Dear Amy: My in-laws have a summer cottage on a lake in Wisconsin. The home has been in the family for 100-plus years.
From Memorial Day through Labor Day, all five of the adult children, spouses and their children are expected to report dutifully every weekend for “family fun.” My mother-in-law is so obsessed with these weekends that she has us sign a logbook. The book indicates years and years of weekend attendance, including the children who have visited and those who were absent.
For me, and for some of my children, this business represents forced fun at its absolute worst.
While I care very much for my in-laws, I have no intention of spending every summer weekend with them, particularly when I have my own home to maintain and enjoy.
My mother-in-law is resentful when I do not visit every weekend, and she makes inappropriate comments about it to my kids.
My husband understands my choosing my own weekend activities. However, he still spends about 70 percent of his summer weekends in Wisconsin, with or without me.
With yet another summer of unpleasantness looming ahead, what do you think of this?
— Annoyed
Dear Annoyed: If one person doesn’t want any time at the lake and another person wants lots of time at the lake, then the obvious compromise is to split the difference and — at the beginning of the season (that’s now) — get out a calendar and work out a basic and balanced summer schedule for the entire family.
When it comes to matters of where the family spends its time in the summer, I’m a grouch who believes that the kids shouldn’t necessarily get a vote. They should go where the parents go, and in general, the family should be together whenever possible. As long as you and your husband aren’t on the same page, your kids will predictably split themselves into opposing camps.
You can’t control your mother-in-law’s resentment (that’s very much her problem), but you and your husband should insist that she not talk you down to your children. As you say, that’s completely inappropriate.
Dear Amy: I strongly suspect that my son’s soccer coach is having an affair with the mother of one of the boys on the team. Both are married. Both have young sons on the team. I don’t know either one very well, though the coach is my neighbor and his wife is an acquaintance of mine. I find the deception very creepy. Knowing how devastating an affair is on a marriage and on parenting makes me loath to condone it with silence.
I am at a loss for how to respond to this. I have not shared my suspicions with any other parent on the team, nor have I hinted to either the coach or the mom what I suspect.
My gut feeling is to pull my son from the team and just leave. I don’t want my son being coached by someone involved in such duplicity. However, my son loves playing soccer with this team and would be devastated if I were to pull him out. I also don’t know how I’d come up with an appropriate explanation for a 6-year-old.
— Suburban Soccer Mom
Dear Soccer Mom: I’m not sure what adultery has to do with soccer, but if you find a situation creepy, then of course you wouldn’t want to expose your son to the people responsible for creating it.
If you can’t stand to condone this with silence, then why don’t you say something? If you plan to pull your son off of the team (please wait until the end of the season), you’ll have the opportunity to offer a reason.
When the coach asks why your son is leaving the team you should say something like, “I sense that you and Marlene have grown very close, and it makes me uncomfortable.” He can respond by getting defensive or denying that they’ve done anything wrong — but, at the very least, you’ve been honest, you haven’t gossiped to others and you’ve given the coach an opportunity to make some changes.
Dear Amy: I have a suggestion for a shower for a second baby. I am expecting my second and don’t really need any new baby items.
My friends wanted to have a shower for the second baby and have decided on a great theme: a diaper shower. Instead of buying more baby clothes or gear that I don’t need, guests can buy a package of diapers — something I definitely will need.
— Second Time Mom
Dear Mom: A great idea! Perhaps your pals would also show up from time to time to take those diapers out for a spin — and help with the changing.
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Ask Amy appears Mondays through Fridays in Tempo, Saturdays in the Weekend section and Sundays in Q. Send questions via e-mail to askamy@tribune.com or by mail to Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Previous columns are available at chicagotribune.com/amy.
