Copyright Slate
Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My husband and I went on a second honeymoon and left our two kids, “Sara,” 8, and “Simon,” 12, with my husband’s brother and his family while we were gone. The other day, I overheard Sara arguing with Simon over some cookies and threatening to “tell mom about you-know-what.” I walked in and made her tell me what she was referring to. I nearly fainted when I found out. My in-laws run a bungee jumping business, and it turns out that they allowed Simon to jump three separate times! I called my brother-in-law and demanded to know why he would allow my son to do something so dangerous without the consent of myself and my husband. His lame excuse was that Simon is tall for his age and met the physical requirements and that that he’s got more than 15 years in the business, so there was no danger. To make matters worse, my husband took his brother’s side after I told him what happened and what his brother had to say for himself! I feel like this was a major breach of trust and want to take a timeout from seeing them. It goes without saying that I never want my brother-in-law and sister-in-law watching our kids again. My husband thinks this is an overreaction on my part. Please tell me it isn’t. —That Dope Put My Kid on a Rope Dear Rope Dope, My first instinct here was to say that you’re overreacting. But, upon reflection and thinking about how I’d feel if I found out my own 12-year-old had gone bungee jumping without my knowledge, I came around. You’re well within your rights to be upset with your brother-in-law for not asking you first. If you want to convince your brother-in-law that he should have asked you, you might try appealing to his business sense. It’s preposterous to not ask a guardian when a child is going to participate in an activity that requires a waiver! If something serious had happened, his entire business would have been in serious trouble. Now then, onto what to do next. A timeout is fine. It will probably help to deescalate the situation. But be careful with statements like “never.” This kind of talk often is unrealistic and puts you in a position where you only have ground to lose. Your brother-in-law has lost your trust. It’s up to you if you want to give him any opportunities to earn it back. Leave it at that and avoid extremes. I would recommend reflecting on why Simon kept the jump a secret and why your brother-in-law didn’t ask you first. Clearly, they knew you’d have an issue with it. Would you have been open to listening to them convince you to let Simon jump or would you have shut it down immediately? If it’s the latter, work on being more open to ideas. This doesn’t mean you should have agreed to a bungee jump (I would have told him to wait a year or two or for a time that we could go together). But, Simon will be making his own decisions about what to do in a measly six years, and it sounds like instead of talking to you about the things he’s interested in doing, he might just go out and do them. That’s even worse than having an irresponsible brother-in-law! What lesson do you want Simon to learn from all this? Do you want him to learn that if he doesn’t keep better secrets you will start cutting people out of his life? Talk to your husband and brother-in-law. Tell them how much the idea of Simon jumping scared you and that you would have liked to be part of his adventure. Then have them apologize to Simon for not having asked his parents because his parents should know about big events in his life. —Greg More Parenting Advice From Slate About the time smartphones became popular, many of my mom friends put trackers on them before they handed them over to their kids. The agreement was that they were happy to pay for the phones but they wanted the peace of mind of being able to contact or find them. I didn’t do this—a combo of my kids getting cellphones later than most kids and because I just don’t think about stuff like this. Now both my kids are in college, and it’s way too late to install anything like that now, but I find myself envying my friends who continue to know where their children are.
