Parenting advice: I just told my one

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I was first diagnosed with endometriosis at 18 and believed I was infertile for 17 years. My ex-husband and I split after several heartbreaking miscarriages and failed rounds of IVF pushed our marriage to the breaking point. However, I came to terms with being infertile, and I find that I actually prefer being single—it allows me to focus on my job, which I love, and I’m the “cool aunt” to all of my friends’ children. I also have casually dated and had friends with benefits, but after my divorce, I realized I didn’t want another committed relationship. A few months ago, I matched with a man on Tinder, “John,” who was in town on a work trip for a few days. We met for drinks, ended up sleeping together (with protection), and agreed that this wasn’t more than a one-time hookup. However, the condom must have failed because I very unexpectedly discovered I was pregnant (after taking a test as a last resort because I was so food-sensitive and nauseated). Based on everything my doctors had told me, this was an anomaly, yet when I went to my gynecologist, I learned that I was already at 14 weeks, twice as far as I had gotten when I’d miscarried in the past, and that the fetus was healthy.

I decided to keep the baby. I have a house in an area with great schools, make more than enough to support a child, and will receive generous maternity leave. I already love my baby so much, and still can’t believe that this actually is happening. But when I tried contacting John, the only possible father, he didn’t respond. His WIFE responded, saying that she had found his Tinder and was “keeping greedy hoes away from” her husband. I truly did not know he was married and had no interest in keeping in touch after what was supposed to be a night of casual sex, so I told her that this was a complete surprise to me, but that she needed to talk to her husband because he had gotten me pregnant, and while I was fine with him not being in the picture, he deserved to know.

Her only response was to curse me out, accuse me of baby-trapping, and say that she wouldn’t be spending her money on my “bastard.” When I showed this conversation thread to my friends, they advised me to stop there and keep my baby away “from a cheater and a victim-blamer.” I am frankly disgusted with John—I do NOT condone cheating and I’m angry I was fooled—but he has a right to decide how much of a role he wants to play in his child’s life, right? He is not on Instagram but after some Googling, I did manage to find his work contact info, and I am agonizing over whether or not to call him. What do I even say? Part of me wants to be mature about this, but I’m also really tempted to let him have it for sleeping around and lying to me. Is there any way forward that will minimize the potential harm that my child could face in the future? I mean, there’s no script for telling your married one-night stand that you’re pregnant. I don’t want John or his wife in my child’s life, but I believe that it’s also unfair to keep this a secret.

—Dear John, You Suck, I’m Pregnant?

Dear Pregnant,

Unfair to whom? If you mean “unfair to the child,” well, sure. But you have options there, when your child is old enough to ask—there are various age-appropriate ways to explain/describe their parentage so it isn’t an ongoing mystery that marks their life in an unhappy way. And even if you never tell your child (some version of) the truth, given the vast amount of DNA data now available, chances are the identity of the bio-father will emerge eventually anyway, and then you’ll have some explaining to do.

But I think you might mean “unfair to the bio-father”—the liar and cheater you slept with. If I were you, I wouldn’t take his feelings into account at all. If you’re not expecting—and you don’t need—financial support from him, I would consider him your sperm donor. You made a good-faith effort to let him know. I’d let it go at that.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My 13-year-old niece has had a very hard time since her mother died three years ago. It doesn’t help that my brother met someone else within the year and moved his daughter across the state so they could live with her, leaving everyone else behind. My niece is a good kid with a great heart, but she is still grieving. My brother won’t put her in counseling and has distanced himself from his former in-laws (they hated how fast he moved on). The entire situation is a mess. I do what I can by going to pick up my niece once a month for a weekend. Usually, we just hang out and I give her a sympathetic ear. The last time she was with me, she confided that she had been communicating with her maternal grandparents behind her father’s back. She says she wants to see them during one of our weekends. Secretly.

I am torn here. I don’t agree with how my brother shut out his former in-laws after his wife died or cut them out of his daughter’s life. But he would never forgive me if I went behind his back and he might cut me out of my niece’s life too. I told my niece I needed some time to think. I really need some advice here.

—Secret Keeper

Dear Secret Keeper,

This is a hard one. That poor child! But since you don’t offer me much information about your brother other than his behavior after his wife’s death, I’m flying blind. What’s his relationship like with his daughter overall? What was it like before her mother’s death? Is the way he’s handled things (very badly) typical of him, or is this a grief-driven aberration? And what’s your relationship with him like? (If he lets you take the child one weekend a month, it can’t be too terrible. But is there any room in it for an honest conversation with him? Or is your fear that he’ll cut you out of his life grounded in previous experience with him?)

Without answers to those questions, the only advice I can offer is pretty generic. As in: You must keep your niece’s confidence, and you mustn’t make arrangements for her that you are obliged to keep secret from her father. Instead, urge her to talk to her father about her wish to have her maternal grandparents in her life. If the thought terrifies her, the situation is even worse than you suggest, and you—and her grandparents—may have to take action on her behalf. If this situation rises to the level of abuse (something you haven’t mentioned), her grandparents may need to seek custody. If her father is “merely” selfish and ignorant (he refuses to allow his child to see a therapist?!), help your niece strategize ways to talk to him about what she needs. Role-play the conversation. She will need to be able to articulate her wishes. (And not exactly by the way: If she vehemently opposes talking to her dad, ask her if she’s afraid of him. Gather more information before you proceed.)

It would be ideal if you could talk to your brother about your own concerns about this child without his punishing you—and her—by disallowing further contact. I do know this much: The presenting problem (the relationship with the in-laws) is but the tip of the iceberg. This situation is not sustainable—not without great harm to your niece over time. She must be allowed access to a therapist; she must be allowed access to her grandparents (even if her father isn’t willing to be in direct contact with them himself). I wish I could tell you how to achieve those goals. But the first step, as always, is communication.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m severely neurodivergent, in a way that makes it hard for me to clean and deal with clutter. I’ve finally gotten someone in every other week to help clean my place. My child (14, nonbinary) is also neurodivergent but thankfully doesn’t seem impacted by it to the same extent, or in the same way, I am. Still, clutter builds up in their room and they have issues getting rid of things.

Prior to my child’s birth, I was married to their father, who now lives out of state. We have a good co-parenting relationship. And my former mother-in-law is a wonderful woman who has let me know how much she still loves me. But she keeps sending things to my child that they have neither asked for nor need—stuff that just piles up. I’m not talking about every now and then, I’m talking about Amazon packages at least once a week. When my kid goes to visit her (about once every six weeks), they come back with lots of crap for themself and something that she thought I might like (which I don’t, or I already have). I understand that my child is her only grandchild and she loves them, but this gift-giving is getting out of hand. I’ve asked my ex to talk to her but just get, “She enjoys buying the kid things, so what?” Previous attempts to ask her to stop have resulted in tears and drama (she has a history of bipolar disorder). Because my ex lives in another state and my kid only visits there twice a year, they don’t have their own room there for all this stuff to go. How do I manage this? My child’s room is full of the stuff she buys and they don’t want to hurt their grandma by throwing out.

—Trying to Stop Being a Clutter Bug

Dear Trying,

You’ve told your kid’s grandmother to stop sending things and she didn’t want to/couldn’t hear it. You’ve done due diligence there. (But feel free to have that conversation just one more time, and don’t worry about the tears and drama—they are not your problem.) Now it’s time to have a conversation with your child about what to do with unwanted/unneeded stuff that other people would be deeply grateful to have. Work together to find an appropriate outlet for this, one that’s meaningful to you. In my town, there’s a “Free Store” where people can “shop”—it’s where I routinely donate clothes and household items, and brand new things are especially desirable. I also donate all teen-appropriate items to a drop-in center for unhoused teenagers. Those are my two favorite places to bring what I can’t use that I know others can. I’m sure you and your child can identify such places in your own town.

Make a plan and make a pile, and together bring these unwanted gifts where they will be of use to others. Doing this will teach your child an important lesson even as it helps you declutter your house (so: win/win). And if Grandma visits and asks, “Where’s that lovely sweater/bedside lamp shaped like a dinosaur/pair of uncool shoes I sent you?”, your child can answer (have them practice beforehand), “We donated it to a kid who needed and wanted it way more than I did.” If she reacts badly, you can swoop in to remind your ex-MIL, calmly, that you’ve told her you already have more than enough stuff, and that you and her grandkid will continue to donate things you don’t need to those who do. This might put a stop to the avalanche of Amazon packages. Or she might not be able to stop—it might be a compulsion she cannot fight. (In that case, you will be fulfilling lots of other people’s children’s needs for years to come, thanks to her.) Either way, the clutter stops.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My almost 2-year-old son is incredibly picky when it comes to food. Before about 18 months, he’d eat anything we put in front of him, but now he refuses to eat anything except buttered toast, yogurt, crackers, dry Weet-Bix, and fish fingers. I do all the right things (according to the internet, anyway). We eat as a family, I offer him the same food we’re having along with some of his “safe foods,” and I never pressure him into trying anything, but nothing changes. Mealtimes are just him crying and pointing to the cupboard. He only stops when I offer him some crackers of Weet-Bix, which I feel I must do, since I’m not the kind of parent who’ll let my child sit there and be hungry. But I also wish he’d just try things. He even refuses cake and other sweets because he won’t put anything new in his mouth. Making things harder is that he’s not very verbal (he only says a handful of words, none of them food-related) so I can’t exactly ask him what he wants. How do I make mealtimes less stressful for us all? Can I get him to eat a veggie or will it just be like this until he’s the kind of grown man that orders off the kid’s menu?

—It’s Just a Phase, Right?

Dear Phase,

I have two directly opposing thoughts about this. But I’m afraid that getting to the second will require going through the first.

The first is to have your child fully evaluated by a pediatrician. While there is a great range of speech development in children (and the fact that your child does have some words is a good sign!), most pediatricians expect that by the age of 2, a child will have in hand about 50 words or phrases. Of course, it’s possible that your child is just shy, or introverted. But there are many possible causes of delayed language acquisition, and to rule out anything that would require intervention now, I urge you to do this first. And since it’s paired with his resistance to tasting anything new, I wouldn’t put it off much longer. (Of course, it’s very possible—it’s likely—that there’s no problem at all. Some children just take more time to express themselves in words, and many children resist new tastes and textures. But it wouldn’t hurt—and it might help a great deal—to see a doctor now.)

My other thought is much more reassuring. Many (many, many) children at this age become bizarrely picky about what they’ll eat. Some of them even stay this way for years. I will never forget my daughter’s kindergarten best friend, who ate only white bread, cream cheese, cucumbers, and peeled apples—and how worried I was on her behalf. But she eventually grew out of it, became an adventurous eater, and was none the worse for the wear of it. And—even more impressive to me—during those white bread/cream cheese years she was a perfectly healthy child! Her mother gave her a daily multivitamin and refused to worry about her weird food predilections, and that turned out to be exactly the right thing to do.

I don’t know how children survive on these kinds of diets for months or years. But somehow they do. And the more anxious you are about it, the more your toddler is likely to dig in (because he’s at the digging-in, recalcitrant age, too). I might try offering him some things that are adjacent to the things he’s currently willing to eat (like, if he’ll eat fried “fish fingers,” might he accidentally try a similarly fried vegetable that looks like fish fingers? Or a smoothie that has the consistency of yogurt?) but I wouldn’t force it. Keep offering him an array of foods, both tried-and-true and new(ish!), be resolutely casual about what he eats or doesn’t, and of course, don’t let him go hungry. If you do this long enough, the sight of the rest of his family heartily enjoying delicious foods he’s never tried may finally get to him, especially if you are genuinely, visibly happy as you eat your dinner and you don’t bug him about his own abstemious ways.

Don’t worry now about the kind of adult he’ll grow into, food-wise, OK? The scenario you imagine is pretty damned unlikely, but if he does remain a relatively picky eater (I’ve known quite a few of those folks as adults), it’s not the end of the world, either. Keep in mind that not everything about how he turns out is in your control.

—Michelle

My husband is a human who farts a lot. I cannot stress enough how often and how loudly he farts. I’ve gotten used to it, but I grew up in one of those repressed households where girls (like myself) were supposed to feel shame and apologize for any passing of gas or burping. Our daughter is 6 and thinks farting is hilarious. Who can blame her? She farts a lot and with no shame or remorse. She’s started to get teased…