My Mother-in-Law Destroyed a Toy to Protect Our Family From the Devil. I Want to Put Her in Time Out.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by MachineHeadz/iStock/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, This year my husband and I are going to be letting our 13-year-old daughter “Kayleigh” have a Halloween slumber party with five of her friends at our house. We were coming up with activities for the girls, and I dug my old Ouija board out of storage. Kayleigh loved the idea and had been playing with it since. Well, until my religious fanatic mother-in-law, “Doris,” caught wind of it while she was staying with my kids while my husband and I attended a wedding out of town. When we returned, Kayleigh informed us that Doris took the Ouija board and burned it! My mother-in-law’s excuse was that she was protecting our family from the Devil. I’ve since bought another Ouija board for the party, but the one Doris destroyed was something I had from when I was Kayleigh’s age and I’m furious. My husband has been of no help here; he agrees what his mother did was wrong, but says “she won’t change.” Is what she did enough to get her barred from seeing the kids for at least the next six months? —No Warning from Beyond About Religious Nuts Dear No Warning, We’ve been getting a lot of letters from folks asking about suspending their in-laws’ access to their children for a period of time as a punishment, and I am wondering, what is going to be different in six months? Doris is unlikely to change, so you have to figure out what sort of access you want her to have to your daughter. Can she come by without proselytizing, or will a ghost decoration set her off? Can she have Kayliegh over and just be normal, or does she think it’s her job to save her soul? You should let Doris have it, if you haven’t, about destroying your toy, and you should also let her know that she is not to impose her religious views on her grandchild. If she’s incapable of compliance, you have a decision to make. 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, I have 6 kids. My husband is insisting that we sell off three of them to the circus for some extra cash. It started as a joke, but now I’m getting concerned ever since he showed me a bunch of foreign websites on some type of browser called Tor and that he has some potential buyers offering him millions in Bitcoin. I want to take the kids and run, but my in-laws are insisting that it’s just a joke. Am I over-reacting? —Clown Mama Dear Clown Mama, Look your husband in the eye and say, “Tell me right now that you are kidding about selling our children” and if he says yes, say “Do not ever fucking joke like that about my kids again, and I MEAN IT.” If he gives you any inclination that he wasn’t kidding, you need an exit strategy immediately. This is a sick joke and you’re not wrong to take it seriously. You can also let your husband know that if he didn’t want six kids, he should have gotten a vasectomy a long time ago. —Jamilah More Parenting Advice From Slate My wife and I divorced when my daughter was 6 years old and I was 43. I love my daughter to death, marveling as she grew up, basking in her love, and returning in kind. I still love her so much, but there is something wrong in our relationship. 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 Family Kids