I Read My Son’s Texts From His Ex-Girlfriend. Uh-Oh.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by AntonioGuillem/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so today we’re diving into the archives of Care and Feeding to share classic parenting letters with our readers. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My eighth-grade son has had a series of “girlfriends” in the past year; as is normal for middle school, these relationships were short-lived and limited to text messages and time spent together within the confines of school and school activities. One of the exes is friendly with him still, one is decidedly not, and the most recent ex seems to be somewhere in the middle. I periodically monitor his texts and emails (which he knows, but I think sometimes forgets) and I have talked to him about appropriate messages, pictures, etc. So far I have not seen any issues there. (He does not use social media accounts.) Then I read the last text from his most recent ex. She accused him via text of being “handsy” and “perverted,” and of “rushing things” in her kiss-off text message. As he has spent no time outside of school with this girl, this behavior could have only occurred during school or in after-school activities. I’ve not gotten any communications from any teachers or staff that they’ve ever witnessed anything inappropriate. He’s the type of kid who gets excellent grades and glowing comments from teachers and adults about how mature, polite, and personable he is. I do recall chaperoning a field trip last spring when he was “dating” Ex No. 2 and thinking I saw him brush a hand across the girl’s bottom as they walked through a crowded amusement park. At the time I convinced myself it was an accidental brush and not worth mentioning, but in light of this most recent “kiss-off” message from Ex No. 3, I am worried this is how he behaves with his “girlfriends,” given that at least one seems to have an issue with it. Frankly, I had way more personal freedom at his age to hang out with my boyfriends and no parents around to witness any of my middle school antics with the opposite sex—and of course no cellphone for my parents to monitor. As his mom, should I be confronting him about his latest ex’s message? Giving him a general talk about appropriate dating behavior? Banning … handsiness? Please help—I want to raise a good and decent man here. —The Handyman’s Mom Dear HM, Yes, I think it’s time to continue what I hope is a robust conversation already in progress about boundaries and consent. You should be clear with your son that sexually touching someone without their consent is never remotely acceptable or appropriate under any circumstances, and you should talk honestly about why it’s not OK. Not just from the angle of “look at the bad things that can happen to you, Son, if you do this,” but also by explaining what the impact of that kind of behavior is on other people—how it fucks with a person’s self-esteem and makes a person feel powerless, what women and girls have to do to navigate the world while also navigating feeling unsafe and unsupported in places that are supposed to be safe, like a school field trip. I don’t suspect that I’m telling you anything that you don’t already know, but I am giving you, if you need it, permission to let him know these things. I think your conversation with him should be honest and should in no way seek to protect him from the truth. Finally, I think you are totally allowed to open up a conversation about why his last relationships ended and to provide greater perspective. He may or may not be taking seriously the feedback he received from this girl, but you may gently and clearly back up that feedback and help him to think more deeply about what he’s doing and what it means. This is a really important age, and the messaging you do or don’t give him about integrity, honesty, and genuine kindness and respect will last for a very long time. Good luck. —Carvell Wallace From: Dear Care and Feeding: I’m Worried My Eighth-Grader Is Getting Handsy With His Girlfriends. (February 27th, 2019). 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, My 4-year-old seems to be having some difficulties at nursery school. He seems to be fixated on one other child—despite other kids greeting him in the morning—but it looks to me as though the other child isn’t as keen. There have been some biting and hitting incidents (both as aggressor and victim)—and recently the teacher called to say that my son and this boy had been showing each other their penises. We had a chat about it not being appropriate to show anything that goes in your pants at school/in public/with anyone other than parents and grandparents. This seemed to sink in. Then he pissed on this child on the playground because he “doesn’t like him.” I am fully aware of how insane this sounds. I’m not sure what to do. I don’t know any of the other parents in the school—it’s quite insular here—and I’ve struggled to make friends. Unfortunately, I’m stuck being a stay-at-home parent because child care isn’t really available. I have ADHD and anxiety, and I struggle with the requisite small talk, especially in the morning. Is a move of school for a fresh start a good idea? —Golden Child Dear GC, First of all, I don’t think what your son is going through sounds that insane. Kids are strange! They do odd things, and when they do, it’s not a moral failing—not for the child or the parents. Look: Every parent’s kid has done something weird, naughty, or troublesome, at some point. Obviously, what your son did is … outside the bounds of typical behavior. But he may not have known that, being only 4 years old. You can have the exact same conversation you had with him about showing his penis in public (not cool) about wielding his penis as a weapon (not cool). I imagine you’ve already done this. I don’t think moving schools is the answer. It might be a pointless disruption for him, more labor for you, and I’m also not convinced that your son has done anything so awful that you need to start fresh somewhere new. I appreciate that reaching out to fellow parents is difficult for you for the reasons you list. But please try. You probably feel more anxious fretting about being known as the mom of the boy who peed on Dylan than you would talking to other parents. Look: Every parent’s kid has done something weird, naughty, or troublesome, at some point. And every parent knows that a parent’s job requires a certain amount of peer collegiality. If you had friends in the community, people who truly knew you and your son, that would make a big difference. You can ask the teachers who in the class brings out the best in your son and reach out to those families for a play date. (Also: Ask the teachers for email addresses so you don’t need to wing it during drop off, when everything’s chaotic.) Or volunteer at the school once or twice to get to know some of the other parents organically. Know that it might be awkward and that it will most likely require small talk, but know, too, that it might help. You describe feeling “stuck” as a stay-at-home parent—been there!—and I can appreciate that dealing with this kind of thing isn’t your dream. But there you are, at least right now. Just remember: While this incident might seem really dire at the moment, you’ll probably be laughing about it in couple of years. —Rumaan Alam From: Dear Care and Feeding: My Children’s Birth Story Is So Complicated. What Should I Tell Them? (June 20th, 2019). Dear Care and Feeding, My partner and I have two kids—a 6-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. Our son is the typical little-kid picky eater—he’d prefer to subsist on peanut butter, pasta, french fries, and fruit. There are plenty of times he flat out refuses to eat all or part of his meal and then grazes later. Our daughter has always been an adventurous and enthusiastic eater. But she is also “food focused”—she seems hyperaware of what other people are eating, and a meal or a snack always sounds good to her, whether or not she’s actually hungry. Due to their dissimilar eating preferences, our daughter’s plate often looks different than our son’s. We rarely cook completely separate meals, but after a full day of work and school, I just want everyone to eat something, so there are usually some substitutions or differing portion sizes, which our daughter sometimes finds unfair. Our son is also apt to eat a smaller meal and then request more food later. We are fine with him grazing on healthy foods, but our daughter will immediately request the same snack even though she ate a much larger meal and most likely is not truly hungry. I’m struggling to manage these differing eating styles while also trying to promote healthy eating habits—especially in regard to our daughter. Food always sounds good to me too, and recognizing when I’m truly hungry is a lesson I’m still learning. While I was never overweight as a child, my own mother always monitored and controlled what I ate. I struggled with anorexia and bulimia as a teenager and young adult, and continue to struggle with body image now. So I’m hyperaware of how we interact with my daughter around meals and snacks. My partner has no trouble telling her she doesn’t need a snack 30 minutes after she’s eaten a full meal while handing over a yogurt tube to our son because his dinner portion was much smaller. I’m constantly afraid she will interpret this as “my parents think I eat too much” or “my parents prefer my brother,” and we will all wind up in family therapy for a raging eating disorder. But I also do agree we need to help her learn the difference between true hunger and mindless or emotional eating. How would y’all handle this? Am I overthinking this due to my own food history? (My partner thinks so!) If it matters, both of our kids are very active, and neither is under- or overweight. —Food Cop Dear FC, Thank you for writing in about this and I’m happy to hear that you are in a healthy place with your eating. These things are complex, painful, and very difficult to manage, so kudos to you for wanting to face them head on. That said, I’m amazed at how frequently I hear some variation of “I’m afraid this behavior of mine will give my kid an eating disorder” in letters and comments from parents. I mean, I get it, because eating disorders are terrible, and we don’t want our kids to have them, especially if we ourselves struggle with them. But I feel pretty sure that the only thing that is 100 percent guaranteed to create disordered eating in kids is parental obsession around food. So you cannot obsess your kid out of an eating disorder. You do not need to micromanage your daughter’s eating habits. She wants to eat because she wants to eat. That’s OK. It’s even OK if she eats a snack when she’s not hungry. This is neither the end of the world nor proof that she’s on an irreversible path toward compulsive overeating. You can certainly explain the difference between eating because of hunger and eating because of boredom or emotion. But I don’t think it’s wise to consider yourself entirely qualified to tell her what she’s feeling at every moment. To do so would require you to constantly police her thoughts and feelings and I’m pretty sure that’s overkill. What you can do is be honest with her, slowly, in appropriate moments, and over time, about your own personal experiences with food and disordered eating. Indeed, this is the only thing you know for sure, so it really is the only thing you can talk about with certainty. These conversations are ongoing and entirely crucial. You can think of it like you are planting seeds. You are giving her ways to think about eating that may come in handy when she is actually ready to think about eating. But the thing is right now she’s not, and I suggest you let it stay that way as long as it wants to. If you are having difficulty with the differing rules for who can eat when and who can’t (and who wouldn’t, that’s a really hard thing to enforce reasonably), I might suggest the following: make the same meals for both kids. Include some junky stuff for brother that he may like and some real food for sister that she may like. Either way let them both know that that’s what they’re getting, and they can either eat it or not eat it. Set rules around snacks that are the same for both kids (last snacks are at 8 p.m. or whatever). Or, if you like, let the kids snack whenever they want. Both approaches are fine, but by setting up different standards, you may be creating an entirely new set of problems that you don’t need. Assume for the moment that your daughter is fine. Love her and be honest with her. Be much kinder and less judgy than your own mom was with you, and, most importantly, make sure she knows that you are someone she can be authentic with, not someone she has to avoid because you attack her with your own issues. Good luck —C.W. From: Reflexive Eating, in This Week’s Care and Feeding Extra. (June 27th, 2018). More Parenting Advice From Slate My husband and I have been having a problem with our oldest child. She is 37 and married with a daughter. I quit my job and took care of my granddaughter for four-and-a-half years while my daughter and her husband worked as teachers. My granddaughter and I had a very special and close relationship. I also thought my daughter and I had a wonderful relationship. But at the beginning of last summer, our daughter came over to tell my husband and I we were unreliable and untrustworthy. I was shocked at the reason why. 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