Help! My Child Is Doing An Oppression On My Constitutional Rights!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,23 January 22:

Dear Carolyn: My daughter is a beautiful ballet dancer. She is an adult. She gets very angry if I send pictures or short videos to friends and family.

We allowed her to leave high school to follow her dream. We fully funded her dance education and living expenses. People ask me for recent pictures. She has forbidden me to send anything.

Do I have any freedom of speech? She posts on social media so it’s in the public domain, as are her performances. It’s just me that’s not allowed to share. - Proud Mom Who Can’t Share Her Joy

Dear Proud Mom,

One can only imagine a mother’s profound heartbreak at discovering her beautiful young daughter hates the United States Constitution and all of its glorious protections, such as your personal and specific right to share information about her with strangers against her express wishes.

Certainly if your daughter were less attractive, or perhaps a shitty dancer, her unpatriotic loathing for your hard-won American freedoms would be tolerable, understandable, or even excusable — but knowing that a pretty and talented person has so eschewed the entitlements secured for us by our brave servicemembers, well! America isn’t the only country on earth with a vast network of military bases operating on the soil of other sovereign nations so that you can’t send your barista 400 photos of your grown-ass child.

But putting aside your daughter’s revulsion for American values, does she not understand that child-bearing and -rearing is a transactional relationship in which parents are entitled to do anything they want forever, as long as they pay for some shit? What is a mother’s love if not the ability to steamroll another person’s boundaries forever without apology no matter what because they have to like it or else they hate you and want you to be sad on purpose?

One wonders where your daughter could possibly have picked up such a distaste for your enthusiastic, unconditional lovingkindness. There is but one way to take pride in another person’s achievements, and that is to send one’s own private photos of that person to anyone who asks. How could you ever experience a single solitary moment’s joy if your friends and family discover that your daughter has her own means of managing her personal and public information in the service of a career that is hers and hers alone? What if they begin to see your daughter as an autonomous person with whom they are free to communicate sans mother-interlocutor? What if you had to find your own interests and personality and live your life independently of your identity as a dance mom? The unthinkable horrors abound.

Of course, getting into petty interpersonal squabbles about whether your daughter is allowed to set boundaries with you — she isn’t, obviously, but here we are — will be a fool’s errand. Instead, you’re better suited to retaining quality legal representation in order to regain the freedom of speech that your daughter has denied you. There are any number of fine constitutional scholars out there who would be happy to assist you.

Help! I Could Keep My Brother Alive, But I Don’t Like His Wife!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,1 November 2021:

Dear Carolyn: What do I owe my siblings, if anything? My husband has been fortunate enough to make a lot of money, and we agreed long ago that it was for us and our adult sons, not our (many) deadbeat relatives.

My older brother pretty much raised me and helped my husband when starting out. Brother had a severe stroke three years ago, and Second Wife claims they have gone through all their savings and are now $140,000 in debt with all the costs. She is trying to guilt me into helping them. I do not feel this is appropriate.

She did quit her job to take care of him, but they were improvident and did not buy long-term care insurance. I ask her why she does not put him in a home or hire a full-time aide and she says they can’t afford it.

Brother’s adult children tell me Second Wife is horrible, which is why they choose not to help, either. Second Wife had the nerve to ask me to help buy Brother an oxygen concentrator. It is expensive: $2,500. I think this is pushing it. She comes off as bitter, so we said no.

Now she tells me she will have to launch a GoFundMe, because otherwise they will lose their house. This will be extremely embarrassing to my husband and me, because we are prominent in the community. What do you advise? — Family

Dear Family,

While your problem has, on the surface, a very obvious solution — let the brother who raised you and gave your now-wealthy family its start in the world die a slow, desperate death in poverty because you don’t like his wife’s attitude — families are complicated. Sometimes it’s not as easy as getting what you want from someone financially and emotionally and then abandoning them forever because you don’t care whether they live or die — because then the neighbors might talk! What a pickle.

Of course your brother should be forced to forego the medical care he needs because you don’t like his wife. That much is clear. It’s not about the money — you’d never miss a dime — but you think your brother’s wife sucks, so it’s just really not worth ensuring he has the medical care and housing he needs. Anyone in your shoes would make the same calculation without a second thought.

However, things get sticky when we start thinking about what really matters: how embarrassing it will look to people you aren’t related to, who you’ve never met and have no responsibility toward, if it comes out that your brother is an irresponsible poor who didn’t even get long-term health insurance before deciding to have a stroke in a country with an exploitative, unjust, discriminatory, and deliberately impenetrable medical system that drives millions of people into unimaginable debt every year.

It would be a kindness if the man who raised you and seeded your family’s vast financial success could just suffer in silence and die in the streets with his bad wife and leave you out of it. That’s an outcome you could be proud of — the kind of comfortable, happy little family story you’d be fine sharing with a few intimate friends at the club. But for your sister-in-law to publicly humiliate you by trying to stay alive and housed in order to fund your brother’s medical care, when she knows you simply can’t help him because you hate her! That is impudence of the highest order, and your brother’s wife is only creating for everyone a self-perpetuating cycle wherein she quits her job to care for her husband and has to beg other people for money to stay alive, and you have to keep not giving her money because you hate her because she’s so poor and embarrassing! The one and only solution in this situation is so simple — she shuts up, he dies! — and yet, this self-absorbed couple just can’t bring themselves to take the necessary steps.

There’s nothing you can do here, since funding your brother’s medical care as the most minimum thanks for his support at the most crucial times in your own life will only help him live a longer and more comfortable life without his wife having to make a big public show of their poverty at you. Some people really can’t see past their own self-interest! An upside: if your in-laws go forth with their crowdfunding plan, you will see your own visibility in the community grow in some interesting new ways.

Help! My Daddy Didn’t Fight Hitler So That My Children Could Refuse To Give Me Grandkids!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,10 October 2021:

For years, my oldest son and his girl friend said that they would never get married; she was against it. Then, five years ago, she relented and they got married. They are now in their mid-30s and, by all accounts, seem happily married. They are financially secure: they both have steady, well-paying jobs, neither has student debt on their advanced degrees, they own a rental property outright, they have a manageable mortgage on their home in a safe neighborhood, and they drive late-model cars. In short, as Friar Lawrence would say, “a pack of blessings light upon thy back.”

Indeed, my son and his wife have worked hard over the years, but my wife and I (and my daughter-in-law’s parents), have also made much of their current “success” and happiness possible though our ongoing support. But there is a rub: our daughter-in-law steadfastly refuses to consider having children – and our son stands by her decision.

They like children – she is a pediatric physical therapist and he has a teaching degree. So, an aversion children is not part of the decision. Her reason — or the reason that they are standing behind — is climate change. In her opinion, it would be the height of cruelty to bring a child into a world that faces such an apocalyptic and nihilistic future.

I will grant you that climate change does pose challenges. And I will further grant you that our country faces other major problems that will be difficult to solve. But there is an existential question here – what have my and my wife’s life amounted to, if we have not inculcated a basic will to survive to the next generation?

To make matters more complicated, they channel all of their time and energy into biking, hiking, rock-climbing, kayaking, etc. We have two younger children (late 20s) who are not married. We despair that they will make the same life-style choices – especially under the influence of their older sibling.

To many observers, it would seem that our kids have been spoiled by their parents. And on some level, that is true. But the urge to face an uncertain future and procreate in the face of adversity is supposed to be part of the human condition.

Every generation faces some dire threat. My father’s generation was handed a M 1 and told to go shoot Hitler. My generation learned to “duck and cover”; under our school desks to avoid nuclear annilation. How can climate change be justified as being so much worse and insurmountable than that? Any advice?

Dear Any Advice?,

You make a number of excellent points in your letter, but none is as compelling as your closing rationale.

Your father’s generation was handed an M1 and told to go shoot Hitler, therefore your your son and his wife are obligated to use their time, money, and bodies to provide a grandchild for you or else your life and everything you’ve ever said or done is utterly meaningless.

That makes perfect sense! Sounds like you can take this right back to your wonderful son and his asshole wife and they’ll happily accommodate your eminently reasonable demands with no objections whatsoever. Thanks for writing in with an easy one! All best!

Help! A Person I Don’t Live With Is Messy!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,21 October 2021:

Dear Carolyn: My girlfriend of five years and I are splitting up; it’s completely amicable. We realized we both want different things long-term, so we will be moving out of our shared apartment within the next month. She will probably be living with a roommate. Should I suggest that she work on her tendency to be messy, and if so, how? By messy, I mean she regularly leaves things throughout the apartment rather than putting them away or disposing of them. It bothered me a lot at first, but I learned to just clean up the small things myself or remind her when it got out of hand. It’s possible that whomever she lives with next won’t be as easygoing, but would saying anything at this point be helpful or sound like bitterness?

Dear Completely Amicable,

It is incredibly refreshing to see genuine altruism in action. In our cancel-culture society these days we are so hung up on criticizing each other — picking at strangers for the smallest offenses, demanding people we barely know conform to our narrow views of the way humans should treat each other. But not you. You just want your ex-girlfriend’s possible next roommate to live their best life — free from your filthy ex’s foul detritus. Because you’re a swell person who would hate it, just hate it, by golly, if your loathsome ex-girlfriend ends up with her next domestic keeper without being properly trained. It’s very kind of you to be concerned for her next roommate, if they exist, but honestly, your concern for your ex’s wellbeing is nothing short of admirable under these circumstances.

And hey, good for you for getting ahead of the curve. You’re not even sure if your ex-girlfriend is going to have a roommate in a few weeks, but you’re already looking out for them! That’s just downright neighborly! And this person isn’t even your neighbor! They may never be your neighbor! They may not now or ever even exist! But that’s just how neighborly you are! You’re making sure a non-existent person’s home isn’t strewn willy-nilly with your former lover’s revolting old junk mail! If that’s not a fast-track to sainthood, I don’t know what is.

One thing that women in particular don’t get enough of is feedback about the way they live their lives from people they’re not fucking or dating or involved with in literally any way. Certainly people love unsolicited advice of all kinds, but they especially appreciate hearing about their shortcomings from former partners who they specifically and intentionally wish to no longer be associated with.

After silently suffering for years, stuck with no recourse in a home with this slimy bitch’s day-old coffee mugs, the least you can do as a kind parting gift is to chide her, a grown adult, about her living habits as she’s dragging her record collection down the stairs. She’ll be comforted by the fact that, like all the things you’ve done to go above and beyond for her — such as pick up a few things she left behind in the den — you’re doing her a great kindness with this final reminder that she’s a slimy hosebeast guaranteed to offend anyone who crosses her path. Imagine how grateful your ex-girlfriend will feel, as she peels out of your driveway blasting “Since You’ve Been Gone” at top volume, that she got to spend a short part of her mortal life on this earth with an actual angel!

Letting your ex know that she’ll be despised and resented by the next person she shacks up with if she doesn’t get her act together is a friendly and helpful favor to do for her.