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Annie's Mailbox®, January 5
Dear Annie: How do you deal with a married 40-year-old daughter with two children who is so jealous of her brothers that she causes family rifts? Right now, "Claire" isn't speaking to her father, her brothers or me. We don't understand it. We have always treated our children the same.
Last May, Claire and her younger brother got into an argument over a birthday dinner for me. She told him she wants to be left alone and hasn't spoken to any of us since. I sent her young son a check for his birthday in August, and it has yet to be cashed or acknowledged.
Claire was never like this until she married, and I'm not sure how to deal with it. Please help. — Sad Sue
Dear Sad Sue: Is Claire's husband influencing her relationships negatively or encouraging a family rift? Some husbands (and wives) isolate their spouses from family members in an effort to control them. It's also possible Claire has harbored ill will toward her brothers for years and finally let it out.
Make an effort to mend fences in a neutral way. Call, write or e-mail and say you've missed her. Ask how the grandchildren are. If she replies and gets upset, offer to go with her for family counseling to see if you can find a way to make her happier. If you approach it in a way that indicates her feelings are valid, she is more likely to respond. If she doesn't answer your calls or messages, consider counseling for yourself. Having an estranged child can cause its own emotional problems.
Dear Annie: For several years, I stored a few of my belongings in my parents' attic because I had a small apartment. This included a collection of horse models that had become vintage and valuable. Unfortunately, I recently discovered that my mother often loaned pieces of my collection to other people's children without asking my permission. Mind you, it took effort for her to do this since she had to climb the attic stairs and crawl around up there.
My mother is good at crossing boundaries, and this violation made me feel hurt and angry. Am I off base to believe nothing of mine should have been touched without my permission, or does the fact that my things were in their attic allow them to loan them without my knowledge? In other words, whose property is it? — Memphis Belle
Dear Memphis: If your parents bought these items for you, they may feel proprietary toward them and assume they can loan them out as they please. However, the collection of models belongs to you, and your mother should not have allowed them to be used by others without asking you. We trust all the loaned items have been returned and you have since removed your things from her attic.
Dear Annie: I agree with "Doctor in California" that the media definitely put their own spin on medications, making some people afraid to use them. Here's a different problem:
My family was watching a movie Saturday night. My 3-year-old daughter was playing around and jumping on the couch, and she ended up hurting herself. My husband picked her up and was consoling her when a commercial for Cymbalta came on, showing a young woman crying, sad and alone. It then shows the same woman taking Cymbalta and being full of energy and having fun with her family. My crying daughter turns around and tells her daddy she wants Cymbalta so she can be happy again.
Two days later, when she didn't get her way, she threw a tantrum and started screaming, "Did my daddy get my Cymbalta? I'm very upset!" This time I couldn't help but laugh. — Mom of an Unhappy Toddler
Dear Mom: Funny, yes, but also a little disturbing.
Annie's Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column. Please e-mail your questions to anniesmailbox@comcast.net, or write to: Annie's Mailbox, P.O. Box 118190, Chicago, IL 60611. To find out more about Annie's Mailbox, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
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Comments
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12 Comments | Post Comment
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L1 - The LW did not bring up a single example of the daughter's jealousy or specified the essence of the argument the woman had with her brother, so I am not so sure "Claire" is unreasonable in her behavior. It's quite a leap of logic for the Annies to conclude that Claire's husband may be isolating her from her family in an attempt to control her. Based on what's available on the letter, it is pretty much as easy to conclude that the Mom and the brothers have been taken advantage of Claire for years, and the B-day dinner argument was the last straw, so she finally gave up and decided to distance herself from the parents and the sibs. It could be a healthy decision on her part. We don't know. ________ LW2 - I see no crossed boundaries here. Unless the LW paid his parents a storage fee or had an explicit agreement as to when he/she would pick up his/her stuff, the parents are in their full right to treat the LW's childhood playthings as "Bobby/Bobbie's toys that we haven't gotten around to clearing out of the attic yet." ________ LW3 - What in the world are the LW and her husband doing allowing a young child around when they are watching programming aimed at adults? And why are they not *explaining* to their daughter that certain things (like Cymbalta) are not for kids? This child sounds quite spoiled, actually. Would the LW have less of a problem if her 3yo behaved the same way over a commercial for, say, cute footed pajamas or a new Dora the Explorer DVD because those products are aimed at kids and would be advertised on Nickelodeon? I'd find it as problematic as a tantrum over Cymbalta, or Ambien, or a BMW, or a Caribbean cruise.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Ariana
Tue Jan 5, 2010 7:39 AM
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Re: Ariana I agree with everything you said concerning all 3 LWs. They must have pulled a muscle in that leap to blame Claire's husband. Most likely the birthday dinner WAS the last straw in a lifetime of problems. LW2 I have never understood why people store their stuff at other people's homes. If you move out take all your stuff with you, problem solved. The way I see it if you don't live with someone your belonging shouldn't live there either. LW3 wait til that kid is older and completely out of control. Be a parent and parent your child
Comment: #2
Posted by: Cathy
Tue Jan 5, 2010 10:09 AM
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Re: Ariana: While I agree with much of what you said, I can't agree about lw 2. It is not uncommon for young adult children to store things at their parents' home until they're better situated. Certainly while I was in college, I had some belongings at home. During that time my mom "loaned" a collection of Nancy Drew books that belonged to me to a friend of my older sister but never got them back. Yes, I was extremely annoyed. How hard could it be to say, "I'm sorry. Those books belong to Patti and I can't loan them to anyone without her permission." The woman lived several hundred miles away and there's no way I could go there to get them, even if she still had them. If the parent wants to loan stuff to friends, they can call their child and ask. Really, how hard is that? If they don't want the stuff in their home (or in this case, attic), they should tell the child to remove them within a specific but reasonable period of time. If they aren't removed by that time, the parent can do what they want with them. To loan or give "stored" items belonging to someone else to anyone without asking or giving notice to remove them is just simply wrong. I also suspect it's illegal. I call it theft if the person who owns the items has reason to believe they are safe. Unless the parent told the child to remove them, the child would assume the items were safe being stored in the parents' home. And oh yes, my younger daughter has had stuff stored in our home for the past two years while she worked out of state. I would not dream of loaning or giving them to anyone else. When she gets situated back in our state(she's in the process now), they'll go to her home. If she doesn't have room for everything, we'll keep it for her. If we need the room, we'll tell her to come get her stuff before we even think of doing anything with it.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Pat-tricia
Tue Jan 5, 2010 10:53 AM
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Pat-tricia, I don't disagree with you if there is an agreement for storage (paid or not) between the parents and their grown children. My husband stored his records at this parents' house for a few years after he moved out at age 18, but he had discussed with them what, specifically, he would like them to store and what, specifically, he would be taking with him when he got a place big enough to have it back. If the LW had such an agreement regarding his horse models with his parents, then I agree - they should not have been loaned to anyone without his permission. If not, then they are up for grabs, so to say. The LW can't expect his/her parents to hold on to every toy he/she has ever had, or their house will turn into Junk Central. When my daughter grows up and moves out of the house, do I have to ask her permission to throw away or give away every baseball bat or Lego set I, her grandparents, or other relatives and friends have ever bought for her even if by then she will not have touched any of them for years and they will have been gathering dust in the garage? Are her Dr. Seuss books a "valuable collection" that she will want to keep or are they simply kids' books that can be passed on to anther kid? Is whatever she is going to like as a teenager going to be of sentimental value to her or just a bunch of "kid junk"? Unless a grown child has discussed this with his/her parents, I think the parents have the right to clear out their attic once in a while without needing a consultation on every single "dust collector" up there from their adult children who no longer live in the house. I wouldn't be surprised if LW's mom believed those horse models to be long-forgotten toys that LW would never need. I also wonder if your mom never even thought that you might be interested in Nancy Drew books as an adult. Finally, I don't think it is illegal to give away or throw away items that you bought and paid for and that have been in your house from day one, even if you didn't buy them for yourself. I'd be very surprised if it were illegal for me to throw away the broken travel alarm clock that I gave my husband as a Christmas present a while ago or the toys and clothes I have bought for my daughter. :-)
Comment: #4
Posted by: Ariana
Tue Jan 5, 2010 11:51 AM
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LW1 could very well be like my mother. She tells people that I'm "educated and think I'm better than they are," without going into all the physical and emotional abuse, lying and betrayals I got from them. I guess if I weren't so "educated" I'd be too dumb to realize I'd been abused. As far as the adult child's possessions, I've told my son if he doesn't clear out his junk, I'm going to clear it out for him and I may get rid of stuff he wants to keep. However, I wouldn't loan out his Legos or Matchbox cars or anything like a collection without checking with him first.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Joannakathryn
Tue Jan 5, 2010 1:47 PM
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I think it is a good idea to bring up the possibility of a husband wanting to isolate his wife from friends and relations, especially since this problem supposedly happened after she got married, because that sort of thing does happen and isn't something people naturallyto watch out for. It is also possible that the daughter felt put upon or demeaned in some ways and talking it out with her husband, starting her own adult life, has given her the courage/strength to start doing something about it.
The little girl who wants Cymbalta has laser attention: it takes me months of a commercial being on before I finally tune in enough to realize what the message is. Since she is so aware, she needs to be told that this is medicine and is not for when you get upset or something else that will tell her that this is for terrible problems. They could also just wait until she forgets about it.
Comment: #6
Posted by: BB
Tue Jan 5, 2010 1:58 PM
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LW1-My parents would swear that they treated me and my brothers equally, but they didn't. The boys never did any household chores, but I always helped in their outdoor chores. To this day, my mom berates me if I don't help clean up after family gatherings, while my brothers sit like princes watching TV. And they live locally and don't have kids, while I have drive my kids home for several hours and then help get them ready for bed afterwards. There's this pattern established when I was 6 and energetic, and they don't see how sexist and destructive it has become. Not to mention dangerous for me if I'm tired before I go out on the road.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Funfoody
Tue Jan 5, 2010 1:59 PM
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Gah. I'm just sick of the commercials for prescription drugs, period. They always go into the long list of possible side effects, and often times at least a couple of them are potentially fatal due to liver damage. (Isn't that nice - the "cure" is not only potentially worse than the disease, it might even kill you!) I'm told doctors also resent these ads, as they believe it robs them of THEIR proper role to diagnose a problem and then use their judgement to prescribe a cure. And they're right. Doctors go through years and years of medical training to equip themselves for these tasks; they don't need a patient coming in off the street and saying, "Doctor, I think I've got X, and I saw this commercial on TV for this drug...." I can only imagine how annoying this is, and I don't recall seeing these ads at all prior to fifteen years ago or so. I have no idea why they've become acceptable fare on TV.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Matt
Tue Jan 5, 2010 9:38 PM
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Re: Matt--I'll tell you why they're become acceptable fare.............$$$$$$$$. I hate them, too. We tell kids to "Just say no," on one hand, and with the other we're saying "Ask your doctor about.........." As far as the 3-year-old wanting Cymbalta, when I was about 5 I told people I was going to smoke Lucky Strikes and drink Hamm's beer when I grew up, because I liked the commercials. (I don't do either.)
Comment: #9
Posted by: Joannakathryn
Tue Jan 5, 2010 9:44 PM
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Re: Funfoody. I told my husband that holidays at his family were as follows: The men eat, plunk down on the couch and watch sports. Eat, go out and play golf. Eat, go skiiing. Eat, more TV. While the women cook and clean up, cook and clean up, etc. I told him it was my holiday, too, and I didn't want to spend 3 days catering to the men. I don't enjoy it and I don't want to do it. If I were you, I'd opt out of family gatherings if they're going to treat you this way. My brothers never had to clean inside or wash a dish, but I was expected to work in the fields like they did.
Comment: #10
Posted by: Joannakathryn
Tue Jan 5, 2010 9:48 PM
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Re: Ariana. I understand what you're saying. However, I still think it behooves a parent (or any other person for that matter) to speak with the owner of the property before loaning or giving the "stored" items to anyone else. Sure, the child may have been presumptuous in leaving items in their home without asking permission. But that had been that child's home and he/she is likely to still think of it in a proprietal manner unless told otherwise. How hard is it for the parent to tell the child he/she needs to remove the items before making free with them? It's altogether a different matter once the parent has put the child on notice that he needs to do something with them. If the child has been told to remove them and hasn't within a reasonable period of time, then the parent can assume the items have been "abandoned" and can do what they like with them.
Comment: #11
Posted by: Pat-tricia
Wed Jan 6, 2010 8:35 AM
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I think your answer to 'Mom of an Unhappy Toddler' was a bit incomplete. This little one sounds like she will grow to be a drama-queen, pill-stealing teenager if she continues on this path, and her mom just laughs because it's 'cute'. They should avoid trouble by taking a few steps: One, watch less TV even though it isn't 'adult-oriented' in subject - as they've seen, some of the commercials are perceived very differently by the young. Two, teach the girl to amuse herself in more creative and healthy ways - practice drawing, music, writing, or exercise. This will allow her to learn that there is much more to life than TV. Three, assure her - often! - that what's on TV isn't real most of the time. Even the parts that are, like TV news, only show early reports, and all the facts aren't known just because TV says so. If she grows up thinking that pills will cure everything that's wrong about her life, she will be on drugs by first grade.
Comment: #12
Posted by: CitybornCountry
Wed Jan 6, 2010 10:15 AM
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