Welcome back to Tough Love with Abigail Shrier, our advice column here at The Free Press. This week, Abigail is answering two letters simultaneously—one from a reader who doesn’t want his parents, who are alcoholics, driving his kids anywhere, and another from a reader who doesn’t want her mom vaping weed around her baby. Scroll down to find out what Abigail has to say to them—and click here to write her a letter of your own.
Dear Abigail,
My parents are both alcoholics. They pull each other into benders several times a week. This was not a huge problem when they lived out of state, but a few years ago, they moved to the town my wife and I live in, to be closer to our three kids. Long story short, after they had several drunk interactions with my children—even after I explicitly asked them to not be drunk around their grandkids—my wife and I decided we had to have some boundaries. One of them was that we didn’t want them to drive the kids anywhere.
When I sat them down to tell them, I was direct, but not mean. I explained that we love them, and want them in our lives, and want our kids to have a good relationship with them—but due to their relationship with alcohol, we have to draw this red line. They were hurt and upset by this, and our relationship has not really recovered. This was almost two years ago.
We try to have them over for dinner once a month, but they often say they are busy. We try to invite them on days out with the kids, but they always say no. When they suggest things we could do together, we always say yes, but recently they have stopped doing this, too. They live five minutes away and never see their grandkids. This baffles me.
My parents both cut off their relationships with their parents when I was young. I do not want to do the same thing—but it seems that by creating one boundary I have essentially done this. Trying to repair the situation has been emotionally exhausting. But I’m also ready to hear that, actually, the problem is me. So do your worst!
Thanks in advance,
Evan, 39
Dear Abigail,
I am due to give birth to my first child at the end of April. My mother is coming to help us for roughly a week when the baby is born. This was less something we asked for and more something that was foisted on us. She is insistent on being there as soon as we come back from the hospital. The main problem I have with this is my mom smokes weed from a vape pen basically all day. How do I talk to her about the fact that she cannot do that around the baby or even in our house? I want to set a boundary that I don’t want her to bring the vape pen when she visits us because I don’t want to be worried about secondhand smoke.
From,
Natasha, 29
Evan and Natasha,
Some of us tread up the mountain of adulthood relatively sure-footed, thanks to support from good parents and stable families. You did it with hundred-pound sandbags strapped to your shoulders: a fearsome act of mental toughness.
The reward is the families you have built and the honor of that accomplishment.
The price, of course, is the pain.
I’ll address your letters together because your predicaments are similar, and because it may be heartening to know that you’re not alone.
Evan, you tried to preserve your parents’ feelings. But you drew a line at letting them risk the lives of your children. Drunks have an unmistakable tendency to wrap cars around telephone poles. Your parents know this.
