I’ve Opened Up Our Home to Kids in Need. My Husband Has Some Pretty Unfair Objections.

Dear Prudence The kids should be the priority. Advice by Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Jenée Desmond-Harris? Aug 15, 20268:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, I’m having what I think is a minor disagreement with my husband. My husband is a pretty sweet guy; he is usually willing to lend a hand to anyone, but lately he’s been giving me a hard time about my friend’s children. My best friend and her daughter have lived with us off and on for years. My friend has some mental health issues and no family. So I make sure her daughter is awake, dressed, fed, and ready for school. I take her and my child to school and pick them up. I make sure she has dinner and does her homework. She comes places with us on the weekends or out to eat. Her mother mostly sleeps during the day and pays us a modest amount of rent, sometimes none. Then there is my other friend, whom I watch her children for free while she works or goes out of town. They also spend the night—I feed them, and I/we take them places too. My husband doesn’t like being financially responsible, but he’s not; this comes out of my money. He’s also said he didn’t have four kids, he had one, which I think is pretty mean. He has no problem when I watch his friends’ or family’s children. One of his friends’ kids lived with us for a year when the mother disappeared. He says we need more time together and money. We actually have more time and money together if he wasn’t always out with his friends spending money. Can you guide us here a little? Maybe on who’s right and who’s wrong. I think feeding children should always be the top priority. —Minor Disagreement Dear Minor Disagreement, I actually think this is a major disagreement, not a minor one. What you’re doing when it comes to caring for these kids is beautiful. There’s no question about whether it’s a good thing: You don’t seem to feel overly burdened by it. It probably adds incredible meaning to your life. It legitimately helps these parents and offers safety and comfort to their children. I know one day when these kids have a chance to reflect on how they felt at your home, they will be celebrating you as a hero. That said, to operate a free overnight childcare facility is a pretty huge lifestyle choice and not one everyone would make. In an ideal world, this would have been a decision you made in partnership with your husband, along with a broader plan (one that covered his gallivanting around with his buddies, too!) about your priorities for your life together. At this point, I’m not super hopeful that you will be able to agree on a compromise about the big picture of how you budget your time and money. The fact that he’s fine with unofficial foster care when it involves the child of one of his friends but critical when there are different kids involved tells me that 1) he’s not very fair or reasonable, and 2) it’s not really about the kids. The one piece you two can hopefully agree on is that it would be nice to have a bit more time together, and that you would like to see a bit more money in your bank accounts. Instead of deciding what needs to be cut out of your lives to make this happen, which is going to make both of you nervous and defensive, maybe start by thinking about what you do want: dates on Saturday nights, or a savings goal for something both of you want to spend your money on, that you both contribute to regularly. If you put these goals in place, it might mean that your friend watches her own kid on these evenings, and that he occasionally declines when he’s invited out. But neither of you will need to eliminate something that matters a lot to you to meet the others’ demands. 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 Prudence, When I was 22, my mom and stepdad pressured me to take on my 15-year-old half-brother “for a while” since tensions with the other siblings were really bad at home. “Caleb” had anger issues, started drinking early, and was getting in trouble a lot. I think they hoped that he would listen to me, although we’d never been close. At the time, I thought this was a lot to ask, but now that I’m an actual parent, I realize that it was totally nuts. I refused: I didn’t want to be his mom. I wasn’t equipped, and he was tough to be around even as a sibling. Tragically, Caleb died driving drunk at 16, and he never got to grow into an adult. My mom and stepdad had very complicated grief about this, and probably always will. I’m sad for the person he never got to become, but he was complicated during the time I knew him. It’s been a long time, and I’m married with two kids of my own. When our son was born last year, my mom asked me if “being a parent made me finally feel the guilt of letting Caleb down.” I had no idea how to respond: I don’t see it that way! I wasn’t Caleb’s parent, and I don’t think moving in with me would have helped him. It’s sad, but I wasn’t responsible for him and didn’t have the tools to help if I’d wanted to. As our son gets older, my mom’s been talking about Caleb more often, and it’s clear she holds me at least partially responsible for his death. I have no idea what to do with this: I don’t feel guilty, but maybe I should? I feel like she needs therapy, but maybe it’s actually me? —Not Caleb’s Keeper Dear Not Caleb’s Keeper, What an absolutely awful thing for your mother to say. It’s unbelievable that she’s accusing you—a person who was not responsible for your brother!—of letting him down, while in the very same breath she lets you down emotionally and fails to do the basic job of being your mom. You do need therapy, not because you’re bad or wrong but because you deserve it after being raised by (and continuing to deal with) this unreasonable and unkind woman. Prudie Wants to Hear From You! Readers often have great suggestions for our letter writers, occasionally disagree with a point Prudie makes, or simply want to provide some additional advice. Each week, Prudie will be replying to some of these comments and suggestions from readers, which will be featured on the site on Fridays for Slate Plus members. Write to us! Or submit a question here. Dear Prudence, I’ve always had big feet for a woman, size 11 on one side and 11.5 on the other, and wide. They were already bigger than average even when I was a little kid. I’ve always worn men’s sneakers because it’s hard to get women’s shoes that fit comfortably in stores. There is one online brand that I’m happy with for plain, respectable flats for work. High heels are definitely 100 percent out. I never had a pair to train in when I was younger, and I’m not going to start in middle age. This infuriates my mom; she always has a negative remark to make. She has been trying all my life to find me feminine, ladylike shoes. Mom buys me really dressy pairs and surprises me with them. They’re always too small, but she says I just need to break them in. She dragged me from store to store as a teenager, and whenever we went out, she tried to badger me into going in and just trying something on. We never find anything. If I decline, she gets upset about it the rest of the day because she’s “just trying to do something nice” for me. I’m happy to go out for a coffee or anywhere else, but Mom says she’s determined to find me the proper shoes. I finally got fed up and said I’m not going shopping with her until she agrees to stop, so now I’m breaking her heart by rejecting her. I’m satisfied with what I have now. How do I get her to accept that? —Daughter of a Size 6 Dear Daughter of a Size 6, She doesn’t actually have to do a physical search for larger shoes! We have the internet now. She can Google “beautiful women’s shoes in large sizes.” Or better, you can. Identify one pair you might really like to have that has great reviews for comfort, and tell her she’s welcome to buy them (and only them) for you. Then, can you possibly redirect her to get interested in purses instead? Classic Prudie I’m a college student home for the summer who took her nieces, ages 5 and 9, out for a day. While I was reapplying my red lipstick, the two girls begged me to let them wear it too because they wanted to look like me. I agreed. Later that day, we took a picture, which I posted on Facebook. Their mother went ballistic… 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. Advice Dear Prudence Family Marriage