Dear Care and Feeding,
Is it ever OK to spank? I feel that I already know the answer, which is no. And with two of my children it’s an easy no. But I am at my wit’s end with my middle child. She’s 5 years old, and just like the old rhyme, when she is good, she is very, very good, but when she is bad, she is horrid. She is stubborn, intractably so, and once she sets her mind on doing something, it is nearly impossible to dissuade her. Neither the carrot (compromise or rewards) nor the stick (taking away toys/activities) has any effect; I could threaten to cancel a trip to Disney or shred her favorite doll (I’ve done neither, FYI) and she would shrug and continue her bad behavior. I always follow through on threats and promises with all my children, so she knows I’m serious. But she doesn’t care; she’s an immovable mountain. Inevitably we must physically remove her from the situation, and almost sit on her while she then screams for an hour.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My husband and I have different ideas about how many gifts to buy for our kids for Christmas. I’d prefer to keep things small; he wants to go big. I’d be happy to compromise, except that his entire extended family his numerous sisters, parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles also give our kids a ton of presents, and we just don’t have the room in our small house for so much stuff. Since I can’t really ask the relatives to scale back, I think we need to be more conservative. I like to get most of my shopping done right after Thanksgiving so I don’t have to worry about it leading up to Christmas. I’ll have everything purchased, wrapped, and hidden in the attic, and then my husband will come home with more toys for them.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My MIL has a very unhealthy relationship with my husband and our family and recently has told my husband I am no longer welcome in her home. My husband works for his stepfather in a very small business. They have always dangled the idea that he would take over the business “one day” in front of him like a carrot. Well, “one day” has been pushed out farther and farther. They refuse to sign a contract and have a verbal agreement only. She has always held things over his head and threatened retaliation when he doesn’t get in line. I have been biding my time while he tries to work things out and buy the business. Once we started having children, she had a lot of trouble with boundaries, including stopping by unannounced, even announcing the birth of my baby before I could on social media. She constantly leaves me out of planning for family get-togethers, making it stressful to try to fit it into our schedule, despite me asking her multiple times to talk
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We found out that our child’s beloved fourth grade teacher, Ms. X, spent Thanksgiving alone. (She is 26, single, and has no family nearby.) We’ve had Ms. X as a teacher before our daughter had her a few years ago, and completely adored her. We’re under the impression that the feeling is mutual. We feel close to Ms. X because of her relationship with our kids and our family, and we are all so sad to think of her spending the holidays alone. Would it be at all appropriate to invite her over on Christmas Eve or Christmas for some socially distanced cider or hot cocoa in our backyard?