bit - reads to me like maybe the subject had been brought up previously when husband and daughter were visiting the in-laws, and husband had said something like "sounds good", and LW is now incensed that the in-laws would interpret getting the father's agreement to the plan as actual permission...

Yes, I could be wrong but "discipline" in this letter sounded like hitting, spanking, or other forms of physical child abuse.

What caused me concern was the bit about the summer. Apparently the kid's going to spend all but a couple of weeks at summer camp, and the rest doing "prep for her next grade" under LW's supervision? This kid is 8. She's starting 3rd grade, not college.

I want to know if the daughter is ever allowed to have fun--or even unstructured time--at home.

Summer camp could be code for daycare, but in the summer. Or it may be that LWs family traditionally does a sleep away camp for most of the summer, but I assume not.

Yeah, day camps are not uncommon. Some are basically daycare, some have subject focus like art, science, computers, outdoors stuff etc. I assumed that's what she meant bc she sounds like a control freak, but it's possible she likes a camp she's vetted better than a home stay with the cousins.

"Summer camp" includes day camp. Eight is a normal age for all levels of summer camp imo. Community, school, Scouts, or church can organize day camps, they are less expensive, they can be focused on but not exclusively about a single activity (such as sailing camp), and like sleep-away camp they can go one or two weeks or even longer. The child in question might be doing a couple back-to-back sessions.

That said, I think we may have a bad case of Tiger Mom here.

* It's weird that the relative plans for LW's kid to stay over for the summer without asking LW first.

* If the cousins are "really good kids" even with less strict rules, maybe LW could loosen up a bit too.

* Why would LW's kid be mean to her little brother after returning from these trips?

* "It usually takes a whole day or more to turn her back to the sweet girl I raised, and sometimes this has to be done with discipline." Yeah, this sounds creepy.

* Do 8-year-olds in the US generally have to prep for their next grade during the summer holidays??

Do 8-year-olds in the US generally have to prep for their next grade during the summer holidays??

No.

The only thing you have to "prep" normally at that age is having all the school supplies all your teachers want and replacing outgrown clothes and shoes as necessary.

I have HEARD of summer homework, but I don't think I've ever heard it going that young.

Thanks. That really makes me think that LW is way too strict.

The kids all had summer homework from first grade on up. Not very intense, though - a packet and a reading log.

Seconding the not intense. I had a packet for the summer after first grade (this would have been 1990), finished it on day 1, and was disappointed the rest of the summer was going to be boring.

I may also have been a weird kid. ;)

Thanks.

I've encountered those before, but not so young! Not that it's a bad idea.

Oh interesting. I have only encountered reading-related "homework" for summer (not the same as library summer reading programs). An actual formal packet would be helpful for early grades especially! More work for Mother, of course, but helpful...

A unified packet among all the schools in the district, or at least all the students in a school, is a convenience for people who are worried about the summer slide. Of course, as always, the people who are most worried are the ones who have the least to worry about - children with well-educated parents gain skills over the summer because their parents do things with them that help them gain skills, put them in the sort of summer camps that, while fun, help them gain skills, and so on. It's the very poor, with the parents who are the least well educated and have the least free time and the most warehoused of day camps whose kids fall behind.

There are also summertime workbooks at any bookstore for parents who either don't get a summer homework packet or who think the homework packet is too light. Those generally have three months of math and reading comprehension worksheets with sometimes some suggested science projects as well. (I'll be honest here. Despite what I just up there said about well-educated parents, summertime homework is about the only homework I approve of for elementary school. Even if it's just two worksheets a day and a reading log it does mitigate skill loss in students who are likely to lose skills. In poorer districts the loss can add up to three months every summer, and it's not all gained back in the first month of school. Meanwhile, their wealthier counterparts have gained a month or more in that same time. And a store-bought workbook, while generally uninspired, at least is less work than running around trying to organize science projects and current events and book reports and your own math on your own.)

I didn't have any prep for any grades except logistical stuff (weeding out the clothes that yes, finally you've outgrown too much to even think of wearing, getting new school supplies) and closer to the start of the year, getting back into a sleep schedule conducive to getting up at 0545 to get on the bus at 0630.

When it rained and I wasn't outside, my mother did have some simple things like brain teasers and flashcards to keep my mind active with numbers (ugh, third grade math was rough, that teacher did not care) but it wasn't homework or prep. (Mom was also a teacher and was very aware of my educational tendencies.)

There might be a (suggested) reading list, but not "prep." The reading list would often be organized through the public library in my experience and not many kids would do it.

The most charitable thing I can think of here is that this mother doesn't want her kid to forget the previous school year's curriculum and plans to review whatever math, etc., was covered, but that backslide is something that the new grade's teacher is aware of and has allowed for in their lesson plans!

About the "being mean to her little brother" ...

The 8-year-old "needing" to "prep" for the next grade over the summer, the "sweet", the whole "discipline" line, "closer to me", and the strange conversational dynamics all around have me seriously questioning whether the LW is a reliable narrator.

It's entirely possible that the cousins are feral and bully anyone smaller, or that the kid is experiencing some kind of abuse there and acting out about it when home; it's also possible that the son is the Golden Child and the 8-year-old is required to junior-mom him or sacrifice everything for him as a matter of course when the mother's in charge. If she's truly being mean, of course she needs to stop, but ... I have questions.

Yes, me too.

(What a lovely kitty!)

There is a lot of weird stuff and red flags in this letter, but I don't think "prep time" for a new school year is odd? If we had a busy summer we always made sure we had the last week or two as free as possible so we could do stuff like shopping for supplies and new clothes, doing all the things we meant to do over the summer and didn't (or taking one last long bike ride/swim day), getting our sleep schedules back to what we needed for school, making sure we knew what the new routine was going to be and were all ready for it, settling nerves about a new teacher and new bus route and new class, etc. It doesn't have to mean a reading list and cramming for 4th grade math, I would have absolutely hated having to go right from a long visit with relatives into the first day of school!

The wording's kind of awkward but she was probably caught off-guard by the relative just assuming they could have the kid and came up with the simplest way she could to explain.

We used to call it grandma-itis.

I'm gonna be straight up here: regardless of anything else at all in the letter, taking a day to return to normal behavior after a sleepover is NORMAL. taking a day to return to normal after travel is NORMAL. Especially at this age! The kid is probably OVERTIRED. Even if both houses had the exact same rules and perfect alignment on everything the kid would probably be overtired and acting funny, either from traveling or from staying up late whispering with her cousin.

I gotta say while I see all the controlling stuff people are mentioning, what stood out to me was the "extended sleepovers". This kid is regularly spending multiple nights at a time away from her parents' house to the extent that the relatives just assumed it would be fine to take her for a couple weeks? That honestly sounds like the opposite of a controlling parent to me. Like, either LW is *obviously* abusive such that the husband's family are teaming up to keep the daughter out of the house as much as possible, or this whole family is incredibly laid-back about trading their kids around compared to most families I know of. (Or both.)

LW, if your kid is regularly spending a week at the cousins', it's perfectly reasonable to cut back, most kids don't have weeklong sleepovers on a regular basis. Unless you *are* abusive and controlling, in which case you should agree to let her go there as much as she wants.

When I read "extended sleepover" my thought was something like drop off in the afternoon or evening, spend the night, and then instead of pick up in the morning of the next day, pick up in the afternoon or evening.

That was what I thought at first too, but honestly afternoon to afternoon isn't that unusual for a sleepover for eight-year-olds? Or at least afternoon playtime to next day's lunchtime - that's what most of mine were as a kid. So maybe, but give she mentions being "generally easygoing" and that the relatives are clearly willing to take the kid for multiple nights, it sounds more to me like they might be regularly taking her for a whole weekend or things like that.

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