Dec 07, 20258:00 AM
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by EdrZambrano/Getty Images Plus.
*Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. *Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My in-laws recently retired and moved to the city where we live. The problem: My mother-in-law, “Hannah,” keeps bringing food over, and her cooking is awful. I mean terrible enough to be considered a weapon of mass destruction. Everyone in my family hates it. A couple of months ago, my 7-year-old burst into tears…
Dec 07, 20258:00 AM
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by EdrZambrano/Getty Images Plus.
*Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. *Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My in-laws recently retired and moved to the city where we live. The problem: My mother-in-law, “Hannah,” keeps bringing food over, and her cooking is awful. I mean terrible enough to be considered a weapon of mass destruction. Everyone in my family hates it. A couple of months ago, my 7-year-old burst into tears when she got home from school, looked in the fridge, and saw one of Hannah’s casseroles.
I’ve asked my husband to speak to his mother about not bringing so many meals over (I know he hates her food as much as the rest of us; he’s said as much for years). His excuse for not doing so is that he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings, so it looks like it’s going to fall to me to be the bad guy. Any advice for handling this diplomatically?
—It’s Worse Than Raw Sewage
Dear Worse,
How about, “Hannah, dear, I can see how much you enjoy cooking to feed my family, and I appreciate all the help you’ve provided for these last ___ months. But I like cooking for them! I’d like to make our meals myself from now on.” Say this firmly.
If she protests, insisting that she knows you and your husband have no time, that it makes her happy to be able to do this for you, that it’s no trouble at all, try being firmer still (“Still, I’m asking you not to bring meals over anymore”), but please do not tell her outright that you hate her food or that your kids do or pronounce her the world’s worst cook. Don’t be mean.
If, after this, she continues to bring unwanted food over, you have my permission to discard it. (I’d suggest you donate it, but if it’s really as bad as you say—and not simply not to your family’s liking—that would be mean, too.) I wish you could compost it, but “casseroles” generally contain dairy, eggs, fat, and possibly meat—all items that typically can’t be composted easily (do compost vegetables and fruit if she brings any over unadorned). But I wouldn’t give up on asking her to stop bringing food. Say it again after a week or two. And again, a week or two after that. Surely she’ll get the message eventually.
Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.
Dear Care and Feeding,
How do you navigate having ex-spouses at the same event when they can’t stand each other? My son’s first birthday is coming up, and my wife and I want to have a small gathering with immediate family, but my wife’s parents are divorced, and their loathing of one another is the stuff of legend.
—Can You Keep It Civil for One Afternoon?
Dear Keep it Civil,
It’s impossible to control other people’s behavior, and even less possible to control their feelings. If you hate the idea of two people who love your child (and presumably your wife, too) being unpleasant to each other in your home, then invite them over separately. Leave it to your wife to decide which of her parents gets to come to the “small gathering with immediate family” and invite the other to a separate, even smaller gathering. Or divide the “immediate family” in two, evenly, based on who’s on whose side (your wife will know).
If this sounds like an awful lot of trouble, and it irritates you to have to do it (not just now but perhaps forever after), then resign yourself to their loathing. Maybe if they are forced to be in the same room together often enough, they’ll learn how to control themselves. Or their loathing will begin to dissipate—who knows?
We Want to Hear Your Petty Work Drama!
Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir want to help you navigate your social dynamics at work. Does your colleague constantly bug you after hours? Has an ill-advised work romance gone awry? Ask us your question here!
Dear Care and Feeding,
My 12-year-old daughter prefers not to wear a bra. With the holidays coming up, we’re going to be spending time with some relatives who feel strongly that it’s high time she started to wear one. These are all middle-aged-to-elderly women, and fortunately, their comments have so far been directed at me and not her. But who knows how long that will last?
For the upcoming family gatherings, I’ve been thinking about asking her to wear clothes that don’t accentuate the fact that she’s not wearing a bra (specifically, not wearing thin, light-colored t-shirts). My sister thinks I shouldn’t bring it up to her at all and that doing so will make her self-conscious about her body. But I think that although my daughter, free spirit that she is, may be surprised to hear that anyone thinks anything at all about how she dresses, she won’t be harmed by my asking her to dress modestly. I honestly doubt that asking her to pick out a shirt that won’t scandalize the great-aunts will ruin her self-image. But is my sister right? Do I need to just let this go?
—Braless
Dear Braless,
If the great-aunts are scandalized, that’s their problem, not yours. It’s certainly not your daughter’s. If anyone says anything to your daughter—or to you in her earshot—about her body, shut it down immediately. Depending on your own temperament and personal style, you can do so in a number of ways. You can be direct and rather stern (I would be): “It’s completely inappropriate to talk about her body. I’d like you to stop right now.” You can pull a Miss Manners: “I beg your pardon?” coupled with a death stare—and rinse and repeat as necessary, if once doesn’t do the trick. Make sure to sound increasingly incredulous. (I’ll admit that I’ve always wanted to be able to pull this sort of thing off, but it’s not in my personal toolkit.) Or you can say, pleasantly, “By all means, if you believe bras are an essential part of one’s wardrobe, I urge you to keep yours on!” Or how about singing out, “Thanks so much for your interest!” and walking away, hand in hand with your daughter?
Of course, you can also just snap, “Mind your own business, Auntie.” Though I’d never advocate meeting rudeness with rudeness. The one thing I beg you not to do is let your aunts’ opinions, beliefs, and feelings dim your daughter’s light. You would indeed make her self-conscious about her body in a way she (blessedly!) isn’t yet. Her great-aunts seem likely to do that on their own, come gathering time. What you’ll want to do then is let your daughter know whose side you’re on, that you’ll always have her back, and that you’re not embarrassed by her. And please, please: Don’t be embarrassed by—or for—her.
—Michelle
More Advice From Slate
I need help twofold: crafting verbiage to break some news to my first grader and also processing my own emotions. The good news is that the news isn’t necessarily bad. We’re moving! But we’re moving from one coast to another. Not only will this be a cultural shift (West Coast to the South), but it will also mean saying goodbye to good friends and family. It will mean no longer seeing the people we love on a daily or weekly basis.
Never miss new Slate Advice columns
Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.