I’m Terrified That My Mom’s Beloved Conspiracy Theories Will Be the End of Her

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,

My 64-year-old mother, who is a wonderful person in many ways, is somewhat of an anti-vaxxer and is very distrustful of doctors. I wouldn’t say she’s an extremist by any means (she got her initial COVID vaccines, and my sibling and I got all the vaccines required to attend public school in our state), but she believes in several health-related conspiracies and generally does not believe what doctors tell her. She rarely took my sibling or me to doctors as children, and my dad was too career-focused to pick up the slack. I’m not exactly sure why my mother is this way. She has never mentioned any significant negative experiences with doctors, and my family has always had decent insurance and enough resources to pay medical bills.

At 25, I have come to understand that I didn’t get good medical care as a child. I’m now up to date on all vaccines including optional ones, and luckily I have only one minor health issue that could have been prevented with early detection and treatment. I think that in her own way, my mother was trying to protect my sibling and me. But this brings me to my current worries. Recently over the phone, I mentioned that an elderly woman I know got her RSV shot and asked if my mom was planning on getting one. She said that she sees no reason to. We also discussed the newest COVID booster, and my mom said she probably won’t be getting that one either. This led me down an anxiety spiral, and I realized that this was only the beginning of what I suspect could be decades of my mother refusing medical care. The woman has asthma, for crying out loud! RSV or a bad COVID case could be tough on her health. Then I got to thinking of some of the more heinous conspiracy theories she has talked to me about over my lifetime—that chemo doesn’t work and people with cancer instead need to change their diets radically, or that any number of ailments can be cured by drinking salt water each day.

She really believes this stuff, and I am worried she will act on it rather than on the advice of medical professionals! I know that it’s ultimately my mom’s choice what type and how much medical care she receives. I understand that I don’t have any power to force her to do anything. But I have become terrified that my mother will someday face a serious diagnosis and disregard everything her doctors say. Is this something I should talk to her about? She is in so deep with some of these conspiracy theories that I feel any conversation with me may not make an impact. Should I bring it up anyway? Is it worth bringing up my feelings about the lack of medical attention I received as a child, or would that just make things worse? In general, how can I work toward making peace with this situation?

—RSV is No Joke

Dear No Joke,

Nothing you say will change your mother’s mind. As you say, she is in deep. So I’m not clear on what purpose would be served by your bringing it up “anyway.” But if you feel moved to do what you consider due diligence—making an effort to get through to her, so that you will have done everything you can—then I say, go ahead. You have nothing to lose. You can even take a shot at asking her to take better care of herself for your sake (sometimes that works). The question of whether it’s “worth” bringing up her neglect of your health during your childhood is another matter. Is there a purpose to be served? That is—are you angry, hurt, or otherwise in distress? Is it a burden to you to keep silent about this? If so, speak up. Not because it will change her mind about her care going forward, but because it will lighten your emotional load. But if you’ve already made peace with this and taken steps to correct it and make up for it, then I wouldn’t bring it up. If your main concern right now is your mother’s health, a conversation about the ways she failed you is likely to be counterproductive. What it seems you want to do is preserve the (however dim) possibility that she may someday be open to your advice and counsel when it comes to her care.

But you cannot count on that. Your mother is in charge of her own life. No matter how misguided she may be, decisions about her health are hers to make. I know very well how hard it is to stand back and watch someone make what you are absolutely certain are the wrong choices, but unless your mother becomes incapable of making choices, there is nothing to be done but stand back. If, as you fear, your mother contracts a potentially deadly virus and becomes seriously ill—or if someday is told she needs to undergo chemo and she refuses—you cannot keep her from dying. How do you “make peace” with this? I’m not sure peace is what you can make. I think you’ll need to settle for acceptance. Acceptance that the only actions you are in control of are your own, that you are not your mother’s keeper, and that you may indeed lose her before you are ready to. At 25, this is a terrible pill to swallow. (But I assure you: It’s hard for anyone to swallow, at any age.) Take good care of yourself, OK? It’s not your job to fix your mother, no matter how desperately you want to, for both your sakes.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

Like most parents in this day and age (or so I hope), we’re trying to raise our kids to be good people. We’re doing this through exhibiting and encouraging kindness, good manners, helpfulness, and charity—which brings me to our current conundrum. We live in Seattle, which has a large unhoused population. Our kids have been joining us in serving food and collecting donations, we always have snacks and drinks and cash with us to give as needed, and we’ve explained as well as we can that some people don’t have homes like ours and it’s important to help our neighbors. I only recently learned about the Salvation Army’s history of LGBTQ+ discrimination and now want to stop donating when we see them outside stores, but I know my 5-year-old will need to know why when he’s been enjoying putting coins and cash into their bucket for as long as he can remember. How can I explain that it’s important to donate and to help people, but that this organization has done things we don’t support? Or do I just sidestep it and let him put something in the bucket?

—Just Trying to Raise Decent Humans

Dear Just Trying,

The Salvation Army’s most visible program is the dropping-coins-in-bucket one—which, let’s face it, is clever: Kids love dropping coins in buckets—but this organization, by its own proud description, is an evangelical Christian one, founded on the principle of saving sinners. And while in recent years they’ve tried to clean up their longstanding anti-LGBTQ+ image (even adding an “all are welcome in love’s army” message on their website), you’re quite right to want to steer your child away from them. Sure, the Salvation Army has helped people in need. But not even-handedly. Queer people have shared that they’ve had to conceal or denounce their identity in order to access their support—and this is but a drop in the bucket (irresistible, sorry) of the long, long list of offenses against the queer community worldwide.

The question, of course, is how much a 5-year-old will be able to understand this distinction. Is it too soon to explain to him that help needs to be offered without strings attached and that coins dropped in those red buckets are not distributed fairly, or are sometimes spent to do harm? That this is something you didn’t know, but now that you do, there’s no turning away from it? That there are other ways you, and he, can do good in the world? I think it’s worth a try. Teaching our children to be good people is an ongoing project, and conversations about what it really means to “do good” and be good are essential parts of that.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

How can I show up for my 17-year-old nephew? My stepbrother and his wife are hypercompetitive and excessively focused on success. My nephew was pushed to apply to (and accept a space at) one of the highest-ranked schools in the district, even though it takes nearly an hour on public transportation to get to, and doesn’t have the program he was interested in attending (in the arts). Now, after a prestigious internship, my nephew has decided to pursue a degree in anthropology. When he was talking about this at Thanksgiving, his mom dismissed the idea with, “Well, there’s no money in that.” He is being dragged around to visit top-tier colleges, though he has confessed that he has no interest in going to any of them. I know he won’t be given a choice about this either. My nephew also has some mental health issues that his parents refuse to address.

I’ve been somewhat estranged from my stepbrother and his wife for some time now. My child (exactly two years younger than my nephew) is very similar to my nephew and they were close—this was how I found out some of this stuff. My stepbrother saw them as rivals. He refused to have my kid over because “the two of them are just too wild together” (mostly they sat and played video games). I’m fairly sure that as my nephew grows up, he’s going to have limited contact with his parents, but I want him to know that he has support within the family and that I’m there for him. What would be the best way to do this without risking crossing my stepbrother and sister-in-law?

—Not Everyone has to be Perfect

Dear Not Everyone,

Something tells me this situation is even messier than you suggest. Your relationship with your stepbrother, I’m guessing, has long been troubled—and I can’t help wondering about the nature and extent of your estrangement from him … and also your certainty that their son won’t want to have much to do with them as an adult. But with the limited information you offer, what I can tell you is this: The way to let a 17-year-old know that he has your support, and that if he ever needs you for anything, he needn’t hesitate, is simply to tell him that. Call his cellphone, text him, or send him an email (i.e., communicate with him directly; leave his parents out of it). I’m surprised you haven’t told him this before, since you’ve known him all his life and it doesn’t sound like the pressure his parents put on him—or their dismissal of his interests and desires—is something new. But it’s never too late.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I feel guilty because I hate my mother. I was 15 when my dad passed away, and she treated me, her only child, like hired help for 26 years, while she treated her older nieces and nephews like gold. She embarrassed me once at a baby shower when she was asked if she wanted grandkids, and she said, “For what? I have plenty of nieces and nephews.” I never attended an event with her again. Now she’s 78 and all her friends have passed away, many from COVID. She can’t understand why I’m so cold toward her. How do I answer? She says she loves me but I don’t believe it.

—Feeling Guilty in Massachusetts

Dear Feeling Guilty,

Tell her. (I’m feeling like a broken record today!) The only way to let someone know how you’re feeling and why is to spell it out for them.

I’m not suggesting that you say, “Mom, I’m cold because I hate you.” What I mean is: Tell her all of the ways she’s let you down and hurt you. Get it off your chest. You have a laundry list of grievances—it’s time to hand it over to the one who aggrieved you. Be prepared for her to be defensive, to go on the attack, to protest that the past is the past and cannot be undone, to call you too sensitive—or a liar. She may deny it all. She may tell you that she felt she had no choice but to rely on you the way she did. Whatever she says, the conversation is likely to leave you in tears. But what is the point of staying silent? “Keeping the peace” has not served you well so far.

And you have nothing to feel guilty about. Parents who don’t care for us the way we deserve to be cared for are not automatically owed our devotion. But clearly, there is at least a part of you that feels sorry for your mother now, because you feel guilty about not feeling loving toward her. I would say that this is your humanity speaking. She is nearing 80; she is alone. You don’t want to “hate” her, it seems to me.

So go into this difficult conversation with as much clarity as possible. What is it you want from her now? An acknowledgment of how she treated you? An apology for it? An honest explanation of why she behaved as she did—or a recognition that she doesn’t know, or didn’t know at the time? Do you want to have a relationship with her, however limited? Do you want to try to make a new start? (There’s no expiration date on that.) Knowing what you hope will be the outcome of such a conversation will go a long way toward it being a clarifying one that will help you move forward.

—Michelle

Would it be ethical to buy up quantities of this season’s hot toy (this year, it’s the Cocomelon JJ doll) if I find it on sale so that I can thwart evil scalpers and sell them at cost to pure-hearted fellow parents with kids who want them for real? Or does this just contribute to the false scarcity problem the scalpers are creating?