P
pensmama87
Guest
I have frequently wondered that myself. When I left home she was 10 and I didn’t regularly see her again until she started college. So I really don’t know much about that in between time.
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P
pensmama87
Guest
Considering that I’ve had one and I suspect many other people in my family do, it would not surprise me.
ETA: Of course, when my disordered eating was running my life I would have rather died than deal with the shame of somebody saying something.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Ah…I’m thinking your mother’s unwillingness to eat whatever she is served has made her far more willing to cater to her daughter.Thanks all for the advice so far.
I know I need to say something, but it’s a matter of what to say and how to say it: do I assume that she just doesn’t know appropriate guest etiquette, and so offer “big sisterly” wisdom on the subject, or do I assume that since the rudeness seems intentional (see sour faces) it is, and be a bit colder about it? The raiding of the fridge and pantry is of other items that are not being served at mealtimes. I don’t mind if she makes herself a sandwich, but I’d appreciate not having a whole carton of ice cream (which for us is a rare treat) disappear. (At our house growing up, though, we always had tons of it, and once we were grown we could have it whenever we wanted.)
My mother is also a picky eater, but when she visits she goes grocery shopping and buys her own food when she is here, and will volunteer to cook a few nights (which is great for everyone because then she eats what she likes and I get a night off.)
Re: the chauffeuring. She’s actually had multiple opportunities to learn how to drive when she goes home with my parents (who live across the country.) My mother has given up on forcing her to learn (I would have probably pushed harder five years ago, but hey, that’s not my business.) Again, I don’t know if it’s so much that she’s being bratty as it is that she just has no idea that it’s inconvenient to ask me to pick her up at 11pm after a play an hour away from where we live, just so I can drive her two hours back to school the next morning. (I was very explicit about that when she asked me - I told her I was not a hotel or cab service.) Since then I’ve been much more upfront about telling her when I can and can’t drive her, and she has contributed gas money on occasion. On this most recent visit I didn’t have to drive her here or back (again, telling her I couldn’t spend that long in the car considering I gave birth two weeks ago). She has a few friends from college who live in the general area who she can ask for rides, which is what she did this time.
She is helpful with the kids when she is here, and they adore her.
Picky eating, when it is not done to avoid actual stomach upset, is what C.S. Lewis called “the gluttony of delicacy.” My sister can’t eat raw onions or very spicy foods, but she is very apologetic and explains that while she would enjoy the flavor she would have a price to pay later. She would never make a face at something I cooked.
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EasterJoy
Guest
*MY DEAR WORMWOOD,
The contemptuous way in which you spoke of gluttony as a means of catching souls, in your last letter, only shows your ignorance. One of the great, achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on that subject, so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it in the whole length and breadth of Europe. This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess. Your patient’s mother, as I learn from the dossier and you might have learned from Glubose, is a good example. She would be astonished - one day, I hope, will be - to learn that her whole life is enslaved to this kind of sensuality, which is quite concealed from her by the fact that the quantities involved are small. But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern? Glubose has this old woman well in hand. She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sign and a smile “Oh please, please . . .all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast”. You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others. At the very moment of indulging her appetite she believes that she is practising temperance. In a crowded restaurant she gives a little scream at the plate which some overworked waitress has set before her and says, “Oh, that’s far, far too much! Take it away and bring me about a quarter of it”. If challenged, she would say she was doing this to avoid waste; in reality she does it because the particular shade of delicacy to which we have enslaved her is offended by the sight of more food than she happens to want.
The real value of the quiet, unobtrusive work which Glubose has been doing for years on this old woman can be gauged by the way in which her belly now dominates her whole life. The woman is in what may be called the “All-I-want” state of mind. All she wants is a cup of tea properly made, or an egg properly boiled, or a slice of bread properly toasted. But she never finds any servant or any friend who can do these simple things “properly” - because her “properly” conceals an insatiable demand for the exact, and almost impossible, palatal pleasures which she imagines she remembers from the past; a past described by her as “the days when you could get good servants” but known to us as the days when her senses were more easily pleased and she had pleasures of other kinds which made her less dependent on those of the table. Meanwhile, the daily disappointment produces daily ill temper: cooks give notice and friendships are cooled. If ever the Enemy introduces into her mind a faint suspicion that she is too interested in food, Glubose counters it by suggesting to her that she doesn’t mind what she eats herself but “does like to have things nice for her boy”. In fact, of course, her greed has been one of the chief sources of his domestic discomfort for many years.
Now your patient is his mother’s son. While working your hardest, quite rightly, on other fronts, you must not neglect a little quiet infiltration in respect of gluttony. Being a male, he is not so likely to be caught by the “All I want” camouflage. Males are best turned into gluttons with the help of their vanity. They ought to be made to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique themselves on having found the only restaurant in the town where steaks are really “properly” cooked. What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to bring him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence - it matters not which, champagne or tea, sole colbert or cigarettes - “puts him out”, for then his charity, justice, and obedience are all at your mercy.
Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy. Its chief use is as a kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity. On that, as on every other subject, keep your man in a condition of false spirituality. Never let him notice the medical aspect. Keep him wondering what pride or lack of faith has delivered him into your hands when a simple enquiry into what he has been eating or drinking for the last twenty-four hours would show him whence your ammunition comes and thus enable him by a very little abstinence to imperil your lines of communication. If he must think of the medical side of chastity, feed him the grand lie which we have made the English humans believe, that physical exercise in excess and consequent fatigue are specially favourable to this virtue. How they can believe this, in face of the notorious lustfulness of sailors and soldiers, may well be asked. But we used the schoolmasters to put the story about - men who were really interested in chastity as an excuse for games and therefore recommended games as an aid to chastity. But this whole business is too large to deal with at the tail-end of a letter,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE*
Chapter 17.* The Screwtape Letters.*
The contemptuous way in which you spoke of gluttony as a means of catching souls, in your last letter, only shows your ignorance. One of the great, achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on that subject, so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it in the whole length and breadth of Europe. This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess. Your patient’s mother, as I learn from the dossier and you might have learned from Glubose, is a good example. She would be astonished - one day, I hope, will be - to learn that her whole life is enslaved to this kind of sensuality, which is quite concealed from her by the fact that the quantities involved are small. But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern? Glubose has this old woman well in hand. She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sign and a smile “Oh please, please . . .all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast”. You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others. At the very moment of indulging her appetite she believes that she is practising temperance. In a crowded restaurant she gives a little scream at the plate which some overworked waitress has set before her and says, “Oh, that’s far, far too much! Take it away and bring me about a quarter of it”. If challenged, she would say she was doing this to avoid waste; in reality she does it because the particular shade of delicacy to which we have enslaved her is offended by the sight of more food than she happens to want.
The real value of the quiet, unobtrusive work which Glubose has been doing for years on this old woman can be gauged by the way in which her belly now dominates her whole life. The woman is in what may be called the “All-I-want” state of mind. All she wants is a cup of tea properly made, or an egg properly boiled, or a slice of bread properly toasted. But she never finds any servant or any friend who can do these simple things “properly” - because her “properly” conceals an insatiable demand for the exact, and almost impossible, palatal pleasures which she imagines she remembers from the past; a past described by her as “the days when you could get good servants” but known to us as the days when her senses were more easily pleased and she had pleasures of other kinds which made her less dependent on those of the table. Meanwhile, the daily disappointment produces daily ill temper: cooks give notice and friendships are cooled. If ever the Enemy introduces into her mind a faint suspicion that she is too interested in food, Glubose counters it by suggesting to her that she doesn’t mind what she eats herself but “does like to have things nice for her boy”. In fact, of course, her greed has been one of the chief sources of his domestic discomfort for many years.
Now your patient is his mother’s son. While working your hardest, quite rightly, on other fronts, you must not neglect a little quiet infiltration in respect of gluttony. Being a male, he is not so likely to be caught by the “All I want” camouflage. Males are best turned into gluttons with the help of their vanity. They ought to be made to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique themselves on having found the only restaurant in the town where steaks are really “properly” cooked. What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to bring him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence - it matters not which, champagne or tea, sole colbert or cigarettes - “puts him out”, for then his charity, justice, and obedience are all at your mercy.
Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy. Its chief use is as a kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity. On that, as on every other subject, keep your man in a condition of false spirituality. Never let him notice the medical aspect. Keep him wondering what pride or lack of faith has delivered him into your hands when a simple enquiry into what he has been eating or drinking for the last twenty-four hours would show him whence your ammunition comes and thus enable him by a very little abstinence to imperil your lines of communication. If he must think of the medical side of chastity, feed him the grand lie which we have made the English humans believe, that physical exercise in excess and consequent fatigue are specially favourable to this virtue. How they can believe this, in face of the notorious lustfulness of sailors and soldiers, may well be asked. But we used the schoolmasters to put the story about - men who were really interested in chastity as an excuse for games and therefore recommended games as an aid to chastity. But this whole business is too large to deal with at the tail-end of a letter,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE*
Chapter 17.* The Screwtape Letters.*
X
Xantippe
Guest
Sis is giving out very spectrummy vibes (at least to me): the pickiness about food, the dislike of things being different than normal, the social skill fails, the lack of empathy, etc., etc.
Then there’s the possible eating disorder. Very interestingly, there seems to be a lot of overlap between autism and anorexia in women and apparently, there are a lot of eating disorders in autistic people:
cam.ac.uk/research/news/girls-with-anorexia-have-elevated-autistic-traits
“Eating difficulties are common in people on the autism spectrum. They may have highly selective eating requirements or be particularly sensitive to the textures, look, smell or sound of foods.”
eatingdisorders.org.au/eating-disorders/eating-disorders-a-other-health-problems/eating-disorders-and-the-autism-spectrum
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EasterJoy
Guest
If you think there is an actual medical disorder at the root of this, then that is something to take into account.Considering that I’ve had one and I suspect many other people in my family do, it would not surprise me.
ETA: Of course, when my disordered eating was running my life I would have rather died than deal with the shame of somebody saying something.
In the end, though, you can’t do the impossible, which is to cook everything the way your mother does. Sit down with your sister and explain that you and she need to work something out, because this arrangement is not working for you. How does she find something satisfactory to eat at school, when your mom isn’t there to cook for her? How does she manage when she’s in places where no one has any idea how your mom cooks? Ask her to adjust her expectations at your house in that direction.
Most of all, tell her that her habit of making faces at your efforts to please her hurt your feelings and taint the enjoyment you feel when she visits. She needs to find a different way to let actual needs be known, a way that doesn’t embarrass you, her host, in front of everyone at the table. That is not too much to ask.
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Xantippe
Guest
I think you’ve also mentioned that your mom is a hoarder. That can be related to OCD, which is related to a lot of stuff.
I suspect there are a lot of “special” genes floating around your family and your sister seems to have gotten an especially complete set of them. My family has a lot of resemblance to your family, minus the eating disorders, although my mom is always squirreling a little stub of granola bar away for later, so who knows?
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EasterJoy
Guest
Yes, what looks like immaturity can be an emotional deficit, but the two are not mutually exclusive, are they? Are you saying that people with autism have no capacity to think of anyone but themselves? If there is an extent to which they can learn manners by rote, isn’t it doing them a favor to teach them that?
Even a person with real needs beyond what is typical–perhaps especially a person with real needs beyond what is typical–has to learn to look for strategies of getting her needs met that will make people want to do the work of meeting them. She is not doing that. As a college student, she can intellectually grasp the advantage of trying to do that. The more she can learn to look out for how to treat a host and when to apologize when she has failed, even as a rote exercise, as motions she goes through just because “it is the thing to do,” the better for her.
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pensmama87
Guest
I agree with you. Of course, many people in my family would be absolutely offended that you would dare say such a thing.
I don’t think she is “on the spectrum” though you’re right that many of her behaviors you would also see there. I think it’s mostly the other stuff - OCD, the hoarding (she’s got that one too - I think I’m the only sibling that didn’t get it), and general social anxiety. Combine that with today’s technological advances (my sister’s social life revolves around her phone) and the fact that my almost-all-introvert family moved a lot growing up and it’s really not that surprising.
(My mother once gave me a very backhanded compliment, though I think she meant it to be sincere, that she never thought I would be the most well-adjusted of her children as an adult, since I was the only one who needed therapy growing up. I kinda think that the therapy helped a lot and maybe my siblings could have also benefited from it, but as it is I think for a long time she had to hide the fact that I went from my dad, well, for the usual “psychology is BS” blah blah stuff.)
So I want to be gentle with my sister because I think she grew up in an environment where the odds were against her growing up to be socially well-adjusted anyway, but at the same time, yeah, she is a young adult and needs to learn how to be in a society and some of that is going to be about the consequences. But I’m also not her parent.
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pensmama87
Guest
I think this is very true, too.
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Xantippe
Guest
Right.I agree with you. Of course, many people in my family would be absolutely offended that you would dare say such a thing.
I don’t think she is “on the spectrum” though you’re right that many of her behaviors you would also see there. I think it’s mostly the other stuff - OCD, the hoarding (she’s got that one too - I think I’m the only sibling that didn’t get it), and general social anxiety. Combine that with today’s technological advances (my sister’s social life revolves around her phone) and the fact that my almost-all-introvert family moved a lot growing up and it’s really not that surprising.
(My mother once gave me a very backhanded compliment, though I think she meant it to be sincere, that she never thought I would be the most well-adjusted of her children as an adult, since I was the only one who needed therapy growing up. I kinda think that the therapy helped a lot and maybe my siblings could have also benefited from it, but as it is I think for a long time she had to hide the fact that I went from my dad, well, for the usual “psychology is BS” blah blah stuff.)
So I want to be gentle with my sister because I think she grew up in an environment where the odds were against her growing up to be socially well-adjusted anyway, but at the same time, yeah, she is a young adult and needs to learn how to be in a society and some of that is going to be about the consequences. But I’m also not her parent.
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EasterJoy
Guest
*‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’
Code:
‘I should have called it(from The Death of the Hired Man)
You are not her mother, just her sister and frequent host, and yet you are her “home away from home.” That puts you in a delicate place, a place that is defined a little bit differently for each of us, even each of us within a family.
It is becoming increasingly clear that you aren’t dealing with a simple case of a clueless houseguest, and not even a case of a clueless younger sister who needs some help growing up, if only because this question winds some of your own issues into itself. That alone leaves you vulnerable to second-guessing and emotional stress. Some people have younger siblings who are just spoiled and act spoiled when they are around family, saving their “good manners” for people they know do not have to welcome them. There is good reason to believe that you may have something else or both of those and more.
Usually, when someone is dealing with a family-of-origin issue that has warranted getting outside help, they ought to consider that any difficult issue with their family of origin could also warrant outside help. Can you get some help sorting out the land mines, here?
I think your sister deserves to know that her food and transportation issues are adversely affecting her time with you and that you need her help to separate her actual needs from the desires that she can put aside in order to find a better compromise. I would put this in a, “let’s talk about how we each see this and what sort of accommodations we’re each willing to make.” In other words, not “you are wrong and I won’t take it any more” but more of a “this situation is not working for me; how do we find something that works for both of us, not just better for me but perhaps better for you, too?” She may have things she’d like to say but is not saying, too, after all. If you go into it with that openness to hear that you’re not exactly her dream date, either, that might help her to feel less defensive.
Still, considering the complexity of the family situation, if you have a counsellor who has helped you in the past, I’d suggest bringing this up. This is worth getting the insights of someone who can demand a higher pay grade than any of us here.
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AKDee
Guest
My thought is, stop inviting her, and if she invites herself politely decline and I’d be perfectly honest and tell her why. She is at an age where if she has not learned proper manners before, she needs to learn them now. Perhaps once she realizes that her improper behavior has caused her to be disinvited, she’ll brush up on her etiquette. She owes you an apology, a permanent change in behavior and she should be offering to help with chores while there and should be thanking you after she leaves for your hospitality.
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UbiCaritas
Guest
I have a college-aged sister who is about your sister’s age. She also grew up in a rather odd household–very spoiled, on the one hand, and very neglected on the other.
I helped her move cross-country for better educational and career opportunities when she was 18. I hadn’t spent much time with her in a long time before that; there’s a big age difference, and I left home permanently at 18. I was, frankly, horrified by what I saw.
I had, as I mentioned, driven across the country to pick her up and move her here. Once I got there, she proceeded to show up about 4 hours late (?!?!!) to the rendezvous because she had decided to hang out with her friends for a while first. Didn’t bother to call me to let me know what was going on, either. Then, as I and some family friends loaded her stuff up, she didn’t so much as say thank you for coming or apologize for being so late for no good reason. She did, however, mention once we got to my house a day later that she expected me to lend her a fairly substantial sum of money in order to get some supplies that she needed by a certain time. I was surprised by this, and generally annoyed by all the previous shenanigans, so I asked what was going on, at which point she made a “talk to the hand” gesture.
I blew up. I should add that I was also about three months pregnant, so I was exhausted and queasy, and that on top of a hellacious drive did nothing to improve my mood.
I told her quite firmly that I didn’t allow anyone to treat anyone like that in my house, and that included me; that her behavior over the last few days had been totally unacceptable (I mentioned specifically that if she ever showed up 4 hours late for anything again without a seriously good reason, I wasn’t going to be there), that basic courtesies like “please” and “thank you” are to be used while under my roof, and, lastly, that one simply does not demand that other adults lend one large sums of money.
(In her defense, all of these behaviors had been modeled for her by our parents, but that still doesn’t make them acceptable, and it was past time she figured that out.)
She stormed out of the house, and didn’t come back for a couple of hours, after which we sat down and talked, laying some ground rules: courtesy, mutual respect, and so on. She didn’t like it much. I also lent her the money she needed with a repayment plan in place, which she followed to the letter.
Things were a bit tense for a couple of months, but it sorted out eventually, and she even sent me a text a couple of Mothers’ Days ago, thanking me for the kick in the behind that I’d given her. She has also significantly matured since, and while I certainly don’t claim all the credit in that department, I suspect that having someone tell her the plain facts of life may have helped somewhat.
Long story short, having a talk with your sister (perhaps a bit less bombastic than the one I had ) may actually help her. Leaving aside anything else, with the food thing you don’t want her to be that person at the dinner portion of a major interview who makes a rude face and complains when the company interviewing her takes her to one of the best restaurants in town. She doesn’t have to like every kind of food out there; few of us do. It will well behoove her to learn to be polite about it, however.
I helped her move cross-country for better educational and career opportunities when she was 18. I hadn’t spent much time with her in a long time before that; there’s a big age difference, and I left home permanently at 18. I was, frankly, horrified by what I saw.
I had, as I mentioned, driven across the country to pick her up and move her here. Once I got there, she proceeded to show up about 4 hours late (?!?!!) to the rendezvous because she had decided to hang out with her friends for a while first. Didn’t bother to call me to let me know what was going on, either. Then, as I and some family friends loaded her stuff up, she didn’t so much as say thank you for coming or apologize for being so late for no good reason. She did, however, mention once we got to my house a day later that she expected me to lend her a fairly substantial sum of money in order to get some supplies that she needed by a certain time. I was surprised by this, and generally annoyed by all the previous shenanigans, so I asked what was going on, at which point she made a “talk to the hand” gesture.
I blew up. I should add that I was also about three months pregnant, so I was exhausted and queasy, and that on top of a hellacious drive did nothing to improve my mood.
I told her quite firmly that I didn’t allow anyone to treat anyone like that in my house, and that included me; that her behavior over the last few days had been totally unacceptable (I mentioned specifically that if she ever showed up 4 hours late for anything again without a seriously good reason, I wasn’t going to be there), that basic courtesies like “please” and “thank you” are to be used while under my roof, and, lastly, that one simply does not demand that other adults lend one large sums of money.
(In her defense, all of these behaviors had been modeled for her by our parents, but that still doesn’t make them acceptable, and it was past time she figured that out.)
She stormed out of the house, and didn’t come back for a couple of hours, after which we sat down and talked, laying some ground rules: courtesy, mutual respect, and so on. She didn’t like it much. I also lent her the money she needed with a repayment plan in place, which she followed to the letter.
Things were a bit tense for a couple of months, but it sorted out eventually, and she even sent me a text a couple of Mothers’ Days ago, thanking me for the kick in the behind that I’d given her. She has also significantly matured since, and while I certainly don’t claim all the credit in that department, I suspect that having someone tell her the plain facts of life may have helped somewhat.
Long story short, having a talk with your sister (perhaps a bit less bombastic than the one I had
) may actually help her. Leaving aside anything else, with the food thing you don’t want her to be that person at the dinner portion of a major interview who makes a rude face and complains when the company interviewing her takes her to one of the best restaurants in town. She doesn’t have to like every kind of food out there; few of us do. It will well behoove her to learn to be polite about it, however.
A
AKDee
Guest
You did her a favor. She needed someone to tell her that her behavior was unacceptable, because she would otherwise have kept on doing it and it would have affected her for years to come in personal and professional relationships. Manners matter, and people that don’t learn them have a hard road ahead.
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pensmama87
Guest
Thanks for sharing this. My sister has also botched job interviews spectacularly. She is supposed to be graduating in the spring but has no real plans. I do worry about her. She needs a good kick in the rear regardless of the other issues that brought her to this point.I have a college-aged sister who is about your sister’s age. She also grew up in a rather odd household–very spoiled, on the one hand, and very neglected on the other.
I helped her move cross-country for better educational and career opportunities when she was 18. I hadn’t spent much time with her in a long time before that; there’s a big age difference, and I left home permanently at 18. I was, frankly, horrified by what I saw.
I had, as I mentioned, driven across the country to pick her up and move her here. Once I got there, she proceeded to show up about 4 hours late (?!?!!) to the rendezvous because she had decided to hang out with her friends for a while first. Didn’t bother to call me to let me know what was going on, either. Then, as I and some family friends loaded her stuff up, she didn’t so much as say thank you for coming or apologize for being so late for no good reason. She did, however, mention once we got to my house a day later that she expected me to lend her a fairly substantial sum of money in order to get some supplies that she needed by a certain time. I was surprised by this, and generally annoyed by all the previous shenanigans, so I asked what was going on, at which point she made a “talk to the hand” gesture.
I blew up. I should add that I was also about three months pregnant, so I was exhausted and queasy, and that on top of a hellacious drive did nothing to improve my mood.
I told her quite firmly that I didn’t allow anyone to treat anyone like that in my house, and that included me; that her behavior over the last few days had been totally unacceptable (I mentioned specifically that if she ever showed up 4 hours late for anything again without a seriously good reason, I wasn’t going to be there), that basic courtesies like “please” and “thank you” are to be used while under my roof, and, lastly, that one simply does not demand that other adults lend one large sums of money.
(In her defense, all of these behaviors had been modeled for her by our parents, but that still doesn’t make them acceptable, and it was past time she figured that out.)
She stormed out of the house, and didn’t come back for a couple of hours, after which we sat down and talked, laying some ground rules: courtesy, mutual respect, and so on. She didn’t like it much. I also lent her the money she needed with a repayment plan in place, which she followed to the letter.
Things were a bit tense for a couple of months, but it sorted out eventually, and she even sent me a text a couple of Mothers’ Days ago, thanking me for the kick in the behind that I’d given her. She has also significantly matured since, and while I certainly don’t claim all the credit in that department, I suspect that having someone tell her the plain facts of life may have helped somewhat.
Long story short, having a talk with your sister (perhaps a bit less bombastic than the one I had
X
Xantippe
Guest
I have to fess up here that I was guilty of similar (but not quite as heinous) stuff at around that age. Young adults (especially socially inept ones) are not good at figuring out exactly how much trouble they are putting other people to, especially family members.
X
Xantippe
Guest
Oh dear.
P
pensmama87
Guest
Exactly. Because she doesn’t drive, she doesn’t think about things like distance, gas mileage, rush hour. Because she doesn’t have children, she doesn’t think about bedtime.
I’ve pointed it out to her and it’s gotten a bit better.
P
pensmama87
Guest
She once told a mom interviewing her for a summer nanny job that she “rarely likes other people’s children.” (The mom knew my mom, so that’s how I know that story.)
I’ve advised her to get to the college career office to both look for jobs and do interview practice, but she hasn’t yet.
- Status