My Younger Brother Keeps Putting Our Parents in a Precarious Position. Why Am I the Only One Who Can See It?

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Halfpoint/iStock/Getty images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, I’m in my late 40s, and I’m blessed with two relatively healthy and active elderly parents in their early 80s. While they both have some complex conditions, they’ve got access to excellent health care and are in great shape for their age. My concern is that my brother treats them like they are decades younger; they allow and even embrace it, and then I deal with the fallout when they are fatigued, in pain, or overwhelmed. He drops his children off with my mom for a week at a time—with her encouragement—and then she calls me every night saying she’s exhausted and her joints hurt and asks me to please come help. When he visits my dad, they go out bar-hopping, and he lets my father (who has cataracts) drive so he can drink. I’ve asked them to use Uber, and they both dismiss me as being silly. Part of me feels like everyone here is an adult and I have to let them make their own choices, but I hate seeing my mom worn out and worrying about whether my dad is going to get into an accident. When I’ve tried to talk to my brother about it, he tells me I’m exaggerating their frailty. Do I just accept what I can’t change? —Every Eldest Daughter Dear Every Eldest Daughter, From one eldest daughter to another, let it go. Everyone in this situation is an adult. But most importantly, your parents are still of sound mind and can make their own decisions. Nothing you can say can make them change how they interact with your brother, who they seemingly can’t stop babying. They’re just going to have to get fed up enough to put a stop to how they’re being treated once and for all. Unfortunately, that’s not something you can rush. What you can do is put limits on how you handle the fallout. Maybe that means you won’t always come help babysit the kids when your mom calls, or you’ll tell your brother he needs to take a turn stopping by to help them when they’re fatigued or in pain. In the meantime, keep an eye on your parents, and if either of them really does start to have any increased health issues, you can not-so-gently try to convince them to change their lifestyle for health reasons—an argument that you could have their doctors back you up on. That way, you’re not simply being a “pushy daughter” who’s trying to tell them what to do. But remember that even in this case, they might not listen. And … they don’t have to. —Arionne More Advice From Slate I’m a 35-year-old single woman and last year I began have a panicked feeling that my time was running out to meet someone and have kids. I have been seeing a counselor since last September about it, and she has helped me sort through my feelings and look at my options. I have come to understand that the thing that’s most important to me is to have a child, and that marriage is not in fact what really interests me. She helped me look at becoming a solo mom by choice as a real possibility… Advice Family Kids Parenting