I’m Not Sure My Daughter Should Know the Truth About Grandpa

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group.

Dear Care and Feeding,

For the last two years of my 3.5-year-old’s life, we lived with my dad as his dementia progressed. The kindest word I can think of to describe him pre-dementia would be “belligerent.” But I was aware of his own trauma history and felt compelled to try to make this work. We had a short window during which he was grateful to me, but the gratitude wore off, his belligerence returned, and as the dementia (judgment, impulse control, etc.) progressed, I took care of him until it became clear to me that I had to choose between nurturing him and nurturing my daughter. I chose my daughter. He is now living in a home and he is angry with me for “abandoning” him. My child, who like most preschoolers asks direct questions, has been asking if I miss him. The first time she asked, I was unprepared. I turned it around to ask if she missed him. She said yes, and then she asked me again. I said yes—I didn’t know what else to say. Then she said, “But he was mean to you, so how can you miss him?” Yikes! I told her that people are complicated and sometimes we love them but they’re not safe for us, so we have to give ourselves some space from them.

The truth is, no, I do not miss him at all. He was an abusive nightmare for most of my life. But my child keeps asking versions of this question, unsatisfied with my answer. She is clearly curious about what this all means because she has a fantastic dad she adores (and I adore). I am afraid of saying the wrong thing and making it sound like you have to keep loving (and taking care of) someone even if they hurt you. I’m also afraid of being callous about the fact that, no, I don’t miss him now and I won’t miss him when he eventually dies. It feels like way too much to tell a child this young. How do I help her understand this in a way that is age-appropriate, and also doesn’t give her the message that she should EVER accept someone treating her the way he treated me?

—I’ve Said Too Much, I Haven’t Said Enough

Dear Haven’t Said Enough,

I think your very young child knows more than you think she does (as children often do). She knows there’s a difference between your relationship with your father and hers—she recognizes that he’s been “mean” to you. What she doesn’t understand, of course, is why that is. She’s trying to figure that out. And the truth is that there’s no answer to that question, not even an age-inappropriate one. But since I am a firm believer in not lying to children, I think you should tell her that you don’t miss your father. Since you’ve told her otherwise, I’d let her know why you were untruthful, the next time she asks the question (but in an age-appropriate way, of course—e.g., “I didn’t want to make you sad/upset”). Follow up these simple truths with, “I know you’ve said that you miss him, and I understand that. You had fun with him, didn’t you? [or whatever it was that was good between them]. You and I have two different relationships with Grandpa. That’s how relationships work: Everybody gets to have their own.” This lets her know that it’s OK with you that she feels differently than you do, which is an important early lesson for a parent to impart to a child. (And don’t neglect to give her the space to confess that she does not in fact miss him either—because it’s possible she said she did just to see how you’d respond, as she tries to understand the family dynamics at play, or because she thought she was supposed to miss her grandfather.)

Letting your child know that being treated badly is not something she should put up with is essential. You have already demonstrated this by stepping away from living with your father, whom she observed mistreating you. So don’t overthink this. Answer only the questions she asks, and let your answers be as direct as her questions. She is unlikely to ask you why you don’t miss him—she’s made it clear, I think, that she knows why. But she may ask why he was so mean to you; she may ask why you used to live with him, then—and so on. Whatever she asks, respond with the smallest, simplest truths. You don’t really know why he acts the way he does, you can tell her, and you’re not sure he does either. You used to live with him because he couldn’t take care of himself and you hoped you’d be able to do it, but when it turned out that you couldn’t anymore, you found a place for him to live where he’d be looked after by others. And if answering these questions makes you sad or agitated and she asks you why (because she’s going to pick up on that), tell the truth about that too: He’s your dad, and you want to be able to love him and take care of him, but he makes that impossible for you.

Submit your questions about parenting and family life here. It’s anonymous! (Questions may be edited for publication.)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I have a recurring fight. He’ll leave the windows wide open on the second floor of our house. We have screens, but they’d pop out with a little weight on them. And we have a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old! I’ve begged him to stop doing this, and he promises he will but then he doesn’t. He seems to 1) think I’m being ridiculous and this is not actually at all dangerous, and 2) be incapable of changing. I believe he’s never going to stop leaving the windows open. Do I have to divorce this child-endangering, unrepentant jerk? Maybe safety devices exist that will prevent him from opening the windows at all?

—Why is He Like This?

Dear Why,

Are you looking for a reason to divorce him? Is he trying to give you one? (What I want to know is: Do you love this unrepentant jerk or not?)

You don’t have to divorce him. You can put gates up over the windows. But if he then shifts to some other infuriating and dangerous bad “habit,” he’s trying to tell you something about your relationship or about himself. Make sure you’re listening.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I have been together for eight years, married for under a year. Through the course of our relationship, I always planned on our starting a family once I turned 30. This was largely driven by my parents, who struggled with infertility for many years and conceived me and all my siblings through IVF, and who drove home the message all of our lives that we shouldn’t wait too long to try to have kids. My dad even brought this up to my husband when he told my parents he was going to propose to me, saying, “Start trying for kids before you think you’re ready. It may take a long time.” Now that I’m turning 30 in a few months, I’m finding the stress of potentially getting pregnant next year seeping into my thoughts daily.

We both want kids, but right now I’m loving our life just the way it is. We travel, we go out to eat all the time, and we love spending time together, just the two of us. While I don’t have any friends with kids, what I see online makes it seem like babies really ruin all of the things I love so much. I’m also obsessing about my body and potentially never looking as good as this again. I’m thinking of places I’ve always wanted to travel to that would be hard with young children. I’m torn between my parents’ warnings (and their experience), as well as with women on social media saying they wish they hadn’t waited so long to try to get pregnant, because it was much harder than they’d thought it would be, and the fact that I actively do not want a baby at this very moment. I remind myself that I probably won’t get pregnant the minute the IUD comes out, and even then there’ll be 9 months to prepare, but I’m scared. I worry about what a baby might do to our relationship, which is so precious to me. I know we’d love the baby we have together, but it’s just hard to picture a change this enormous when we have an incredible life together that doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything. And it doesn’t help that my husband is putting this decision fully on me. It would be easier if he felt strongly one way or the other, but he says he’ll be fine either way. How do I know whether to just take the plunge?

—To Baby or Not to Baby

Dear To or Not to,

You already know not to take the plunge—you’re not ready. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re young; you’ve only been married for a year; you don’t want to have a baby anytime soon. And if you start trying to get pregnant, you might just get lucky—or in this case, unlucky—and become a mother long before you want to.

I know the whole don’t-wait-too-long-or-you-might-end-up-sorry line of thinking. I’ve talked to women who are bitter about having been told they had all the time in the world, waited until their late 30s or early 40s, then had a hard time getting pregnant and feel they were misled. But here’s the thing: The alternative to the scenario in which you wait and it is harder than it might be now—having a baby when you don’t yet want to—is worse. The possibility that you’ll be resentful, unhappy, frustrated, or in other ways not the fully engaged and loving parent you want to be, and that your future children deserve, is not worth the risk. And you’re right about parenthood changing everything. It changes your life in ways you can’t even anticipate now.

When someone unequivocally wants to have a child—as I did, so very much, when I became pregnant at 37—they don’t mind that their life turns upside down. Indeed, when my daughter was born, I welcomed the enormous changes in my life. At 38, I’d had plenty of time to be untethered, to go where I wanted to go when I wanted to go there. My career was well underway. And I was old enough and wise enough by then to be acutely aware that the 18 years I’d have a child at home would pass quickly—too quickly, I already understood—and that I’d have plenty of time for childfree travel and dinners out (etc.) later on. I actually remember thinking that I would have struggled at 30 with giving up what I was so gladly setting aside for a while at nearing 40.

You may or may not have trouble getting pregnant right away once you decide you’re ready to start trying. But the advice to start before you feel ready to be a parent, I’m afraid, is not great. Your father means well, but his advice fails to take into account the well-being of both his daughter and his future grandchild. Take a breath. Don’t rush this.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m 16, and I live with my mom and my younger brother, “Daniel.” We see our father, but Mom has primary physical custody, so we’re mostly with her. About a week ago, something happened that has left me rattled. Mom was apparently cooking something in the kitchen, and some grease got out of the pan and caught fire from the exposed flame. Mom’s pyrophobic, and her panicked reaction was to flee the house, run over to a friend’s on the next block, borrow her cell phone, and call 911. Daniel, whose room is closer to the kitchen than mine, smelled the smoke, went into the kitchen, saw the fire, and put it out (it was a tiny fire) by clapping a lid over it and starving it of oxygen. Then he went back to his room. I only found any of this out when I heard the sirens, and then saw the firetruck approaching. I thought it was a prank at first. Anyway, Mom came home and got a lecture from the firefighters about not wasting the fire department’s time.

I’ve always known that Mom’s irrationally afraid of fire—we’re talking can’t go to barbecues or go camping if there’s any possibility of a fire being built—so I shouldn’t hold what she did against her. But it stings to know that she thought she was in enough danger to run out of the house and call 911, but not yell out to me and my brother. She just abandoned us! But I don’t know what to do. I’m leery of sharing this with Dad. They completely hate each other, and I’m sure he’d try to weaponize it. But at the same time, maybe this is something that should be made into a big deal. I don’t know. Can you help?

—Hoping for Guidance

Dear Hoping,

It’s a big deal. Of course it stings. Talk to your mom about what happened, if you feel you can. Tell her how distressed you are about her behavior. If she isn’t horrified by what she did and deeply regretful about it—and instead makes excuses or dismisses your feelings—or if you don’t feel you can bring it up at all with her, for fear of her reaction, you should absolutely talk to your dad. And if you fear that doing so will make things worse for you, talk to another adult you trust. Your mother’s behavior in this situation is worrisome and should not be ignored.

—Michelle

I have three wonderful kids and a mother-in-law who feels like my children are another chance for parenting, since she missed out on so much with her son. I have been trying to assert boundaries with her, but it can be hard. To my family, holidays mean spending them together. But every year she wants it to be just her and the grandkids at her house. Nobody else. And the whole separation of it all just bothers me.