Amy 7-24

DEAR AMY: I am attaching some importance to having one last family vacation before our oldest son, a high school senior, goes off to college and work.

Our younger kids, ages 15 and 11, want to go, but the 17-year-old says that no matter what, he will not go.

We've suggested a variety of vacations, but he says no to everything. He wants us to go without him, but we do not trust him to stay home alone for a week.

We don't have family or friends nearby to "baby-sit" him while we are gone. Also, going without him would defeat the purpose of a family vacation.

We don't want him to have the power to quash vacation plans for the whole family, yet spending good money on a kid who is likely to sulk and be grumpy the whole time isn't appealing either.

Surely we're not the first family to face this problem. What do you think we should do?-- No Vacation?

DEAR NO: I agree with you that leaving your son home alone is out of the question. Because of his attitude, you should assume that your last fun family vacation happened last summer. Enjoy those memories.

Tell him, "OK, son. We are boxed in by your brattiness. And so we're going to stay home and enjoy a week of family togetherness on our 'staycation.'"

Maybe your porch needs painting or the hedge needs trimming. If so, he's the guy for the job.

Cheerfully plan to take the younger kids on day trips to amusement parks or ballgames. Invite your oldest son to come along, and if he does, enjoy his presence.

Alternatively, you send him to me. I will teach him to crochet. We'll can peaches and watch "Steel Magnolias."

Having been through this in my own childhood and with my own children, I have some residual affection for sulky 17-year-olds; this is a phase which (thankfully) does not last.

DEAR AMY: I have an inconsiderate sister-in-law.

In the last few months, she has been bringing one of her young daughter's friends along with the family to every family function. This child has come along when we have gathered for holidays, birthday parties and even a funeral!

Our family is very close. There are a dozen children all within the same ages. This little girl will not allow any of the cousins to play with the cousin she came with. She is bossy and rude, and the other girls do not want to be around her.

There is no reason for her to be around all of the time.

I think my sister-in-law needs to get a clue and realize that family time is for family, and that this uninvited little girl needs to stay home.-- Irritated Aunt

DEAR IRRITATED: There are many families where a friend hangs around so much that they literally become de facto family members. However, if you are hosting a family event at your home, you get to weigh in on who should be permitted to attend it. Family events hosted by other people are their business.

If this girl is bullying children or disrupting your own child's good time by being exclusionary, then you can say directly to this child, "We don't allow that here. All of the kids need to be included."

Demonstrating and insisting upon pro-social behavior will influence this interloper to be a better friend.

Otherwise, if your sister-in-law is doing something that bothers you, then you will have to be brave enough to discuss it with her. That's how she will get a clue.

DEAR AMY: You suggested that "Peeved Paralegal" could get a raise by receiving a competing offer.

After 45 years of experience in HR and compensation management, I have learned that employers who respond to competing offers rarely ever end up with a satisfactory working relationship with that employee. Caving to that form of negotiation most often snowballs into other areas of friction in the relationship. Our clients are counseled to suggest the employee take the other offer.-- HR Pro

DEAR PRO: "Peeved Paralegal" had a very healthy opinion of his or her worth. I suggested testing it in the marketplace.

L2 I agree that the other child should not be allowed to bully or keep one cousin separate but LW has no idea why that child is now "joined at the hip" with her niece. It could well be that the girl's own family is so dysfunctional that seeing yours is an act of kindness or even respite.My girls have had a number of "joined at the hip friends" over the years, at least one has been a BFF for 26 years ( since day care). FWIW a really dysfunctional one drifted away , but there was a point when I felt the need to find out how to screen for physical abuse. LW does not know , or say,the back story. A couple of cliches are needed: serve some milk of human kindness at the next gathering, and be part of that village which it takes to raise someone else's child

L1: Never, ever, leave a sulky 17 year old home for a week while everyone else vacations. My former neighbor did this 3 years in a row and I got to listen to the party every night, until I got PO'ed and called the cops.

L2: Mean girl stuff, I don't care.

L3: Why yes Abby, you did say that. What?

PEllen wrote:

L2 I agree that the other child should not be allowed to bully or keep one cousin separate but LW has no idea why that child is now "joined at the hip" with her niece. It could well be that the girl's own family is so dysfunctional that seeing yours is an act of kindness or even respite.My girls have had a number of "joined at the hip friends" over the years, at least one has been a BFF for 26 years ( since day care). FWIW a really dysfunctional one drifted away , but there was a point when I felt the need to find out how to screen for physical abuse. LW does not know , or say,the back story. A couple of cliches are needed: serve some milk of human kindness at the next gathering, and be part of that village which it takes to raise someone else's child

I was thinking along the same lines. And if there are a dozen cousins the same age, then LW's daughter (I'm assuming she has a kid in the mix...if not, why does this bother her so much?) still has 10 other kids to play with while the "stray" monopolizes the one who brought her. The bossiness and possesiveness are not acceptable, but they probably come from the girl's insecurity. It would be nice if LW could have a little patience, and I don't know...maybe ask the SIL what the kid's situation is.

LW1: HAve you asked him why he does not want to go? Do you all get along as it is? Just wondering if you/your husband and he are always butting heads. Being captive in that environment would not be a pleasant idea to me.

LW2: "I think my sister-in-law needs to get a clue and realize that family time is for family"

I disagree with this. And the little girl is not uninvited. She is invited by your sister-in-law.

"if you are hosting a family event at your home, you get to weigh in on who should be permitted to attend it. Family events hosted by other people are their business." This.

L1: I like Amy's suggestion that the week become one of house projects. However, I question the parenting of someone who's letting a 17yo make the decisions. You CAN make him go. Yeah, it'd suck with a sulky bratty 17yo, but isn't that what family is all about? ; )

(FWIW, my family never took a vacation because sports dominated every summer from age 10 to 18.)

L2: "However, if you are hosting a family event at your home, you get to weigh in on who should be permitted to attend it." Um, not quite. This little girl could NEED this surrogate family -- this could be one of those situations we read about in columns such as this in which one family is all but raising another family's kid because of problems in that family. So, no, Amy, you don't get to say to someone "but leave that kid at home, she's not family." (Shouldn't a stepmom with four stepkids know better than to say that?)

However, Amy IS correct that you get to correct that little girl's poor behavior. And why are you blaming the SIL? Is she married? Do you have any blame for the husband, or do you just think child rearing is the woman's responsibility?

L3:'“Peeved Paralegal” had a very healthy opinion of his or her worth." WRONG. She had an inflated ego and a ridiculous sense of her worth.

LW2 strikes me as someone who would consider an adopted child not really FAMILY.

Mister Tonka wrote:

LW2 strikes me as someone who would consider an adopted child not really FAMILY.

You are right about that

RedheadwGlasses wrote:

L2: "However, if you are hosting a family event at your home, you get to weigh in on who should be permitted to attend it." Um, not quite. This little girl could NEED this surrogate family -- this could be one of those situations we read about in columns such as this in which one family is all but raising another family's kid because of problems in that family. So, no, Amy, you don't get to say to someone "but leave that kid at home, she's not family." (Shouldn't a stepmom with four stepkids know better than to say that?)
However, Amy IS correct that you get to correct that little girl's poor behavior. And why are you blaming the SIL? Is she married? Do you have any blame for the husband, or do you just think child rearing is the woman's responsibility?

I'm with you on most of it, but disagree about whether LW gets to have a say when it's at her house. She does have the right to say "don't bring her." But she should expect that SIL's whole family will be missing if she does that.
My brother lives out of state, and when his youngest was 8, I finally had had enough and told him he could not bring her back to my house. I knew when I said it that I was, in effect, banning him as well, but I was done. His kids are seriously spread out in age and I had had 30 years of them breaking my stuff because he was too lazy to watch them. The final straw was when I got home from work to find them gone and my entire lower level of my house torn apart. She had made a mess throwing stuff around, but she also destroyed all kinds of stuff, and when I went in my room, I found that she had also stolen hundreds of dollars in jewelry. Apparently, not long before I got home, he went downstairs, saw what she had done, and they jumped in the car and left. Didn't even acknowledge it, or make any attempt to make any of it right. According to him, I 1)was trying to keep him away from our dying mother and 2)refuse to accept the kid because she is adopted.
Yeah...that's it.

Sorry. Touchy subject, since this was 10 years ago and just yesterday I got a lecture (well, a very short lecture) from a family member about not having the right to tell him he couldn't bring her back.

I agree as well. Also, what about stepkids? I can see her having a similarly ungenerous opinion of them.

1 Unless you raised an idiot, any kid should be able to survive for a week alone by the time their 17.

2 This reminds me of the mother who hated the little boy hanging with her husband, and she was wailing about how her own family was being torn apart by the husbands kindness.

3 who cares.

itser, I think that's a very different scenario. This kid isn't destroying anything, she just needs to be taught how to play nice with others, and excluding her won't help her learn that (since the SIL sure doesn't seem to be taking on the parenting).

and your brother sounds like a complete dickhead for allowing it and running away! Does he let her get away with that at his own home?

1- of course he wants to stay home, he wants to party every night. Bring him along, he'll deal.

2- if you're not hosting and have no control over the guestlist, suck it up.

RACE wrote:

1 Unless you raised an idiot, any kid should be able to survive for a week alone by the time their 17.

Its not about them worrying if he'll survive, its about them trusting that he will behave and not throw a raging party that lasts 7 days.

edogxxx wrote:

1- of course he wants to stay home, he wants to party every night. Bring him along, he'll deal.

How do you propose they do that? When its time to leave, and he says, "No. I'm not going." Then what? Hog tie him and toss him in the trunk? How does this play out in edogg world?

Then why dont they install security cameras? They can watch the house over the web and make sure nothing is amiss. Or even one of those nanny cams? or a web cam?

Mister Tonka wrote:

<quoted text>Its not about them worrying if he'll survive, its about them trusting that he will behave and not throw a raging party that lasts 7 days.

In edogg world, his sexy stepmother puts him over her lap and starts spanking him...

Mister Tonka wrote:

<quoted text>How do you propose they do that? When its time to leave, and he says, "No. I'm not going." Then what? Hog tie him and toss him in the trunk? How does this play out in edogg world?

Mister Tonka wrote:

<quoted text>How do you propose they do that? When its time to leave, and he says, "No. I'm not going." Then what? Hog tie him and toss him in the trunk? How does this play out in edogg world?

In edog world, my kid won't have the option of disobeying me.

RedheadwGlasses wrote:

L1: I like Amy's suggestion that the week become one of house projects. However, I question the parenting of someone who's letting a 17yo make the decisions. You CAN make him go. Yeah, it'd suck with a sulky bratty 17yo, but isn't that what family is all about? ; )
(FWIW, my family never took a vacation because sports dominated every summer from age 10 to 18.)

I don't know if you can make him go if he's set against it without force or violence. Honestly, I don't know how someone handles a 17 yo who is adamant about something like this. Obviously, you can threaten to withhold many of the things he is given. You can call the police, and maybe they can threaten to remove him from the home. Physically forcing a 17 yo boy into the car is likely to escalate to the level of assault.

So, seriously, I'm curious how do you make someone that's this stubborn go especially if Mom's not willing to use nuclear options like calling the police or kicking him out of the house, which I think I would be tempted to do. "You don't want to be part of this family, then don't. The door's right there."