My Son Has Discovered a Beloved Hobby. I’m Trying to Accept This, But It’s Too Weird!

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

Dear Care and Feeding,

My son (age 16) is very much into the furry community. He has attended two conventions (with his dad’s and my blessings). I took him to one of them myself! While I absolutely don’t understand the appeal, the whole thing did strike me as super-inclusive and welcoming. But, that said, my husband and I are still really … I guess you could call it “icked” by it.

We are liberal and accepting parents (both of our kids identify as LGBTQIA+, and many of our friends are queer; our family is known as a safe place for all our kids’ queer friends), but I can’t square this in my mind. I get uncomfortable when he talks about it, and I keep hoping it’s a phase that’ll pass. But it’s been years at this point. I can’t help thinking that it’s just so weird. But really, is it any weirder than cosplaying as a Star Trek character? My head says it isn’t. My heart disagrees. Should I be worried (I’m kind of worried) or should I just let him do his thing?

I don’t think worrying and letting him do his thing are your two alternatives. I imagine that you’re going to continue to (kind of) worry—as parents tend to do when their teenage and young adult (and sometimes even older adult) children become involved in something they find weird or don’t understand or that just gives them the ick. But also: Your son is 16 years old. So, while you don’t have to take him to any more furry conventions if you’d rather not encourage him to participate in this community, I am pretty sure you’re not going to be able to discourage him. I think at 16 the question of “letting” him do his thing is moot—and also that if you try to keep him from doing that thing, your efforts will backfire. (There’s no surer way to drive a teenager deeper into what he’s into than forbidding him to do it.) Besides, as I know you know: You don’t get a say in how he identifies, or what community he feels a part of. If you insist on having a say, you will do damage to your relationship with him. So allow me to suggest a third alternative: Accept him for who he is, and accept the limits on how much of a say you have about that.

Also, if it’ll make you feel any better (or even if it won’t), I would suggest that you learn more about furries. (Your letter got me to—and now I feel bad about giving short shrift to the student in one of my classes, years ago, who declared himself to be a furry. Not that I was unsympathetic or dismissive—I made a point of never being so with any of my students in nearly four decades of college teaching—but I didn’t ask follow-up questions or otherwise seek out any information; as I recall, I just nodded and moved on. [If you’re wondering how the subject even came up, all I can say is that you’d be surprised by what comes up in a creative writing class.])

To answer your rhetorical question: I don’t know if representing oneself as an anthropomorphic animal is any weirder than Star Trek cosplay (or anything else). I don’t think it’s for me—or you—to say. It’s a big world. There are lots of different ways to be in it.

Get parenting and family advice—submit a question!

Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.

Thanks! Your question has been submitted.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I live in a place where, like most places in the U.S., ad hoc child care for snow days, teacher development days, and just random other days when kids’ schools are closed is almost impossible to find. I work from home, but I have a toddler and a preschooler, and it’s impossible to get any work done when my children are at home with me.

Because of the vagaries and challenges of child care, one of my friends who has a background in child development has decided to quit her job and stay home with her daughter, who’s a year younger than my youngest son. I’m wondering whether it would be a terrible idea to offer to pay her to bring her kid and come over and babysit for mine on days when my kids’ daycare is closed? I completely trust her with my kids, but I’m wary of mixing friendship with business, and this friendship with someone at the same stage of motherhood is really important to me—I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.

I don’t think it’s a terrible idea. But I think you can approach her in a more graceful, thoughtful way. Don’t jump right in with, “May I pay you to come over with your child and babysit for mine while I work, on days when I can’t rely on daycare?” If you’re wary of mixing friendship and business, put the emphasis on the friendship.

Talk first about 1) how much you value her friendship, and also how much it means to you to have a close relationship with someone who’s at a similar stage of parenting a young child, 2) how challenging you’re finding it to juggle work with the care of your children on days when daycare is closed, and perhaps 3) (but only if it’s true!) how conflicted this makes you feel. The latter will open the conversation up to her talking about how she feels, at home with her child every day. Only then would I advise broaching the subject—and I would put it this way—of finding a way to pool resources and help each other. Ask her (gently) how she would feel about helping you out on no-daycare work days (assuring her, even as you ask, that you will understand completely if she’d rather not—that one very young child is plenty, you know); then add that, if she’d be comfortable with your doing so, you’d want to compensate her financially for her help. But also, immediately, suggest that you’d love to help her in this way too, if she could use the help: If there’s a weekend day or other time when you’re not working, you’d be happy to take her daughter and give her some child-free time.

Then the ball’s her court: to say yes, she’d be glad to help; to accept or reject the offer of money; to accept or reject your offer to sit for her. And with the ball securely in play, you two together can devise a workable plan (one that includes your recognition that there will be times—unexpected, last-minute daycare closings you can’t plan for—when she won’t be able to help you out). One last piece of advice: Don’t be so quick to set the terms. I wouldn’t say, “ … and you’d come over to my place with your daughter.” I’d leave the question of where the sitting will happen open for discussion.

Yes, it seriously sucks that child care has to be this complicated to arrange and this stressful of an ask. But that’s a subject for another time.

We Want to Hear Your Petty Work Drama!

Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir want to help you navigate your social dynamics at work. Does your colleague constantly bug you after hours? Has an ill-advised work romance gone awry? Ask us your question here!

Dear Care and Feeding,

My sister-in-law, “Bailey,” discovered that her husband, “Patrick,” was having an affair with her now-former best friend and kicked him out. The problem is that my husband, “Ryan” (Patrick’s brother), has agreed to let Patrick stay with us until he can make other living arrangements, as decent housing in our area is expensive and hard to come by. I happen to like Bailey very much and am repulsed by what Patrick did to her and disgusted at the prospect of hosting him. Frankly, it feels like heaping betrayal upon betrayal on her. Ryan argues that Patrick is his brother, so he’s obligated to help him out. This is creating a lot of friction between us. Am I really so wrong for my objections to housing this cheater?

—Forced to Be on the Wrong Side

I sympathize with your distress about this, and I understand that, along with being outraged over having Patrick under your roof, you feel terrible about “betraying” Bailey, toward whom you obviously feel way more loving than you do toward your brother-in-law. But Patrick doesn’t stop being your husband’s brother because he’s done something bad. And while I don’t know that Ryan is obligated to help his brother in this particular way, the bottom line, I think, is that if Ryan wants to lend support to Patrick at a rough time in his life (yes, even if he’s the one who has created the roughness for himself!), he has to be able to. Blood, as they say, is thicker than water.

It seems to me that it would be more productive to have a calm conversation with your husband (not an argument) about how you feel, letting him know that you understand (and please try to) his sense of brotherly loyalty, but it’s hard for you to rise above your fury on Bailey’s behalf. I also think you should have a conversation with your brother-in-law about how you feel. If he’s going to be living with you for a while, you’d better clear the air between you. It’s not likely to lead to your liking him any better, but it will dissipate some of the tension. You don’t have to be his buddy; you can limit your interactions with him if you find it too painful and infuriating to act as if all is well; you certainly don’t have to pretend you’re OK with his behavior, or that you don’t love your soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law.

Talk to Bailey about what’s happening, too. Tell her that the fact that Ryan has offered this support to Patrick does not indicate an endorsement of his behavior from either you or him: All it says is that Ryan loves his brother no matter what, that love is not withdrawn when someone royally screws up. Meanwhile, be there for Bailey in every way you can (and want to!) other than refusing shelter to her husband. Demanding that your spouse turn his back on a family member is not a recipe for the ongoing health of your marriage. Keep that in mind.

More Advice From Slate

My spouse and I each own our own businesses. One of our businesses is a pretty traditional professional services firm (think: accountant, architect, or lawyer), and the other one is a more creative business (think: artist, musician, or writer). We both love our jobs, but one of us makes more than $400,000 and one of us makes around $40,000. To do our jobs well, they both require about the same amount of time. That means each of us needs to work for 40–50 hours per week. We have two young kids. Our conflict is over who needs to be the primary caregiver during the 60 hours per week when we don’t have child care.