My Parenting Style Is Apparently Everyone’s Worst Nightmare. I Won’t Change!

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

What’s the general protocol for toddler get-togethers with friends or family when one parent has fewer rules for their kid than others do for theirs? I’m the one with fewer rules. I have set good boundaries for my kid (who’s 4), which I enforce, but as far as “rules” go, I just don’t have that many. You want to be barefoot outside? Great. You want to climb on the roof of my car and do a little dance? Sure. Stomp in puddles? Have a cookie? Yeah, why not?

I don’t want to make my kid follow rules I don’t believe in just because their friends or cousins have to follow them. But sometimes I feel like I get “the look” from the other parent(s). Toddlers are too young to understand why some kids have wildly different restrictions on their behavior, and I get that when my kid is going barefoot and the other kid wants to take their shoes off too, but their parent is making them keep them on, it might cause a meltdown. But is the other kid’s meltdown reason enough for me to force my own kid to wear shoes outdoors when we hang out with my shoes-ruling friend? I personally don’t think so.

—Always the Lax Parent

I, too, was always the “lax” parent, so I know “the look.” Here’s the deal: If you’re going to be the parent who allows your kid to do some things that other parents you know don’t, you can’t be the parent who stresses over “the look.”

So Option One is to ignore it and learn not to be shaken by it. (I practiced this response with parents who were not my friends and with unpleasant in-laws. And certainly in public places, where what my kid might be up to—getting her clothes dirty, say—was nobody’s business but my own.) If the other parent is a friend, someone you care about and whose life you really don’t want to make miserable, Option Two is to respond with sympathy and have a conversation with them, out of earshot of the children. Come up with a plan together. (If you know from past experience that you differ when it comes to bare feet versus shoes, or getting wet or dirty versus staying perfectly clean, do this in advance of seeing each other.) If a compromise is possible, do that; if not, you might agree to switch off (e.g., bare feet for both kids when playing in your backyard, shoes on for both in theirs—or taking turns at every visit).

It’s not at all a bad thing for kids of any age to learn that different families have different expectations and ideas. (I remember conversations with my 3-year-old about why Barbies weren’t allowed at her friend’s house but were OK in ours—and also about leaving Barbie and company tucked inside their big plastic bin, out of respect, when that friend visited.) Option Three, which I employed pretty frequently, was to note a tantrum brewing and speak quietly to my own kid about being thoughtful and kind to her envious, frustrated friend and, just for a few hours, follow the rules they were obliged to live by.

The one thing I don’t advise is digging in your heels no matter what the circumstances. It sets a lousy example for your kid.

Oh, there is one other thing: I’d rethink that business of letting your 4-year-old dance on the roof of a car. That’s not an example of I’m relaxed and they’re uptight; it’s a safety hazard.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

Recently, my wife, “Beth,” put our 12-year-old daughter, “Chloe,” in a dangerous situation that has me doubting whether I want to remain married to her. We live a little over four miles from a shopping center, and last week Beth was there with Chloe and our 8-year-old son, “Jack.” From what my daughter later told me, as they walked back to the car, Beth began talking about how Chloe ought to grow her hair out (my wife has a history of making unwanted suggestions to our daughter about her appearance). She wouldn’t let it go, Chloe said, “and I got fed up.” When they got to the car, Chloe refused to get in. Beth ordered her to, and when she still refused to, Beth drove home, leaving Chloe stranded at the shopping center’s parking lot.

Chloe had left her phone in the car, so I only found out what happened when I was driving home from work and saw her walking home alone! There was still about a mile to go to our house when I picked her up and drove her the rest of the way home as she told me what had happened.

When I confronted Beth about it, she said it was Chloe’s fault for “being disrespectful.” She disapproved of my driving her that last mile home! When I told her that making a child Chloe’s age walk that far all by herself put her at serious risk, Beth dismissed my concerns, insisting that we “live in the safest town in America.” Chloe is still upset and hurt and says she doesn’t believe her mother cares about her. I think my wife’s actions were unacceptable; she firmly believes she is in the right.  Should I insist we see a family therapist, or are her actions grounds for divorce?

Yes, this punishment was way out of line, if not downright abusive. Your wife’s drastic overreaction to her 12-year-old’s frustration and anger (which, it seems to me, was expressed in an annoying, frustrating but not over-the-top—and not particularly disrespectful—way) is concerning. But if you are considering a divorce, I have to assume that your wife’s behavior in this instance was the straw that broke the marriage’s back: It must have already been in trouble. (And for what it’s worth, the only “grounds for divorce” you need are not wanting to be in your marriage anymore.)

Have you been seething silently over Beth’s “history” of badgering Chloe about her appearance? Or have you and she argued about this? (What do you argue about, and how do these arguments go?) Have there been other ways—besides abandoning her child in a parking lot four miles from home, and giving her a hard time about how she looks—that Beth’s parenting has fallen short? What’s your role in parenting Chloe and Jack?

Given all the aspects of this incident—Beth’s refusal to let up on Chloe; Chloe’s lack of resources to protect herself, or even to protest, other than with the tween version of a tantrum; Beth’s driving off without her and doubling down on this outrageous response after the fact; Chloe’s feeling that her mother doesn’t care about her (I can’t imagine any child who wouldn’t feel that way watching her mother drive off without her) and Beth seeming not to care about that (I assume you’ve communicated Chloe’s feelings to Beth if Chloe doesn’t feel she can do so herself); and your contemplating ending your marriage—I’d say family therapy is the very least you should insist on. Pronto. If Beth refuses, you and Chloe (I’d bring Jack too) should go without her. I suspect Beth will join you after the first session or two, if only to make sure “her side of the story” is aired.

I’ll be honest: I have no idea if this will help. There are too many things I don’t know about your family to say for sure. But it’s the place to begin, to try to sort this out and to offer your kids a safe space to talk about what goes on at home and how they feel about it.

And I must point out that if you’re worried that Beth is a negligent or abusive parent, you’ll need much more than a divorce to protect Chloe and Jack. They don’t get to divorce their mother. A family attorney can walk you through the ins and outs of what that particular custody battle would entail.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I have a daughter, “Vanessa,” who is now 2. The issue I have is that my in-laws have a miniature schnauzer-mix that they take everywhere with them. When they came over when Vanessa was a year old, she didn’t really notice the dog, but when they visited last month, she was terrified of it. The dog wasn’t aggressive, but Vanessa panicked when she was on the floor and the dog drew near. She cried and begged to be picked up or taken out of the room. It didn’t help matters that the dog began to bark when she started crying.

My in-laws are now retired and will soon be moving to our area to be closer to us. I have asked them not to bring the dog over, given how frightened Vanessa is of him. They responded that she needs to be exposed to the dog so she can “get over it.” But some people are afraid of dogs—they can’t help it. Maybe this fear will be a passing thing for Vanessa, and maybe it won’t. In the meantime, I’m certainly not going to traumatize her! My husband is trying to get me to come around to his parents’ way of thinking, but I’m not willing to upset my daughter in this way. How can I get my husband to understand that placating his parents is not worth the ongoing traumatization of our daughter?

—No Dog Around the Scaredy Cat

I don’t think that conversation with your husband is going to be a productive one. It sets up a false equivalency while at the same time going on the attack. You don’t want to imply that he cares more about keeping his parents happy than he does about the well-being of his child.

You’re right: Some people are “just” afraid of dogs. Who knows why? Phobias aren’t always easy to make sense of. But children often go through phases of fear. Many of them pass quickly (some do last into adulthood, of course—but there is no reason to believe that your child will still be afraid of dogs six months or a year from now). Tell your in-laws you want to take it slow. Ask them to visit you without the dog for now. Spend time with them and their dog outdoors, where dog and child can be at a distance from one another and at least one of the two is leashed (please let that be the dog). And make an effort to introduce your daughter to other dogs at a comfortable distance.

If they continue to insist that exposure therapy is what’s needed, tell them politely that you don’t agree. (Your house, your child, your rules—I hope they will infer that from your response and you don’t have to spell it out.) Tell your husband you don’t want to make your daughter cry and that you know he doesn’t either (leave out the sneer and the accusation, OK?); assure him that you’ll revisit the idea of dog as a welcome guest a little later.

And if his parents will not leave their dog at home for an hour or two in order to spend time with the grandchild they’ve moved homes for, while everybody waits for her to grow out of a perfectly ordinary passing toddler phase, then they aren’t very loving grandparents, are they? (Maybe they shouldn’t move to be nearby, then.)

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