Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so today we’re diving into the archives of Care and Feeding to share classic parenting letters with our readers. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I have two great kids who are 4 and almost 1. I think having a sibling bond is important and want my kids to like each other and grow to become playmates. My siblings and I did not get along well as children, and we never really became friends as adults. Our home life as kids was very tumultuous, and my siblings had issues that made socializing difficult.

So far, my kids play fairly well together despite the age gap. Of course, my older one occasionally gets frustrated when the baby breaks block towers, tries to destroy Legos, or spits up on precious stuffed dinosaurs.

Is there a magic formula for ensuring your kids become friends and playmates as they grow? How do I lay the groundwork for future success? We owe much of our parenting successes so far to Daniel Tiger and his songs for all occasions, but so far he has left us stranded on this one.

—They Don’t Need to Be Ross and Monica

Dear TDNtBRaM,

I really wish I could give you THE answer. Regrettably, thousands of years of human knowledge on this point has served up only this: It’s a dang crapshoot. You have created two unique humans and sent them spinning off like tops into a very complex world. They may fight like cats and dogs as kids and become thick as thieves as adults, or they may be little buddies as kids and maintain (at best) a cool civility when forced to interact at weddings and funerals in later life.

Here’s what I do have:

• Try to treat them equitably (“equally” is a pipe dream, and life will take it from you soon enough).
• Try not to show favoritism (and don’t let your relatives show it either, it matters more than you think).
• Try to generally model treating other people with respect and kindness.
• Let them band together against you, sometimes, when the stakes are low.

I’m sorry, that’s all we’ve got. Right now, they’re doing great for almost 1 and 4.

—Nicole Cliffe

From: How Do I Get My Little Swimmer-in-Training to Like the Water? (March 11th, 2019).

Dear Care and Feeding,

My MIL and FIL are kind, highly educated, successful people who, for reasons I’ll never understand, get into the most contentious, over-the-top, dramatic, and humiliating fights with each other in public, all the damn time. Before this goes further, I’d like to clarify that I have never seen it become physical (yet!), but it’s still terrible. They fight everywhere, over everything: in public, on Christmas, on vacation, after church, out to dinner with my parents, everywhere.

Do you know what it’s like to have your senior citizen in-laws dissolve into barbed verbal sparring inside of a Denny’s? And for that to dissolve into screaming at each other in the Denny’s parking lot? I probably could have dealt with this as “not my business” since my husband does not emulate this behavior, but we have two kids. My family is “Minnesota Nice” and even though my parents divorced, they made a point to present a loving and unified front to me and my siblings. We’ve been living across the country, but now we are back, and only a 45-minute drive from Grandma and Grandpa Train Wreck.

Over the holidays, they fought while holding my kids, feeding my kids, putting my kids into winter clothes, taking pictures with my kids, and building gingerbread houses with my kids (who are currently 3 and 1). I don’t want to keep my kids away from their grandparents, but something has to give. I attempted to redirect and act like a buffer, but they are absolutely shameless and can’t be kept from fighting for long. I eventually broke down and begged them to stop fighting, which lead to the “lie, lie, deny” act of “We have no idea what you’re talking about.” They want to see the grandbabies all the time, but I can’t take any more of this incredibly chaotic and dysfunctional dynamic. Please help!

—Jerry Springer Never Saw Grandparents Like This

Dear JSNSGLT,

I am laughing a little bit because now I am picturing the cast of Cocoon throwing down in a Denny’s parking lot, but this is obviously terrible and of course you need help!

You gotta pack up and leave. Forty-five minutes away is a perfect distance for this maneuver. I need you to tell these two twits that you’re incredibly frustrated with their fighting ruining every visit, and you don’t want your children hearing and witnessing this kind of dysfunction. (I would prefer it if your husband could bring himself to deliver this homily, but the situation is wildly unacceptable and one of you will have to be the bad guy either way.)

Make it clear that the minute things go south, you are gone. I don’t care if the kids are in half a snowsuit or at the beginning of a Grand Slam breakfast; they can be in the car in under five minutes flat if you are sufficiently motivated. Repeat until you break their spirits.
This is one of those “We teach people how to treat us” moments that Dr. Phil was right about. (He’s wrong about plenty but dead right on that score.) You need to be the family members who will not put up with their shit, and since you hold all the cards (the grandkids), they’ll have to get it together or face the consequences.

They sound just awful, but either during your initial “You cannot act this way in front of my children” speech or after the next blowup, please talk to them about their desperate need for therapy. It’s up to you and your husband if you want that to be a stern recommendation or a mandatory edict, but I would feel like a piece was missing if I didn’t mention it.
These people! The Denny’s parking lot! You’ll be in my prayers.

—N.C.

From: My In-Laws Constantly Fight Around My Kids, and I’m Sick of It. (January 4th, 2019).

Dear Care and Feeding,

I always knew I would never be best friends with my in-laws after years of vaguely snarky comments from my mother-in-law, mostly disguised with a smile. Pretty normal criticism about my house being too messy or her being upset and claiming it was my fault my husband lost his job years ago. I just ignored it, but recently (after having our child and their first grandchild) it got much worse. Some of the comments are really hurtful and damaging. They told my husband his dead grandfather would be disappointed in him for the (perfectly normal) church we joined because he “hated [insert descriptive word for people of that religion].” They would have preferred we had a boy and make it obvious whenever they can. I was told how happy they were when a cousin adopted a sweet little boy into her family and they finally “have an heir to carry on the family name even if he is a little [blank] and [blank]” (insert words to describe child’s skin color and physical disability).

My mother-in-law will openly tag me and comment on social media posts to hurtfully draw attention to the fact that I only have one child, knowing after a horrible loss I decided to not try to carry another child to term. I am sickened to be around them but feel I should keep communication open for the sake of my child and husband—while at the same time protecting my child from their bigotry and patriarchal prejudice. My husband is no help; he is generally very supportive of me, but in terms of his family he thinks they don’t really mean what they say and we (I) should just not be so sensitive since they say dumb things all the time. I don’t want our daughter thinking there is something wrong with her church or her because she lacks a penis and so is unworthy to carry their family name.

—Happy Middle Ground?

Dear HMG,

Oh, boy, I do not think there is a happy middle ground here. Your in-laws are extremely racist and sexist and otherwise bigoted in about four different directions, and if your husband is content to let his wife’s infertility struggles be a fun punchline on social media, he doesn’t seem that fantastic to me either.

Step 1: Block your mother-in-law on Facebook.
Step 2: Couples counseling.

I think you need to come up with some absolute scraping-bottom baseline standards for in-law behavior toward you and your family and discuss with your husband how to enforce them. There are no easy solutions here, but the current situation is untenable and you need to stop it before your daughter starts picking up even more of what she’s hearing. (I guarantee she’s already internalized more than you think she has.)

An extremely low level of contact (Christmas cards, perhaps) is absolutely the most that I personally could put up with from these people. You and your husband will have to make your own calls. If he won’t defend you, maybe he’ll be moved to defend his child. I’m unimpressed.

—N.C.

From: My Daughter Doesn’t Want to Give a Valentine to a Mean Kid. (February 1st, 2019).

Classic Prudie

Since my daughter was 8 (she’s now 11), she has been invited to five birthday parties that are actually two separate parties. The first part is your typical party where six to 15 kids are invited to some venue (bowling alley, activity center, the birthday girl’s home) in the afternoon, e.g., from 3 to 6 p.m. Then the second part is when only a few or half the girls go to a sleepover at the birthday girl’s house. My daughter has been on the main guest list for this type of party four times but has only been on the VIP sleepover guest list once.

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