Gosh, I wonder why these adult kids don't want their overbearing parents in their lives...!

[conuly]

1. DEAR ABBY: My son and daughter-in-law had their first child three months ago. This was the first grandchild on both sides. Her mother stayed with her for two weeks after the cesarean birth. I have no issues with that.

My issue is, my son told me I needed to leave when they and the baby came home from the hospital. Mind you, I live 6 1/2 hours away. I fought him to get at least three days when they got home. Then he said I needed to leave, but he never told his father-in-law to leave. Also, on the days I did stay, they asked me to get a motel while her parents stayed with them. I only got to go over during the day.

When I told my son my feelings were hurt, he said I was being a drama queen. I did respect everything they asked. I just want to know if I was wrong for sharing my feelings or should I have remained quiet. It has caused friction between us now. -- SECOND-CLASS IN TENNESSEE

DEAR SECOND-CLASS: This situation is not about you. It is about a brand-new baby and adjusting to parenthood. You may have come on too strong and expected too much when you said what you did. Your daughter-in-law was recovering from surgery after her first child and needed her MOTHER, not her mother-in-law. Her father was probably part of the package deal. This isn't a competition, and if you make it one, you will become even less welcome than you are now.

Link one

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2. DEAR ABBY: My 19-year-old son, who is on the spectrum but high-functioning, has left home. He's legally an adult but wouldn't allow me to teach him normal survival skills, such as balancing a checkbook, paying with a debit card, etc. He knows very little about the world; he learns from his online friends.

It has been four months, and he has now changed his phone number and won't call, email or text. He moved across the country to live with an online friend. I'm very concerned about him. What should I do? I don't email him often, but when I do, I just tell him I love him, and I never say anything negative. -- LOST IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR LOST: Four months, you say? Assuming you have his current address, perhaps it is time for you -- and his other parent, if he or she is in the picture -- to pay the young man a visit to see how he's doing. Because he won't respond to phone calls, emails or texts, I don't think you have a choice other than that.

Link two

Comments

[conuly]

1. Unbelievable. And you just know Abby's words are gonna go in one ear and out the other.

2. First of all, using a debit card is not some sort of obscure special skill that you need your Mommy and Daddy to teach you how to do. If you somehow have gotten a bank account and acquired a debit card without figuring it out, you can always go to Youtube, there must be a tutorial there.

Secondly, holy wow, if LW2 shows up at Son's door they're going to get hit with a restraining order. Which I guarantee Son knows how to do - how can LW2 libel the young man like this? He obviously does know quite a bit about the world, he's been living on his own for the past quarter!

[mrissa]

1. If I had been able to have a child, the minute my vagina was not in view, I would have wanted MY DAD. My dad was not just in my life as a package deal, he was not a second-class person, he was MY OWN ACTUAL DAD. I like the basic outline of the advice, but why did Abby go with "your DIL probably only wanted mom, and dad came with" rather than "newborn plus abdominal surgery means this person asked the people to stay that she wanted to have stay."

2. PAYING WITH a debit card? Yeah I promise that your 19yo son figured out how to do that on his very own. This isn't even the level of "when and how to carry a balance on your credit card without wrecking your finances," she doesn't think he knows how to PAY WITH a debit card? Neighbor. He was there for it a million times. I promise.

[redbird]

"Legally an adult but wouldn't allow me to teach him" suggests that LW didn't bother to show their son how to pay with a debit card before he turned 18.

Teaching him how to pay with a card feels like it should be part of taking the kid to the supermarket, along with having them watch you choose groceries, teaching them to check the "use by" dates on the milk, and so on. Using a debit card is also simpler than learning to count change, and be sure the cashier gives you the correct change. As mrissa said, he picked it up by osmosis unless his parent never took him to the store with them. Yes, there are kids whose parents still pay cash for everything, but those parents don't think using a debit card is an essential skill.

[conuly]

You know, I tried really hard to never take the kids with me to the store but between me and their parents they still were able to make their own debit card purchases by their double digits (in the form of "here's the card, yes you can run to the corner store to pick up a bag of chips and a soda so long as you get a soda for me and nothing more than that").

[redbird]

My mother sometimes took her with me to the supermarket and the bakery next door, and I would sit in the back seat and eat the end pieces of a loaf of rye bread on the way home. I think that was at least in part to teach me things like how to choose fruit, because she usually to me with her but not my younger brother.

Later, when cattitude and I were living in Inwood, the first time I walked into the kosher bakery I asked for "a seeded rye, sliced" without having to think about it.

[purlewe]

My wife remembers very vividly that she got both a credit and a debit card before her parents and had to teach them how to use it. They all still are very specific in *how* they use it as they prefer cash. But yeah. that was a skill that had to be taught child to parent.

[full_metal_ox]

LW#2? Perhaps you’ve encountered the saying “the past is a different country”; one corollary is that if you live long enough, you’ll eventually find yourself inhabiting the present as an immigrant. Your son is a 21st-century native.

[nineveh_uk]

I was so annoyed about that dig at the father. He's not a useless male appendage, he is, presumably, a parent who the woman knows, loves, and trusts to support her and her husband after she has just given birth. He's not got personal experience of breastfeeding or managing a tear, but he's likely got plenty of experiencing of parenting an infant, of supporting his daughter, and a good relationship with his son-in-law.

The problem here is that it is perfectly obvious that the reason the MIL was asked not to stick around longer, even in a motel, is that she is a challenging person in that context, not simply that she isn't the maternal grandmother and anyone else is always superfluous.

[princessofgeeks]

1. IAW the columnist here. This woman needs to get a grip and fast.

2. Um.

I understand the woman is worried sick but her son has basically run away from home AS SOON AS HE WAS LEGALLY ABLE TO. Another one where this is the tip of the iceberg I am sure. That poor young man. It is crystal clear that he doesn't want anything to do with her any more.

[pauraque]

In addition to everything else: BALANCE A CHECKBOOK?? It's 2025! I'm sure that LW2's son, like most 19-year-olds, almost never writes checks, and if he does he reviews them via online banking. Perhaps the son has sought life advice elsewhere in part because LW2 is hopelessly out of touch.

[cimorene]

Since it seems like the kids are already prevailing without help, I can laugh at both of these without guilt.

[dissectionist]

“on the spectrum but high-functioning”

LW, as an autist: we left functioning labels behind like twenty years ago, because they’re ableist as shit and not actually how autism works. As soon as we realized that the allistics (non-autistics) were using those labels to either deny help to some autistic people (too “low-functioning” to be worth the effort and money to help) and deny help to other autistic people (you’re “high-functioning”, you don’t need the help), the autistic community started making it clear to the allistics that we didn’t want that used.

It’s also not reflective of actual autistic experience. Just as allistic people do, we all have ways in which our functioning is generally fine and other ways in which we can struggle in some, many, or all situations.

Furthermore, tell me that you know very few autistic people without telling me: “on the spectrum but high-functioning”. So I expect you, LW, assume most autists are like movie depictions where we require immense amounts of help (because if you don’t think that’s the norm, then there’s no need for “but high-functioning” - you’d say “on the spectrum and high-functioning”, because any category is common).

Anyway, in order to pull you from last-century to now, please refrain from functioning labels and switch to describing support needs instead. Or better yet, don’t describe their functioning or support needs at all unless you’re talking to a clinician or someone else who genuinely needs to know in order to provide support.

[conuly]

Would you like to head down to UExpress and tell all those annoying asshole ableist commenters a thing or two?

I swear, how a group of people can be so collectively snowed by this LW is beyond me. Even if you know nothing about autism you clearly ought to know that her claim that he does not know how to use a debit card is obviously false if he managed to move across the country!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, she never said he didn't know how! He said he refused to let *her* teach him; he learns from his online friends. Who I imagine are much more capable of teaching him without all the emotional manipulation and "it's all about meeeee" that she presumably puts him through when she tries to teach him.

Remember, the important thing is not that he learns the skills! It's that he learns from heeeerrr.

Honestly, if he is autistic, he probably learns better without all the emotion words (I think I've seen this same phenomenon with my mother trying to communicate how to do something to my autistic father, and his eyes glazing over as she tries to make a very straightforward task about emotional connection). I would recommend he stick to learning from his online friends! Solid plan, son.

[jadelennox]

He probably knows how to use venmo, and apple pay, and doesn't understand why his mother is insisting he handle a weird non-battery powered card that dispenses cash, as if he were some kind of medieval peasant.

(ObDisclaimer: I failed at setting up a venmo account -- like some kind of medieval peasant! -- and I like cash.)

[dissectionist]

AHAHAHA no. I spent about two decades trying to help allistics do better. Some of them will learn, but those are the same people that will learn from reading a drive-by comment like the one I wrote previously. Most of them will refuse to learn and usually get actively hostile, which often includes accusing autistic people of being allistic (because in their opinions, autistic people aren’t really capable of writing reasoned, educated comments) or they’ll say that our opinions don’t count because clearly we’re “high-functioning” so we “can’t speak for most people with autism”. (They love that person-first language, because they’re so tied to the idea that autism is something shameful that we need to distance autistic people from.)

[minoanmiss]

Nooooooooooooooo don't go argue with the assholes; I read your journal, I know how busy you are!

[conuly]

I don't know, sometimes a pointless bit of arguing with assholes on the internet is good for the blood, gets the heart pumping.

[conuly]

(So long as they're strangers!)

[dabbleswithpoisons]

Yeah, sounds like Son of LW2 has proved pretty conclusively that he can manage by himself just fine. He can probably manage to get a restraining order by himself too, should he feel the need.

[minoanmiss]

There are things people do that I understand but disapprove of (like LW #2 refusing to Take The Hint and back the fuck off) but then there are things I do not understand like LW#1 being all I MUST BE THERE FOR MY GRANDCHILD's FIRST DAYS. I've seen newborns' first days. They are tiny and loud, their parents are exhausted, everyone is adjusting. This is not a fun social time. Why be there unless one can be genuinely helpful, which starts with doing whatever the parents need one to do including leaving? Forcing one's presence is a priori genuinely unhelpful.

And then after a C-section no less? Criminy. DIL is at her absolutely most vulnerable between abdominal surgery and a new person to care for, and MIL wants to suck up her spoons? Sheesh, lady, go home and send them takeout vouchers.

(Ironically if I had ever had a child I would have wanted the woman who would have been my MIL there because she was genuinely kind in a way my parents have literally never been to me. I think I might have temporarily faked my own death to try to keep my parents away.)

[katiedid717]

I had a C-section at the end of March and needed a ride from my aunt for a doctor's appointment because I wasn't allowed to drive yet and my mother was already babysitting my niblings. I had been clear before having the baby that visits would be very limited until he was able to get his vaccines, but my aunt apparently thought But giving me this ride and waiting in the car with my son for 20 minutes meant she would now be able to have visits whenever she wanted. It was honestly exhausting getting a message every week asking when I'd be available for her to visit again, and it has made me not really want to get together with her at all

[minoanmiss]

I am so sorry your aunt is using logic from another universe wtf. sends healing vibes

[joyeuce]

When my daughter was born, husband and I informed all the grandparents that there were to be no visits at the hospital unless we specifically informed them otherwise. They all agreed - we thought. Then husband's mother and stepfather turned up at the hospital without any notice because they "just happened to be passing" (well, maybe, if they were taking a very odd route home ...). Basically they couldn't bear the thought that they might not be the first grandparents to see the baby! They did see her, but not me, because husband had the sense to tell them I was having a nap. And then they must have boasted to his dad and stepmum, because they turned up as well ...

[jack]

Just in case he falls through a time warp to a millennium where people use cheques...

I assume if she was *genuinely* worried she would have said "ran away from home" or something, not "left home". Her worry could be well-founded in theory, but if so it's *more* dangerous than Abby didn't mention the idea he might not want to see her.