agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My ex came from serious money, and our 12-year-old daughter is her parents’ only grandchild. My daughter gets what she wants the moment she voices it; her grandparents claim it is their duty to spoil her. My daughter is very grounded and knows that most people can’t afford everything her family can, but that doesn’t change the fact that her experiences have been very privileged.

My partner’s kids haven’t been so lucky. He provides a good life, but the vacations he can take them on are to the local lake, not Europe. The problem is that my daughter can’t talk about her life without the other kids getting jealous and accusing her of bragging. She can’t say that her favorite city is Paris or identify a castle on TV without them taking offense and ganging up on her. This situation has started to heat up because my daughter has recently been hanging out with a pair of twins who have moved into our neighborhood. Their dad has left military service, but in their lives as military brats, they’ve lived everywhere in the world. They are joined at the hip with my daughter, and my partner hates the fact that his 13-year-old daughter, “Melinda,” doesn’t get automatically included.

Alas, Melinda is in her mean girl phase. Everything and everyone is stupid and sucks. She routinely picks on her younger brother. There are problems with both her behavior in school and in the after-school activities she is enrolled in. She was asked to leave her sports team for bullying another member to the point where it got physical. My daughter avoids Melinda when she can, and I have to mediate every moment we are together as a family.

My partner does not “see” Melinda’s behavior until another adult points it out. He and I do not live together, and his blindness to his daughter’s flaws is one reason for this, even though I love him. Another reason is that Melinda is hard enough to be around on a good weekend, let alone every day. I have tried to stay in my own lane and let my partner parent his kids his own way, but he keeps pushing that Melinda is being “excluded” by my daughter and her friends. They are in different grades and have very different interests.

Between his kids giving mine a hard time every time she opens her mouth, and all this, things are getting tense. Recently, he commented on how excited my daughter was for the holidays because her dad was taking her skiing and had told her that maybe the twins could come too. My partner insinuated that this enthusiasm was somehow malevolent. I responded by reminding him that both of his kids have been talking nonstop about seeing their grandparents and cousins over the holidays. He said it wasn’t even close to the same and that his kids have never even seen snow. I don’t know how to resolve this. Considering the ages of our kids, and the fact that they’re not even living in the same household, their just being civil toward each other should be enough, but civility is hard to come by, and Melinda is the agitator most of the time. How do I get through to my partner and protect my daughter?

—Mean Melinda

Dear Mean,

Even without living together, combining families is hard and requires a great deal of thought, delicacy, patience, and forbearance. And 12 and 13 are rough ages. Plus, the disparity between your daughter’s access to experiences (and, no doubt, things) and your partner’s daughter’s access to them makes their forced proximity tougher. All of this is further complicated by Melinda and her brother’s bonding over their opposition to your daughter (when it sounds like they are otherwise at odds with each other—so this may be especially delicious for them, especially for the younger brother) and by Melinda’s difficulties at school and elsewhere. I believe it is also complicated by your characterization of her as a “mean girl” (even if you don’t say it out loud; I’m sure your feelings about her are not going unnoticed, either by her or by her father). I don’t think the problem is that you’re not getting through to your partner—I think he’s gotten the message loud and clear and just doesn’t like the message.

Since you two don’t live together, and the kids are not small ones who need constant supervision, I wonder if the best way to protect your daughter from your partner’s kids’ outrage/hostility is to separate them. Why do you have to do things as a family (when you’re not one)? Perhaps—if you are committed for the long term to this romantic relationship—you and your partner could spend time together without any of the kids present? And perhaps occasionally, when your daughter is with your ex or her grandparents, if you (and your partner) like, you can join him and his kids—and when his kids are with other members of their family, if you (and your partner) like, he can join you and your daughter.

If you’re in it for the long haul, the kids will grow up (it happens faster than you’d think), and the time will come when the kids will scatter, and it will be just the two of you. All you’ll have to negotiate will be holidays. With any luck, as adults, they will have learned civility; your daughter will have mastered the art of discretion; and Melinda will have left her “difficult” phase behind. But in the meantime, demanding that your significant other join you in characterizing Melinda the way you do is a fool’s errand.

—Michelle

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LW, wow. You say your partner doesn't see his daughter's flaws, well, you're in even deeper denial about your daughter.

His kids accuse her of bragging? Yeah, and you know why? Because she's absolutely bragging, and she's a bore besides. She's twelve years old, she can find something to talk about besides all the world cities she loves and all the castles she's visited in person. And even if you think she somehow doesn't know what she's doing and the effect she has on other people, she's been told by them, more than once, that her conversation makes them uncomfortable. Why aren't you backing that up? Why aren't you redirecting her, and telling her to act with more grace and good manners?

Columnist is right that keeping the kids separate since they're not actually stepsiblings may be a good way to go, however, wow, LW needs to get her head out of her ass and actually parent her own kids.

I disagree — Melinda got kicked from an unrelated activity for bullying another girl, that has nothing to do with the LW.

Obviously, her daughter shouldn’t be bragging, but she also should be able to answer questions like “what’s your favorite city” without Melinda jumping down her throat.

I think that mostly keeping the kids separated is a good idea.

Oh, I agree that Melinda needs some therapy, and LW should not date someone whose kid needs therapy and consequences that they’re plainly not getting. Don’t date half assed parents.

But LW has no responsibility there, and let’s be real - how often does “what’s your favorite city” even come up in conversation?

LW has responsibility towards their own daughter, and that means teaching her manners. The fact that Melinda is being failed doesn’t change this.

Teaching her manners, sure.

But I’m going by what is in the letter, and none of it sounds like her daughter is deliberately being shitty to Melinda — in your own home, you should feel safe being able to talk about the things you’re happy and excited about.

LW isn’t with her ex, and doesn’t control him or his parents, who do sound like they’re being a bit over the top — but all you can do is try to be a decent coparent, in that situation.

I think that separating the kids is the best plan, since they don’t live together and aren’t stepsiblings.

I do have a lot of sympathy for the kid who is dealing with a known bully in a space where she should feel safe, regardless of whether she should turn it down about her more privileged experiences.

I feel like "what's your favorite xyz" is a WAY more common conversation topic with kids than with adults, and in adolescence they are trying to shift that from "what's your favorite dinosaur" to what they assume is a more adult form of the same thing--so yeah, "what's your favorite city" is on that list with "what's your favorite album." I've been asked my favorite city by people aged 10-14 many, many times.

Huh. And here I was thinking that I don't think I have EVER been asked what my favorite city is. (Not sure what I would answer, besides Seattle. I have liked most cities I've been to, at least to visit. Even Phoenix, which I basically think should not exist to the extent that it does, has some nice places in it.)

Likewise, not when I was an adult and not when I was a teen - and I went to school with somebody who tried to claim that their vacation home wasn't "in the good part of the Hamptons" so, I mean, it was certainly *plausible* that they thought it was normal to have traveled enough to have a favorite city. (The not so wealthy kids were immigrants. They definitely had traveled enough to have a favorite city, even if it was only favorite of two.)

I really, really doubt that those kids are asking her what her favorite city is.

Certainly not more than once.

This, 100%. Nothing in this letter gives us grounds to diagnose a young girl who's being targeted by a bully (whose bullying, as you point out, is NOT just the LW's opinion but has been called out with severe consequences imposed at another activity) as Actually The Problem. But this is clearly not destined to be a happy blended family and keeping the kids separated is the only real solution, yeah.

my daughter has recently been hanging out with a pair of twins who have moved into our neighborhood. Their dad has left military service, but in their lives as military brats, they’ve lived everywhere in the world. They are joined at the hip with my daughter, and my partner hates the fact that his 13-year-old daughter, “Melinda,” doesn’t get automatically included.

Because...Assuming that Daughter is as grounded as LW claims, Daughter simply has more in common with the twins than Melinda? And more important, no one really wants to include someone who only picks on them. I'm thirding the separation of Melinda and Daughter. Though I do agree with

conuly, LW should look at these interactions to be sure she's seeing the whole picture, or if she is toning down Daughter a bit.

Edited 2026-01-11 04:41 (UTC)

Yeah, Melinda definitely needs help, and even if she didn't, they're teenagers, they don't need Mommy and Daddy to organize their social calendar anymore and it's embarrassing to think they should.

On everything *but* the boasting front, I think it's clear that Melinda is most likely in the wrong. But man, I do believe that LW's daughter is bragging, and she ought to have been taught better.

Shouldn't the 'her' in the first sentence be 'his'? I read this thinking ex was female and current partner was male, but later on LW talks about LW's daughter's dad.

I agree that LW's daughter and partner's children (or at least Melinda) should be kept apart as much as possible.

Or else parents should be grandparents (so the 'her' refers to the teen)

No, I think LW wanted to make clear that it's her ex's parents, not hers.

I may be waaay out of line here, but the subtext for me in this situation is that the children are running the show and the parents, across the board, are afraid to establish and hold limits and boundaries.

"My daughter gets what she wants the moment she voices it; her grandparents claim it is their duty to spoil her." LW is allowing this to happen. She could stop it. I don't care how aware the daughter is of her privilege; "spoiling" is not a kind or good thing to do to a child.

"My partner does not “see” Melinda’s behavior until another adult points it out." It sounds like the partner is looking hard for a spouse/partner in order to slough off some responsibility for Melinda, rather than parent her. And the partner is jealous of the ex's family's material success and ability to e.g. take three girls, but not his badly-behaved kids, skiing: probably just the tip of the iceberg, and I doubt that Melinda is unaware of this. Jealousy and envy probably underlie much of her bullying of the LW's daughter.

There is no reason to shove the children together if they cannot stand each other. The parents have to stop doing this. In a worst case, Melinda will do something truly heinous to LW's daughter and the ex and grandparents will get involved.

LW and "partner" are not a family; they're dating and they rushed into jamming the kids together without reality-checking the effects. They are at least not living together. Pullling way back on family intimacy, Partner not discussing LW's daughter or his resentment around his kids, and Partner getting some counseling for himself and his kids seem like the best steps forward for everyone.

Word.