DR. WALLACE: My sister came home from college last weekend, and she's the oldest sibling in our family. I'm her younger sister, and I'm a junior in high school. My older sister is nearly 22 years old and lives on campus at her college.

My boyfriend and I picked her up at a friend's house last Saturday to take her to our family's outdoor barbecue dinner at a local lake and adjacent park. I should tell you at this point that no one in our family that I know of drinks alcohol, including my parents, and they've always been staunchly opposed to anyone in our family ever drinking alcohol of any kind.

So with my boyfriend waiting in the car, I knocked on the door of the house. My sister was visiting, and I was directed out to the backyard to find her. To my surprise, she was standing with a group of friends talking and holding a beer bottle in her hand. All the other guys and girls were also drinking beer. Of course my sister is nearly 22 years old and can do whatever she wants, but I was still surprised and shocked.

When she noticed me walking toward her, the smile ran away from her face and she quickly put the beer bottle down. As we were walking out of the house down the driveway, she begged me not to say anything to anyone, especially our family. I agreed, and we didn't discuss it further the entire time she visited us.

Now that time has passed, I have two feelings about this. One is that I find myself anxious to tell someone in my family because I have such a juicy secret, but my other thought is that she asked me not to say anything to anyone, and I need to perhaps honor that request. Even if I didn't say anything to my family, I'd love to tell my boyfriend about it, but I know the word would get back to my family somehow, so if I was going to tell him, I might as well tell my family first. What should I do? It's strange how I accidentally witnessed this, and now it's like this big burden on my mind. And to give you a little more information, she spoke to me completely normally and was obviously not drunk at all. I never asked her how much of that beer she drank or how many she had. — My Sister Wants It Kept a Secret, via email

MY SISTER WANTS IT KEPT A SECRET: The two things that stand out here are the fact that your sister is of legal age and that you agreed to her request. On top of that, she did not slur her speech, stumble or give you any visual or physical indicators that she was under the influence of alcohol.

Therefore, my advice is to keep this to yourself. You can, of course, check in with your sister regularly, without mentioning what you saw or that particular incident but just to see how she's doing. But beyond that, you'll open up a hornet's nest if you take what you call "juicy information" and spread it among your family members just for your own satisfaction.

At 17 you're growing into an adult, and part of adult life is learning how to make good, rational, well-thought-out decisions and to stick with them — unless new information comes along that changes the dynamic. At this point, I feel your silence is golden.

OUR FAMILIES ARE WILD ABOUT NAMING OUR FIRSTBORN

DR. WALLACE: My husband and I are expecting our first child, and we already know the baby will be a boy. Family members on each side are either giving us suggestions for names or, in a few cases, trying to heavily influence us to name our son after my brother who passed away eight years ago.

My husband wants to use his grandfather's name as my son's first name, and I don't have any problem with that. But this will disappoint family members on my side, who were hoping that this boy would be named in memory and honor of my departed brother.

Should I get involved further, or just let the chips fall where they may? I do like the idea of honoring my brother in some way, but I don't feel that using his first name as my baby's first name is appropriate under the circumstances, and putting his first name as my baby's middle name kind of makes it seem like a second choice. What do you think? — Naming Our Baby Is Delicate, via email

NAMING OUR BABY IS DELICATE: I think you're being diplomatic and a team player to agree to name your son after your husband's grandfather. This seems entirely reasonable, especially since the two of you are in harmony with this decision.

But beyond your son's first name, there is an opportunity to come up with his middle name. I happen to be aware of a situation similar to yours in which the departed man's middle name was used as a "first choice" of a middle name for a male baby boy. The situation I'm referring to is identical to yours in that a brother of the mother had passed, and to honor his memory, his middle name was duplicated as the baby boy's middle name. Less than two years later, this couple had a second child, and it turned out to be another son. The husband and wife gave the second son a unique first name but again used the identical middle name a second time with the second son! Their logic was that the duplicated middle names would link the little brothers together and be quite noticeable and therefore a topic of conversation, as this would keep the memory of their departed uncle forever close to their hearts.

Perhaps you could consider this same idea if you and your husband deem it worthy. My final advice is to listen to everyone respectfully, but in the end, you and your husband should mutually make your own decision regarding all names.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Danny Lines at Unsplash