My Daughter Found a Wonderful Man to Help Raise Her Child. She’s Going to Ruin It All for a Silly Dream.

Dear Prudence 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 24, 20266:00 AM Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by eobrazy/Getty Images Plus and Lordn/Getty Images Plus. Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so we’re diving into the Dear Prudence archives to share classic letters with our readers. Submit your own questions to Prudie here. Dear Prudence, My daughter won the jackpot with her second husband, “Miles.” Miles is older with an adult daughter, but he adores my grandson, who has special needs. His father left and never looked back when he was only 2. Because of the area Mike had his house before they married, my grandson has access to a lot more resources and support systems. Miles was upfront that he was done having any more kids. He wanted to make sure my daughter was on the same page before they moved in together, let alone talked about marriage. Only now my daughter seems to have caught baby fever. It is very obvious when she talks about it being “sad” that her son is an only child and all her friends are having another baby or that this nursery is so cute on a house decorating show. It is getting to Miles, and I have overheard them bickering about the subject on several occasions. At one point, my daughter dropped off her son with me and started to vent about how Miles was hurting her and being unreasonable about not being open about having a second kid. I told her Miles was never going to change his mind, she knew this from the start. She told me she has a right to change hers, and I got quiet. My daughter told me to spit it out. I told her she doesn’t get to change her mind and remain a good mother to the child she already has. Even with my help, it was a constant struggle for my daughter to keep her head above water as a single mom. Did she want to go back to that on the off chance of another baby? Miles offers stability and support. He backed her at finishing her degree and quitting the awful job that she had. Miles dotes on her son, works with his therapy sessions, and volunteers at the school. Plus, Miles’s daughter was actually happy with a new stepfamily (I have heard so many horror stories). My grandson calls Miles daddy. If my daughter keeps pushing this, it will end in divorce. They will lose the house, the community, and ties that they built up there. They can always move in with me, but there is no question about the lack of resources here. I told my daughter she could be upset or feel grief over this, but she can’t sacrifice a good reality for a passing dream. My daughter cried and called me a stone cold bitch. Now she barely speaks to me beyond details about my grandson. Things are getting grimmer between her and Miles. Before they were openly affectionate, but now they barely touch when I see them together. Is there anything I can do or should? My heart just aches about what will maybe happen to my grandson. —Spoke Up Dear Spoke Up, Call your daughter and say you’re sorry. You overstepped. You hurt her feelings. Yes, she asked for your honest opinion, but you could have expressed the truth in a much more sensitive way, focusing on your feelings instead of a ruling on whether she “gets” to change her mind and whether she is a good mother or not. The right answer would have been “I can’t help but worry about where this conflict will go and how it will affect you and your son. I just love you guys so much.” Ask for her forgiveness. (And, by the way, never again believe someone when their request for feedback is framed as “Spit it out,” which is actually an expression of annoyance that you’re clearly thinking something and not saying it rather than a genuine request for your insights.) If you two are able to reconcile, you need a new game plan. You may be totally right about what she’s doing and how it will destroy her relationship, but please believe me when I say very few people in the world have ever changed the way they approach their marriage because their mother tells them they’re messing up and ruining everything. You don’t want your daughter to “sacrifice a really good reality” for the dream of having another child, but guess what? She might! She may disagree that her current situation is really that great. She might end up with the baby she wants and be thrilled. Or, who knows, maybe your predictions will come true and she’ll end up miserable. This is the kind of thing that happens in life, and we don’t have to like it, but we should avoid making other people miserable in our efforts to prevent it. Channel your anxiety about how everything could come crumbling down for your grandson into solidifying the part of his life that you actually have some influence over: his relationship with his loving grandmother. You can choose to be there for him no matter what happens. And that requires keeping 90 percent of your opinions about his mom’s choices to yourself—even when you’re asked. 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, My wife, “Sidney,” and I got married four months ago and are in something of a quagmire over her brother “Brad.” Brad got so wasted at our reception that he shit his pants and passed out. We recently moved into a large house and agreed to host the after-party for Sidney’s nephew’s bar mitzvah (her older sister’s son). I don’t want to invite Brad for obvious reasons. Our wedding wasn’t the first time her brother made a drunken wreck of himself at a special occasion, and I doubt it will be the last. I’ve spoken to her sister and brother-in-law, and they have no problem with telling Brad he’s not welcome. They even said they would have asked us not to have him there had I not approached them first. Regardless, Sidney says he merely “overindulged” and it would be wrong to exclude him. Shouldn’t this be enough to say her brother is out? —Ban Bad Brad Dear Ban Bad Brad, The pants-shitting part is really testing my go-to theory that “inappropriately behaved relatives sometimes add texture to family events and don’t actually harm anyone.” That’s just gross and a potential risk to your couch and carpet. If Sidney insists on having him there, the deal should be that she’s also the one responsible for him, meaning she monitors his consumption and behavior and makes him leave (not driving his own car obviously) if certain agreed-upon behaviors are observed: Closing eyes for more than three seconds at a time, stumbling, vomiting, or causing a scene. If she wants him there that badly, she should be the one to be inconvenienced by his presence. It goes without saying that he probably needs help with alcoholism more than he needs to be excluded from family gatherings. But as an in-law with a wife who doesn’t seem to see the seriousness of the problem, you don’t have to make that your business. Dear Prudence, My boyfriend and I have been together for just over one year. We live in a mid-sized city with some public transit, but it’s definitely easiest to get around by car. He doesn’t drive; he bikes to work or takes transit or rideshares. Throughout the relationship, including on our first state, I have asked him if he would be willing to get his driver’s license to share the labor and stress of driving when we’re together. Although he has promised since we met that he would get his license, he has definitely been dragging his feet. I have been doing all of the driving. He is generous in other ways and a good person, but he seems to have a blockage about driving. He finally practiced sometimes (at my urging), but he wasn’t remembering some of the rules of the road (which was stressful and frankly dangerous). Finally his learner’s permit lapsed. We get along other than this. He has a good job and is very competent at work. He doesn’t seem to understand that this burden should be shared so that resentment doesn’t build. It’s also such a turn off to be the chauffeur. Should I be more patient? Is this a dealbreaker? —Turned Off Dear Turned Off, I wouldn’t want someone driving me who really didn’t want to drive, was scared of driving, or couldn’t remember the rules of the road. In the same way I think we should respect and listen to people who don’t want to have children, we should listen to people who don’t want to be behind the wheel. Your boyfriend knows himself and his limitations. It’s unfortunate that he misled you about his willingness to get a license, but let it go and budget for more ridesharing when you need a break, if you think the relationship is worth it. —Jenée Classic Prudie My wife married “Joe” right out of college and divorced him before the two-year mark. They had one child together, “Patrick,” who now hasn’t seen his dad in years, as Joe’s been dealing with drug and alcohol addiction issues for Patrick’s entire life. Joe showed up high as a kite to Patrick’s birthday party one year. It was seriously bad—to the point we thought he was gonna pass out and overdose right at his son’s party. After that, we stopped inviting Joe to things and decided we’d only consider letting him see Patrick if/when he asked to. Joe never asked.For a while, Patrick asked about his biological dad constantly. Eventually, he stopped asking—as you can imagine, it was pretty heartbreaking to watch a child negotiate and then finally accept that his biological dad wants nothing to do with him. As horrible as I felt for Patrick, I was also happy because I thought Joe was finally out of our lives. Now we’ve recently found out something disturbing. 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