Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My fiancée and I are about to move to a red state. (There isn’t really any choice, between my work and the high cost of living here.) However, she is terrified about the regressive lack of women’s rights there, combined with the fact that she has had bad reactions to the new birth control her doctor has her on. Neither of us wants kids. So I decided to stop dicking around and get scheduled for a vasectomy.
Both my mother and sister are staunch liberals, so I didn’t think anything of telling them … but they freaked out. My mother started going on about how I was “too young” and would regret it, that she wanted to be a grandma, and children were the greatest joy in life. My sister started blaming my fiancée and saying she was being selfish for asking this of me. I told them both to shut it. I am a grown adult and making a choice over my reproductive freedom, and aren’t they always going on and on about that? Even if we do change our minds on kids (and we won’t), we could adopt, foster, or use donated sperm. My genetic legacy is worth diddly-squat compared to actually being an involved parent—and we all know that firsthand because our “dad” left us without looking back when I was only a baby.
Since that conversation, things have been tense and awkward. My fiancée has picked up on this, but I haven’t told her why. She would be very hurt to hear the stuff my mother and sister said. My operation is coming up, as is our move. I don’t want to spend the last few months I’ll be living in the same state as my family fighting with them. How do I get through to them?
—Stop Sniping About the Snip
Dear Snip-ee,
Your reasons for getting a vasectomy are sound, your mother and sister are behaving absurdly, and your arguments are waterproof. Tell your relatives you wish you’d never mentioned your plans to them, then repeat what you wrote to me: You have only a short time left in town, and you do not want to spend that time dealing with their sudden, tender regard for your vas deferens. You will discuss it no further, and neither should they. If they try, reply, “This is not a topic of conversation,” and walk out of the room if necessary. If you think they are the kinds of fools who might try going to your fiancée about this, expressly forbid that as well.
I expect you’re also having some new thoughts about how information from inside a marriage filters out to people outside a marriage. That’s good! I understand that everyone’s relationship with their parents and siblings is different, but those vows you’re about to take are meant to create a partnership with its own rules and considerations about the divulging of proprietary IP to the outside world. I have a hunch that your future partnership’s policies, as they develop, will be heavily influenced by this experience.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I have a 14-year-old son, “Kyle.” Kyle has been interested in games since he was very young, especially trading-card games. A few months ago, he came across this old, out-of-print Lord of the Rings card game. He wasn’t buying cards, but he found some website where they had the cards uploaded and you can just plug in and play. I was initially overjoyed, as this was a way cheaper way of indulging his hobbies, but lately I’ve been getting a little concerned. He’s playing a lot, and he’s hanging out with the other players on a Discord. And because this is an old, old game, most of the players are men in their 50s to 70s. I’m guessing a lot of them started playing it when it was being sold in stores in the 1990s and just stuck with the game.
What really has me worried is that it’s sucking up more and more of his social time, and he’s spending that time with middle-aged men and not people his own age. I do monitor his Discord, and nothing creepy/predatory has happened. His discussions are pretty much entirely about strategy and scheduling games. But I’m still not sure how this becoming his social life can possibly be healthy. I’m also not sure how to break this habit without damaging him.
—Flee, You Fool!
Dear Flee,
I’ve spent a significant amount of time trying to come up with a more innocuous, wholesome online activity your 14-year-old could be engaging in, and I give up. This is adorable. Set reasonable screen-time limits, keep an eye on the Discord, and enjoy this relatively quiet phase in your teenage son’s online life. Three years from now, when he’s clamoring for a VR headset to spend 11 hours a day playing some kind of futuristic, pornographic first-person shooter, you’ll look back on the Middle-Earth Collectible Card Game Era with fond longing.
Dear Care and Feeding,
Is my child old enough to cook while home alone? My office has just implemented a hybrid schedule, and it’s summer, so my 13-year-old is home alone many days. Part of me is nervous about the idea of her cooking at home when I am not there. But part of me thinks she would be OK. We have a gas stove, and she has used it before with supervision.
—What if She Blows Everything Up?
Dear Everything,
[GIANT WHOOSHING SOUND]
Hello! Thirteen-year-old Dan here. I just time-traveled to 2024 from 36 years in the past, spatula in hand, to say: Yes! Your daughter is definitely old enough to cook on her own. I do it all the time and it’s fine. If you’re worried about fires, you can purchase a fire blanket and show her how to use it. If you’re worried about cleanup, you can make some rules about getting dishes into the dishwasher and enforce them. If you’re worried about nutrition … uh … good luck with that. OK, I gotta run back to 1988—I’ve got an entire box’s worth of Steak-Umms sizzling in two frying pans. Bye!
[GIANT WHOOSHING SOUND]
—Dan
