I Refuse to Do Free Work for My Family. They're All Having a Meltdown.
Dear Good Job,
I am 19 and going to community college while working at a daycare. The pay is terrible but it works with my schedule, and I love kids. But I am tired of my three older siblings trying to pawn off theirs every time I come home to visit. I want to relax and spend time with our parents—not changing diapers because my sister married a Neanderthal, or my brother would rather watch the game than pay attention to his toddler. It is so obviously fake and manipulative when the minute I walk in the door, they're telling me that the kids missed their Auntie and a baby with a poopy diaper is thrown in my hands.
I tried to be polite and tell them I just want to have some adult company. I get ignored.If I hand the kid back or leave the room, I get guilt trips because 'parents need a break too,' and I act like I 'hate' my nieces and nephews. Obviously, as the youngest female of the family, I am the default child tender and am expected to accept my womanly duty. That isn't happening.
Everyone is always over at our parents so I have to deal with the same problem again and again. I finally snapped when my brother told his whining kid to play with me because he was busy playing a video game. I held out my hand and told my brother it would be $20. He acted confused, and I told him I get paid to deal with other people's kids, and if he wants the same, he needs to pay up. This caused a huge fight where I was called overdramatic and mean for even thinking of charging money from family. I ended up skipping the Memorial Day weekend to hang out with friends, and have gotten nothing but grief from my parents. They want to see me and miss me, but not enough to stand up for me. What do I do here?
—Not a Daycare
Dear Not a Daycare,
Families know how to push your buttons because they're the ones who put them there. I'm sorry your siblings keep treating you like a kid sister they can boss around. And it's maddening to see family members try to enforce traditional gender roles, especially when children are watching and learning.
New parents are exhausted and stressed (why is my child crying? Why?) and not in the best headspace to accept new family dynamics. But you're right to insist on them. It will take a lot of persistence, since your siblings are highly motivated to keep manipulating you, but stick to your clear and fair messages: You're there to enjoy some adult time. You love to see and play with your niblings, but you care for children professionally. If your siblings would like you to babysit by changing diapers, feeding the kids, bathing them, etc., your hourly rate is $50. Your siblings may continue to throw tantrums, but as you know from dealing with children, the best thing to do is stay calm while they scream it out.
Not to excuse your siblings, especially the Neanderthal brother-in-law, but they might be feeling the weight of family expectations themselves. They may be feeling judged about their own parenting skills (rightly so, in your brother-in-law's case) and frustrated by their inability to keep up with diapers and toddler tantrums. Some people regress to their brattier younger selves when they spend time with their family of origin.
It sounds like your siblings learned how to give guilt trips from your parents. If you haven't yet, explain to your parents that you hope they and your siblings will respect you as an adult who is working hard at her job and education. Ask them to stick up for you. They might be too stuck in your existing family dynamic to see your perspective, but they clearly hold a lot of influence over your siblings and might be willing to use their power for good. (If nothing else, maybe they can use their guilt trip skills to get Neanderthal off the couch.) Whatever comes from this conversation, please don't feel obliged to follow your siblings' pattern of spending every holiday (even Memorial Day!) at the family home. Go out, enjoy some friends or some solitude. Your parents need to learn that you are no longer the youngest kid everybody can push around, and you will visit when you want to.
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 Good Job,
A co-worker brings sardines, anchovies, herring, or some other god-awful-smelling fish in his lunch EVERY DAY. Even worse, he tosses the empty cans in the garbage in the break room without having the decency to at least seal them in a Ziploc bag, resulting in one of us needing to rush the garbage to the dumpster outside. We've tried hinting that it might be nice for him to try to broaden his horizons with something other than fish, but he claims it's 'good for the brain' and keeps on bringing it in. It's gotten so bad that we are now eating our lunches in our cars or going out to restaurants. Is it time to speak to human resources? Is this even something HR could do anything about?
—The Other People Here Have Functioning Noses
Dear Functioning Nose,
One of the worst things about in-person jobs is having to share co-workers' air. It's hard to concentrate when you're within breathing distance of their respiratory infections, flatulence, and smelly fish. It sounds like there isn't good air circulation in the break room, and that's the first place to start. Ask human resources (or your manager, or the building engineer) to upgrade your HVAC system and/or add an air purifier that will reduce not just smells but also airborne germs, particulates from wildfire smoke, and other pollution. If the room has a window that is sealed shut, ask to have it modified to open. If your company balks at the cost, tell them any air-purification improvements will pay for themselves by reducing sick days and distractions.
Human resources should be able to set some guidelines for break-room etiquette that include instructions for properly disposing of smelly containers. But perhaps Mr. Good Brain will listen to reason. You say you and your colleagues have hinted that he should diversify his diet. Hinting didn't work—it often doesn't—so tell him directly that his lunch is causing discomfort for some of his colleagues. Explain this briskly and factually, without judgment or a wrinkled nose, and say that you'd like to find a solution. Could you schedule lunch breaks so that those of you who are sensitive to the smell eat a bit earlier, while he waits to open his lunchbox until a bit later? And ask him to throw his lunch trash away outside, rather than in the break room. The research on fish oil improving brain function isn't super strong, but if he wants to do something that's really good for his brain, he should strengthen his social relationships with his co-workers.
Slate Plus members get more Good Job every week. Sign up now to read Laura Helmuth's additional column this week.
Dear Good Job,
I recently found out from a co-worker friend that another one of our co-workers, 'Jane,' homeschools her children specifically to keep them away from 'gay people.' As a queer and trans person, I am disgusted. I don't know how to interact with Jane now. I've basically been completely ignoring her.
We don't work together often (we are both part-time and don't necessarily come in on the same days), but we are nurses at a hospital, so there is a lot of collaboration with everyone else working when I am there. She is perfectly nice to me at work (she doesn't know I'm queer or trans, though she does know I use 'they/them' pronouns for my toddler) but it makes me feel gross to interact with her. I recently started wearing my pronouns (they/them) on my name badge, but she hasn't noticed yet. I want to aggressively correct her next time she uses the wrong pronouns for me, even though I ignore it when the rest of my co-workers use the wrong pronouns. I don't want a hostile work environment, but I am a conflictual person by nature, so part of me wants to make it a conflict. Help!
—Nurse Gay
Dear Nurse Gay,
Jane, goddam. Preventing kids from learning about queer people (or evolution, the age of the Earth, climate change, racism, other cultures, true history, and all the other fundamentalist homeschooling no-no's) is cruel and neglectful. That's a subject for another column, and her kids aren't your problem at all, but I just want to start by saying that Jane is contributing to generational ignorance.
It's tempting to start a conflict with Jane, but of course, there are lots of reasons not to. You don't want to give anyone on staff an excuse to feel sorry for Jane, and you'd run the risk that other people would think you're a troublemaker. Do correct her if she continues to mis-pronoun you, but do so in a tone you would use to correct any error. Could you ask the person who told you about Jane's homeschooling to speak with her? They could share that you're queer and trans, assuming other people at work know and you want them to know. If nothing else, co-workers could reinforce that Jane needs to use correct pronouns. It might be less fraught for Jane to hear from a third party that her assumptions about you are wrong. It's not your job to educate Jane, but your presence could be educational. A lot of people rethink some of their own bigotry, especially bigotry that was handed down to them through brainwash-schooling and a bigoted family of origin, when they get to know people they were taught to despise.
—Laura
My husband has been working on a startup since last December. It's in an industry that has taken a huge downturn since right after he started. They have not secured any funding. They can't afford to complete the next very important step because they are out of money. He has had two business partners in this, one being his very close friend. This friend is the main partner and just accepted a full-time job and is giving up on the startup…
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6 days ago
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I Finally Found My Happy Place After My Husband Left Me. There's Just One Problem.
Care and Feeding is Slate's parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My ex-husband and I were together for decades. We have two kids, 20-year-old 'Jack' and 22-year-old 'Jill.' I thought my marriage was happy; I thought my ex and I were deeply in love. But last spring, he disappeared without a word. At first I feared he'd been hit by a car (I even called the police) but then money started being taken out of our joint account. After a month of this, he reappeared and said he was 'finding' himself and wanted a divorce. When we sold the house, I decided to buy a condo. I ended up buying a two-bedroom place—I couldn't afford a bigger one. Both Jack and Jill have apartments near their colleges and come home only for visits, but I wanted them to feel they have a home base (their father now travels continuously and doesn't keep a place of his own). I've made it a space I love, very different from our family home. It's got loud, bright paint, wood floors so I don't have to vacuum dog fur out of the carpet, stupid art by friends, and a living room dedicated to my hobbies. With the exception of the second bedroom, the entire condo is decorated in a way that Jill describes as 'violently femme-feeling.' And why shouldn't it be? I live there alone and am decorating just for me! The second bedroom is neutral: dark green walls, furniture from our old house—kind of boring. Jill visits regularly and stays in that room. She has rejected my offer to help decorate it to feel more like hers when she's there. She says it's fine. The trouble is, my son hates my condo. Jack says he feels unwelcome in the condo because of the way it's decorated. I offered to let him pick new stuff for the second bedroom and he declined. I'm wondering if his attitude/behavior isn't really about the condo, but I have no idea how to bring this up with him. He has never been a 'feelings talker.' He wasn't interested when I offered to help pay for therapy during the divorce and its aftermath, and he won't talk to me about it either. When he visits, he stays with friends or with someone in our extended family. He does want to spend time with me, and we spend a lot of time together whenever he comes home, but he refuses to set foot in the condo. What do I do? —It's Not Really About the Condo Dear Condo, Well, sure, it's not really (all) about the condo. But you yourself have made the condo a metaphor—or, to be more precise, two conflicting metaphors. It's a 'home base' for your kids (you wanted this for them, you say—by which I assume you mean you want them to feel they still have a home). But you live alone, you point out: Why should you decorate for anyone but yourself? (In this latter formulation, the condo is all about you.) I hasten to say that I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting your new home (in which, as you say, you live alone) to be all about you. But that comes with a cost, and it sends a message to your college-age children that directly contradicts what I bet you've told them (i.e., that this is their home, too). Your younger child is particularly sensitive to this message ('jk—it's not really your home') and what it implies: that he is not a priority, but something of an afterthought, and that you have moved on not only from his father, but from the family as a whole, and specifically from him. Have a conversation with your son! Actually, have a conversation with both kids. Your daughter, a little older, may be readier than he is to let go of the idea of a true home base, but that doesn't mean she is without feelings about all of these changes. Acknowledge that your divorce has been hard on them and continues to be hard on them. Acknowledge that the loss of the house that was their home may be painful for them. Encourage them to talk to you about how they feel and what this all means to them. And be honest with them about the condo, which you bought for yourself and have decorated as you see fit. I suspect the second bedroom, which you counted on their taking turns using and decorated to be'neutral' and 'boring'—rather than attempting to make it a space in which they'd both feel at home—added insult to injury. Were there no touches to its decor you could have made that would be inviting to them and demonstrate that you meant this to be their room? And no, offering to let them pick out some things themselves to make the room more appealing to them is not the equivalent to that. Finally: Don't lose sight of what matters more than the condo or either of its metaphorical meanings. Your son wants to spend time with you! When he returns from college on visits, you and he spend a lot of time together. Isn't that more important than where he sleeps? The fact is, you may have to let go of the idea of him thinking of your condo as his home (you've made it your home, and perhaps that's enough) and focus on a new sort of relationship with your son as he edges into adulthood. Dear Care and Feeding, My wife 'Carla' and I have a 3-year-old son, 'Andy.' Andy became a big brother last month when we had our daughter, 'Isabelle.' Andy had been reliably potty-trained for four months before Isabelle was born, but within days of bringing Isabelle home from the hospital, Andy began having accidents. Carla's solution has been to put him back in pull-ups. I don't think allowing him to regress like this is a wise idea. She says to let him do it for the time being if it makes him feel better. It seems to me that taking a firm approach (making him go back to using the toilet or face punishment) would be in his best interest. Who is right? —We're Not Going Backward Dear Backward, Your wife. (I was tempted to write that in all caps.)Andy is only 3, and he is having a hard time right now. Why would you make it harder on him? (And I promise he will not be in pull-ups forever. What difference does it make if potty-training takes a backseat just now to his adjustment to being a big brother?) Dear Care and Feeding, My son recently arrived stillborn at 30 weeks, and I have no living children. My colleagues at work know about this and have mostly been compassionate and mindful. My next-door office neighbor, though, is a mom with young kids and complains about her children often. This is really painful for me, but I don't know if there is any good way to ask her to tone that down around me. My son's death doesn't negate the fact that she might be having a difficult time parenting, I know, but it hurts a lot when people who have kids seem to dislike them, when I'd do anything to have a kid of my own. How do you suggest I handle this? —Bereaved Mom Dear Bereaved, I am very sorry for your loss. And I am also deeply sympathetic to the situation you find yourself in at work. I know it's little consolation, but your work-neighbor doesn't mean you any harm. Her thoughtlessness is literally thought-lessness. She is so wrapped up in her own life, she isn't thinking about how her complaints are making you feel. (She isn't thinking about you at all.) I'll tell you what I wish I'd done, over a decade ago, when my elderly father was dying and someone I'd thought was my friend talked incessantly about how her elderly father was driving her crazy. I remember how close I came, again and again, to interrupting her to say, 'For godsakes, shut up. I'd give anything to have my father around to drive me crazy.' I remember hanging up the phone after every conversation shaking with rage and grief and the effort not to snap at her. I'm not sorry I didn't snap. But I am sorry I didn't tell her that it was painful to listen to her complaints when I was struggling so. I'm sorry I didn't say, 'I know you don't mean to cause me pain, and I know you're having a rough time with your dad, but it's hard for me to hear this when my own father will soon be gone.' She might not have taken that well—I suppose, in fact, that she would not have—but I'm sorry I suffered in silence for so long. Even if our friendship had ended then and there, it would have been better for me to speak up. (And the friendship didn't last much longer, anyway.) Can you gently, thoughtfully tell your colleague that although you know she's having a hard time with her kids, and you feel for her, right at this moment it's painful to hear about it? You're grieving. It's OK to ask the people you regularly interact with not to add to your grief. (And if she doesn't like it? What's the worst that could happen? She'd stop talking to you at all?) Chances are, it has never occurred to her that what she's doing is hurtful. Give her the opportunity to do better by letting her know. You have nothing to lose. —Michelle My sister 'Jasmine' recently got married. The wedding was held in the town Jasmine and I grew up in (where my family and I live). Jasmine and her fiancé, 'Tyler,' arrived a few days beforehand. On the day before the wedding, they went with most of the family to the county fair. Tyler is hardcore MAGA and was making obnoxious comments about everything from women and LGBTQ+ people to the physical traits and appearance of random passersby. My 13-year-old daughter 'Josie' was getting increasingly uncomfortable and angry. Then Tyler spotted the old-school bumper cars ride. Solve the daily Crossword
