Guest Constance #30

[This is a post by a "guest Constance": someone who doesn't want her own pink apartment but just wants to do a one-time post. If you'd like to do a guest-Constance post, email it to me: constancethefirst at gmail dot com.]



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I was wondering if you could post a question to your readers. It's similar to the last one that got posted (parent & visitation issues) but I could really use some impartial advice. I don't have a blog and know you and your readers have a lot of good experience that you might be able to share.


The short story is that my parents want my kids (ages 9 & 6) to come visit them for 4 days this summer and I'm not comfortable with them being in my parents' care. My parents live two hours away from me and we usually see them for a short (4-5 hour) visit once a month. We also usually travel with them for a long weekend over the summer. They've always pushed for the visits where they have the kids alone and I have always given in.

The main issue with my parents is that they feel they always know best – no matter what my husband and my wishes are. Most things are minor - I say the kids need a certain amount of sleep and my parents wake them up 2 hours earlier. Or I say that they've had enough sugar for the day and my parents sneak them more. When my son was a toddler and they were planning on taking the kids for a walk I warned them that he doesn't always listen and will suddenly just bolt so they promised they'd keep him in arm's reach. A week later they send me pictures of him half way up a gorge trail (with a 30 ft drop) all by himself. When I questioned them they said "oh, well, he always listens to us so we knew he'd stop when we said so". What 3 year old always 100% listens?

The final straws have been their new dog and that they didn’t fasten the kids seatbelts last time they had them. Their dog scares me to death. It’s huge and strong and it doesn’t listen. It’s bitten my mom a few times and in the past has been very aggressive to the kids. It was a little better this last time we went to their house but it still was constantly on the kids and trying to push them around. My dad is finally starting to see that the dog is a threat but he still feels he is in control of it. He’s not and I’m afraid one of the kids is going to get bit (or worse).

The seatbelt thing was them thinking that “oh, we’re only going ¼ mile”. Well, it was a left turn across 5 lanes of traffic and then a quarter mile down a busy highway. Because of the set up of their car the kids needed help with the buckles and couldn’t do it themselves. My daughter knows the rules and was very upset that my parents wouldn't help her. I was uncomfortable with them driving them before because my dad has some health issues and because neither of my parents ever wears their seatbelts. Now I can’t count on them fastening the kids’ belts either.

There’s been a bunch of other things also but it basically comes down to the fact that I just don’t trust their judgment anymore. My husband agrees that there are some issues and he's just as uncomfortable with the dog as I am, but he and everyone else I talk to says– “well they’re their grandparents and they deserve to spend time with them”. I don’t disagree, I just think it should be supervised time. I know my parents love them but that’s not going to keep them safe. Even if I tell my parents that I need the dog locked up, and the seat belts buckled I don’t trust that they’re not going to turn around and do as they please as soon as I’m gone. I have a feeling that if I tell my parents that the kids can't come without us that they will stop talking to us. They didn't talk to me or see my daughter for three months when I was pregnant with my son because I told them I wasn't comfortable having them in the delivery room when I was trying for a VBAC.

So, do I ignore my gut feelings and let my parents take the kids for a few days? Or do I risk my relationship (and my children's relationship) with my parents by not letting them visit?

Guest Constance #29

[This is a post by a "guest Constance": someone who doesn't want her own pink apartment but just wants to do a one-time post. If you'd like to do a guest-Constance post, email it to me: constancethefirst at gmail dot com.]



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Hi, I feel kind of dumb typing this out but I need to talk to somebody and out of respect for my husband and his feelings I can't tell my normal support people. I'm not even sure where to start so forgive me for this being disjointed. I have an incredibly complicated situation with my inlaws.

Some background: they are lovely people and I genuinely love and care for them BUT they drive me a bit crazy. They some act in a less than socially appropriate way and want to be as close as possible to me and my family. Before my husband was born they had a stillborn daughter, followed by my husband (who is healthy), followed by 10 miscarriages. They then adopted my brother-in-law who has had mental health and behavioural problems from the get go. I don't think they'd ever really dealt with the death of their daughter. Back in those days it was sort of ignored you know? So when we got married I was embraced as the daughter they'd never had and frankly I felt smothered by their desire to know everything and be a part of everything in my life. I'm a private person and feel uncomfortable about questions about my sex life (why in the world you want to know what your son and I do in private??!!) or other personal stuff from my husband's parents. Anyway, the smothering got worse with the birth of my daughters. I totally understand how precious it is for them to have grandaughters, particularly after the pain they've experienced so we tried to be really understanding and although there have been issues over the years with boundaries being crossed we've worked hard on getting along and my girls have a good relationship with them (I'm super careful not to say negative things about them).

Anyway, fast forward to a few months ago. My FIL came over and since we had some errands to run, he offered to look after the girls. No big deal, thats happened plenty of times before without any drama. This time though, I received a phone call from my oldest daughter who was very upset and wanting us to come home asap. We did and she was settled, everything seemed normal but after my FIL had gone and I asked more about it she said she had felt really uncomfortable around him and didn't want us to leave them with him again. I felt sick. She assured me several times (and has when we've discussed it since) that he didn't say or do anything wrong, didn't touch her or anything like that, just that she felt really uncomfortable. She is very open with me and I am confident she is not lying to me about it. In thinking back I wonder if it was a culmination of my inlaws' more "natural" approach to things eg. they had a naked photo of themselves kissing on their fridge for a while (just like a polaroid, not an artsy one) and on one occasion my toddler had gone into the toilet with him and he didn't send her out (I called her to come out and was cranky about that). I wonder if it was something like that that just didn't gel? I genuinely don't believe that he would molest a child. One of the things I really respect about my inlaws is that they supported a childhood friend of my husband who had been molested by their minister and went to court to testify about what she had said, despite enormous community and family pressure not to. They lost "friends" through that process but did the right thing. All that to say that I really don't think he has done anything to my daughter HOWEVER obviously I will never leave her in a situation where she isn't comfortable so my inlaws won't be babysitting from this point on. That is really awkward though because they have done before. My husband and I have talked and talked about it and just can't find a good way forward. My inlaws want as much contact with our kids as possible and now want sleepovers too. We won't let that happen but how can we possibly explain it? They would be SO hurt and I think their good relationship with our eldest daughter would be very damaged. It would be impossible to explain in a way that doesn't hurt their feelings and honestly there is NOTHING they could do that would make it ok to look after the kids again. My FIL will forever have this question mark lingering about why my daughter was upset and uncomfortable with him. My MIL has MS and can't cope with them on her own. Its just a nightmare. My husband is so sad that we're in this situation. He loves his parents and wants them to be happy but what they want isn't a possibility. My littlest daughter is only 2 so I see years and years ahead of conflict about access to our girls. Its meant that we never leave the kids at the moment because if they hear that we've used other babysitters they'll be even more hurt, no more dates or possible weekends away. I don't see a good way forward. *sigh*, I don't actually know if I even want this published but I just needed to get it out. I don't want to go on and on to my husband because its so hard for him but it bothers me everyday and I just want to bounce it off of somebody, you know? Anyway, if you've read this far, thank you for your time. What would you do? Am I making a big deal out of nothing? Or am I not reacting enough? I'm going nuts just thinking this out in my own head!

How to Prevent Crying

My daughter is having surgery next week. It's minor, routine, and expected to go well. My biggest stress right now (second only to horrible irrational imaginings where the doctor comes out of surgery saying "I'm so sorry") is probably the CRYING aspect. I cry SO EASILY. On the phone with the nurse, just getting the schedule and instructions, I was SECRETLY CRYING.

And it's not crying like "I feel like crying and have genuine reason to do so, but would rather not do it in front of someone else," it's spontaneous irritating embarrassing inappropriate crying---like blushing. Really, almost exactly like blushing. It usually happens in response to DRAMA. Like, I don't have to be personally emotionally involved in the drama: just the EXISTENCE OF a dramatic moment will get me crying. And this surgery will have one million dramatic moments that DO personally emotionally involve me, so it will be 100 times worse: the child-sized hospital johnny, the wheeling into surgery, seeing her go unconscious.

But I can't be WEEPING as she goes into surgery! I need to be calm and reassuring, communicating with my entire being that Everything Is Normal And Fine. And although I AM stressed, of course, the constant crying (with accompanying Inability to Speak Normally) will communicate to the doctors that I am nearly hysterical with stress (or, worse, someone who thrives on drama and is creating a fuss ON PURPOSE). And then they will be Kind and Reassuring (or Annoyed and Brusque), and that will make me cry MORE. I so wish I had not thrown out my leftover pills from previous attempts at psychiatric treatment, because I would TOTALLY TAKE THEM FOR THIS. I remember that was the best part of any medication I tried: I didn't cry at the drop of a hat anymore (I saved the tears for TRULY TOUCHING things, such as commercials).

I do still have Xanax and Ativan and Klonopin. I'm wondering if anyone knows if any of those are good for preventing stress-crying---and if so, if one is better than the others. I tried to research it and got one million articles on how it's better to cry instead of keeping emotions inside. THANKS FOR THE ADVICE, BUT I AM NOT ASKING THAT QUESTION. I don't mind being somewhat tranquilized as well (since that's kind of unavoidable with TRANQUILIZERS), but what I'm looking for is not tranquilization (and in fact, less of that would be better: I still need to be, like, AWAKE) so much as a deadening of the Cry Reflex---so if you know of any OTHER medications that are good for this, DO speak up.

I am also looking for non-medication suggestions, although after decades of being a blush-reflex-type crier, I don't have much FAITH in them. Still, I was surprised to read the "jutting out the jaw" idea and find it DID help. "Taking a sip of water" helps too.

Misery

Every morning, the other mom at the bus stop and I talk about our weight and what to do about it. This has been going on for years now. Several times we've had temporary success, which makes it worse: how can we have success, and feel so encouraged by our success, and then still fail again? We've tried different approaches, different attitudes, different plans---nothing works for long, including "trying something new every time the old way stops working."

This morning, though, we've had a fresh insight. The price of losing weight, for us, is misery. And we are already miserable with our constant failure and constant weights. So perhaps instead of being miserable about our weight and about our failures, we can commit to the misery of weight loss. We will be miserable either way, but one of those ways results in smaller clothes.

We'll see. It is very hard to believe or hope, when experience shows such a consistent lack of reason to do so. It's easy to say "Keep trying! Don't give up!"---but goodness, that certainly sounds foolish when it's been decades.

Superstition

One of the things that drives me most nuts about my religious mom is that she refers to people who follow other religions as "superstitious." Her religion = true. All other religions = superstitions. Raising your eyes skyward to thank "the one true Christian God" = true/normal. Raising your eyes skyward to thank another god (even if it claims to be the same God as the Christian God), or to thank "the Universe" = superstitious/crazy. I once told her that to me they all looked the same, superstition-wise, and she was appalled. APPALLED.

Re-Postponement

Remember how Mike's pre-Snip appointment was postponed three times (postponing his Snip appointment each time), and then when he finally had THAT appointment, his Snip appointment was postponed because the doctor's mother-in-law died the day before?

This morning was the morning the Snip was postponed to. It was for 10:00, so he'd need to leave our house at 9:00. He took the day off of work. He shaved. Last night I thought, "So. Tomorrow is the day." I drank gin.

We woke up in the morning, and I thought, "So. Today is the day." Mike got into the shower. At 7:30, while he was in the shower, the phone rang: it was the urologist's office, canceling the appointment. The urologist hasn't taken a sick day in the entire ten years he's worked for this office, but this morning he was too sick to get out of bed.

No Pity

This Friday is The Snip. Mike said to me, without context, "So. I need to...shave."

Me: *questioning look*

Mike: *significant downward glance* *significant downward glance* *high eyebrows* SHAVE. *significant downward glance*

Me: *sustained laughter*

Mike: SO ANYWAY. I was thinking you might know how to...?


So I told him that I personally had much less information about "how to shave Boy Areas" than he did. But that if I were a boy, I thought I might prefer an application of Nair over blindly swiping around with sharp metal. I made vivid swiping motions to demonstrate my point. He winced.

He asked in re Nair, "Does it...sting?" I refrained from making comparisons to any sufferings brought about by hormonal birth control, shot-based birth control, annual Feminine Exams, pregnancy, and childbirth. Instead I speculated aloud about the difference in pain levels between, say, a slight stinging sensation and, say, the sensation of misplaced sharp metal.

This weekend I bought him a container of Nair, which is pink and features a pair of girl legs.

I don't feel even one tiny bit sorry for him.