It’s Clearly Not Safe for My Son to Visit His Great-Grandmother. My Husband Is in Denial.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by The Yudel Media/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 husband’s grandmother has Alzheimer’s and is rapidly going downhill. She recently had to be placed in a facility due to her increasingly aggressive behavior after several episodes where she hit and scratched family members. The problem I’m facing is that we have a 4-year-old, “Theo,” whom she asks to see in her lucid moments, and my in-laws are pressuring us to bring him to visit her. I understand her desire to see him and don’t want to appear unsympathetic, but more than half the time she doesn’t recognize anyone except my MIL (her daughter) and becomes combative when faced with someone she thinks is a stranger. My husband thinks we should give it a try and quickly remove Theo from the room if things deteriorate. I don’t want to place my son in a potentially frightening (or violent) situation. What can I do to convince my husband and in-laws that Theo’s safety has to come first? —Protective Not Punitive Dear Protective Not Punitive, I totally understand. When my father had dementia, he also began to have violent outbursts and strange behavior, but barely remembered my children’s names, and I chose to not let them see him. I don’t know if this was the correct – or the kindest – way to handle it. Now that he’s gone, I sometimes feel like I should have made more of an effort. But the reality was that even though he did have brief moments of lucidity, the chances were greater that he’d act out in such a way that my children would have terrible and terrifying memories of him. (I also factored in the unpredictability of the other residents.) I think your husband has a good escape plan, and if things get super-crazy, you can at least say you did your best. But I think you go in expecting a good day instead – meet her where she is. If it’s a good day, then you can leave it at that, give everyone a temporary happy memory. I get how scary it is, I do, but so is the rest of life – maybe you’ll get lucky like I did and give her one last wonderful day. 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 husband and I are about to introduce a $5 a week allowance for our 8-year-old. We’re on the same page of not tying it to chores, but saying that as he has greater responsibilities, he gets more privileges. We have a child debit card because we wanted to be consistent with paying, plus, who has cash regularly anymore? Here comes the hiccup. My son knows he’ll be getting a card, and we’ve showed him the app where he can see his balance and spending and think about saving. But now he’s excited about using the card to buy Minecoins and other things in the Minecraft game. My instinct is to say, “No digital purchases,” but I don’t have a good reason why other than I think it’s a waste. My husband doesn’t have a strong feeling either way, but I’m afraid allowing digital purchases will undo the benefits of having an allowance (receiving money, saving it, spending it, etc.). At the same time, I used to blow my allowance on candy and dollar store tat … Is this just analog anxieties in a digital world and he’ll be fine, or are my instincts right? —Minecoins Are Minecrap Dear Minecoins Are Minecrap, Blowing $20 at a candy store on Red Vines and Skittles is no big deal, but one bad keystroke and suddenly you’re down $6,000 because your son is “accidentally” used your credit card and not his room-cleaning allowance to feed his Minecraft habit. I feel similar paranoia about my 9-year-old and baseball cards. I offered to buy him a new drum set for $500, but he said he’d rather use the $500 to buy a recently released box of Topps Chrome instead to chase a rare Ohtani card. When he told me this, my first thought was, “Great, I’ve given him a gambling addiction. Why don’t I just let him spend money on a pile of scratch-offs instead?” (Considering his family history, I think you can understand my fear.) So, MAM, I think we both suffer from anxieties about how our kids spend their money. The only way we can keep up with the world our children have to navigate is to be hypervigilant, but also rational. It’s important how we teach them about money and the risks and responsibilities that come with the kiddie debit card. See what happens with the Minecoins. If your son can’t control his digital spending, then switch back to old-timey cash to show him how we the 20th century ancients used to live. —A.J. More Parenting Advice From Slate My son “Matt” (14) and his best friend “Kyle” are together all the time, play on the same sports teams, and often spend the night at each other’s houses before games so only one set of parents has to drive them. For the past few months, when they’re alone in my son’s bedroom, they seem to spend time together in just their underwear. 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