ArcaMax

This child is the sibling of your grandchildren. Your grandchildren must be encouraged and allowed to accept and love this child. Why? Because it is best for everyone.

Your son is obviously encouraging/forcing you to accept this baby as the sibling of your beloved grandchildren. Good for him. Acceptance on your part makes your son’s life easier and more peaceful. It helps to integrate all of the children into a sibling group.

If you want to give gifts only to your grandchildren, you should send these gifts to your son’s address, not to his ex-wife’s address.

Furthermore, you holding on to an angry attitude toward your son’s ex-wife leads to you passively punishing your grandchildren, who are her children. Let your son carry his own water. You should work much harder to maintain a neutral attitude toward her, and a loving attitude toward all of the children involved.

Dear Amy: My husband and I have temporary custody of our 10-year-old granddaughter “Sophie” because her mother (our daughter) is currently in court-ordered rehab for her long-standing drug addiction. Our granddaughter’s father is not in the picture.

We believe our daughter is earnestly trying to recover from her addiction, but we have been to this particular party a few times and we are realistic about the fact that we might be raising our granddaughter more or less permanently.

Sophie is a great kid! We’re fairly youthful and healthy and honestly we’ve adjusted and are enjoying our experience of “re-parenting.”

An aunt gave Sophie the first Harry Potter book for Christmas, and she has really been enjoying it. She is glued to the book after school, and during dinner she catches us up on the plot.

During a call with her mother, Sophie related her excitement about the book.

Her mother contacted us and raised a lot of objections to her reading this book. Her points were sort of all over the place, but she acted offended and asked us to take the book away and choose “more appropriate” material for her daughter to read.

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