agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My relationship with my much younger sister, “Charity,” has always been a volatile one. Recently, our grandmother passed away and Charity stole some jewelry that had been promised to me, likely when she last visited our grandmother’s place before she went into hospice. She claims not to know where it is, but a friend who works at a restaurant she frequents said she saw her come in wearing our grandmother’s necklace; Charity, of course, is saying she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. My 15-year-old daughter, “Zarra,” knows how upset I am about the whole thing and is just as angry. However, I didn’t expect that she would take matters into her own hands—and oh my god did she…

Last week, I learned through my mother that Charity broke up with her fiancé because she learned he was cheating on her and had fathered a child with another woman. When I told Zarra that her aunt had gotten a dose of karma, she replied, “Thanks to me.” I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach and asked her what she meant. Zarra explained that she had given her friend “Lisa’s” college-age brother money to purchase a burner phone for her. She then had Lisa call up Charity pretending to be a woman who was trying to track Charity’s fiancé down so she could sue him for child support. Zarra said Charity had been so furious that they could hear her screaming at Lisa through the phone from four feet away. She laughed and said she’d never expected the prank to actually work, but was glad it did.

I am truly at a loss as to what to do here. On the one hand, Zarra did a very devious thing and involved her friend and her friend’s brother in it. But on the other hand, if I’m being honest, it was extremely gratifying to see my bitch sister finally get a taste of her own medicine—she’s spent her life taking advantage of people and is an all-around shitty person. My husband thought the whole thing was brilliant. Should I punish Zarra and inform Lisa’s parents of their kids’ role in what my daughter did, or is this one of those things that cancels itself out?

—Secretly Pleased

Dear Secretly,

I imagine that your sister’s transgressions towards you must have been much more significant than merely stealing your grandmother’s jewelry, because this was an incredibly cruel prank and I’m surprised that you and your husband are so pleased with it. Your daughter’s actions didn’t just harm your sister, they also impacted her ex-fiancé, and unless there’s a story you left out about him, he didn’t deserve for something like this to happen. Again, I am hoping that your sister’s actions in the past were atrocious enough to make something like this feel appropriate, but regardless, I’m also concerned that you’re teaching your daughter that it’s okay to wreak havoc on other people’s lives.

I don’t think you should punish your daughter, largely because I feel like that would send a very confusing message at this point. You’ve obviously told her a lot about your issues with your sister, and she felt justified getting back at her on your behalf. Let her know that you appreciate the sentiment, but be clear that she shouldn’t have done what she did. Unless there is some horrible missing story about your sister’s ex, he didn’t deserve to be caught up in this. The right thing to do would be to call your sister and explain what your daughter did; however, if you in your heart of hearts can say she has done anything horrible enough to you to justify the loss of her relationship and her future with this man, then I may understand why you may choose not to do that. If your sister is just a run-of-the-mill trifling bitch, your daughter’s actions may have been outsized and either way, they were inappropriate for a kid.

Telling your sister what happened will undoubtedly give her space to complain about you and your child to the rest of the family, but this is just a whack way for her to get her comeuppance. If you have such a serious issue with your sister, you and your household can go no contact with her. But your kid’s big revenge plan was not a good move and you can’t let her think that it was. I don’t think it’s worth involving Lisa’s parents, but as far as Zarra is concerned, she should be made to understand that she made a mistake.

—Jamilah

Link

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If the sister really is that much of a monster though, the ex-fiance may have dodged a bullet by having that relationship blown up for him. Though it’s unfortunate that he comes out looking like the dog in this, when he didn’t actually do the thing.

Funny story. My mother had a right set with opals. It's pretty. Probably not worth much - honestly, I'd be surprised to find that it's even worth $50.

After she died, we found the ring, and I said "Oh, Mommy left that to me!"

And my sister said "What? No, she left that to me!"

And while we were both staring at each other her younger kid walks in and says "Oh! My opal ring! Nanen gave that to me!"

Which is just so typical, honestly!

But it's not just typical of my mother, it's typical of a lot of people to casually say that they're leaving some item to multiple people. Did Charity steal this necklace? Or did Grandma tell her she could have it, and also tell LW she could have it?

I have no idea. What I do know is that LW is shamelessly engaged in gossiping about her sister at all times and doesn't feel any need to apologize to Charity or her former fiance, who we all can agree is probably wholly innocent here. Nor does she feel like telling her daughter that this behavior is not acceptable. (Nor, I guess, has it occurred to her that if her daughter can just start shit for fun, so can this restaurant friend. Maybe she saw Charity wearing this necklace, maybe she didn't. Maybe she just thought she did, or she made something up too.)

Everybody in this family sounds absolutely terrible, and LW needs to take a long look in the mirror.

I'll say something else. When the niblings were little right up until they were actual, legal adults I had a pretty strict rule: Grown-up problems are for grown-ups. I didn't talk about my problems with friends or - well, I certainly wouldn't have badmouthed my sister to them, she's their mom, but I would not have insulted some other hypothetical relative to them either. My relationship with all those other people is my business, and I sincerely don't think it's appropriate to drag kids into that unless either a. they bring something up or b. it's necessary for their well-being.

And I don't think this started just after Grandma died, either, when Daughter was already in her mid-teens.

This sort of thing just feels to me like it edges close to asking your child to manage your emotions, and look - Daughter decided to take it into her own hands to "punish" LW's sister.

Yeah, I like your phrasing about grownup problems. Like you, I don't like that the LW was telling ALL THIS STUFF to her daughter. The daughter is too young to get into all this.

Your kid is just not supposed to be your venting buddy.

Huh. This is interesting as a thought, but I feel like my mom did tell me all the past and present drama in her family as a kid and I've never seen anything wrong with it. I can't help thinking it would've been worse to not know. But maybe there was more emotional distance in the stories she told and they didn't really - or fully? - qualify as venting ...

But maybe there was more emotional distance in the stories she told and they didn't really - or fully? - qualify as venting

I think that's important. Also, there's the amount of time spent on the subject. Like, I absolutely know that my maternal grandmother never met *her* maternal grandmother and why - but it adds up to maybe three or four conversations over my entire life, and it wasn't an ongoing grievance when I was told the first time.

One grumble from LW that Auntie Sis is always a bitch and she stole the jewelry is, in the grand scheme of things, no big deal. Ongoing griping every month, with great detail - yeah.

Or, you know, another example from my family - my sister and I could bitch about our mom for a few minutes when she'd just done something really upsetting, and then we could stop. My mother, if she got started bitching about my sister, would just keep spinning it out for ages. (And to make it more uncomfortable, I found out eventually that she didn't bitch about me to Jenn. I don't get it, like, not to put myself down but there are a lot more complaints to make about me than her! Or at least the same number!) I had to make a rule that she wasn't allowed to complain about my sister to me even a little. I had to continue to enforce that rule throughout the last two decades of her life - she mostly did follow it, but if I ever slacked it was right back to it.

And it's definitely different from LW's situation because she was complaining about my sister, not hers - but I also had to pull out that rule at times to stop her from using me as her vent buddy about her boss (5 minutes, max, or it never stops), some guy she bumped into on the bus (ten minutes if he's really annoying), that really irritating person in the ER with her (I was there, he was really irritating, and we did tend to make fun of people in the ER because it was preferable to her taking out all her anxiety on me, but after half an hour I had to tell her to pick a new topic or I'd walk).

Now, to be fair, this is not the only thing my mother did that was... questionable. But, judging from what I've seen and heard from other people, it's never just one thing.

I'll bet your mother's complaints about her family never prompted you to try to get petty revenge on any of her family members.

Thanks for the examples, that does clear it up a bit. I think my mom and her siblings all separately were trying really hard to not be abusive parents after a truly harrowing childhood and knowing about all the horror stories on their families going like, all the way back down the generations. All of them have had flaws and abuser fleas as parents and this might be one of them, because I know my one aunt who clearly knew about boundaries and absolutely never allowed any adult fighting or conflict in front of her kids told her children much less detail (but they learned from the rest of us anyway). They were mostly stories about our moms' horrible childhoods and horrible family history, but I think they did gradually get more detailed as I got older too.

I did listen to my mom venting as a child, but so did my dad - I wasn't her confidante or anything. She just complains whenever she feels like it basically.

I think it depends on how old the kid is when this happens. I am sure you are aware of the phenomenon of the "Parentified Child."

IMHO 15 and younger is too young to be brought into the family feuds and drama.

I wonder what happens on the day that LW should happen to stand in the way of something Zarra wants and can rationalize to herself as an end that justifies the means.

I'm having flashbacks to when my dad's mom was starting with Alzheimer's symptoms and my aunt sat down with her and wrote down who got what jewelry. Somehow that aunt ended up with all of the flashy stuff. (It wasn't worth the fight to contest the list. A lot of very sentimental things had already been passed on to their intended recipient before either of dad's parents started having health problems.)

That sounds irritating. I wonder how your aunt justifies it.

Probably by clinging to the fiction that grandma wanted her to have it.

Her family had the closer relationship. Her husband was the golden child and my dad was the black sheep. Her kids were the golden grandchildren and my siblings and myself always had to jump through one more hoop to please our grandparents.

I talk to my aunt and uncle at funerals and haven't seen or spoken to either cousin in about a decade. (One of those cousins I wouldn't spit on if she were on fire. She said some really nasty things when my dad had cancer.)

Zarra has constructed a YA novel "solution" for a real life issue, and, um, should not be encouraged to do so henceforth.