My Boyfriend’s Daughter Has a Maddening Routine No One Can Handle. He Doesn’t Want to Hear It.

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’ve been dating a wonderful single dad of a hilarious 6-year-old daughter (let’s call her Sadie) for over three years. We’ve been transitioning to me moving in with them in a few months, so I’ve been around more and helping with childcare logistics a fair amount. It’s been an easy and smooth transition overall, except for one sticking point. Getting his daughter to school or to any activity takes double the amount of time one would expect.

I assure you that I know kids are always more difficult to get places than you’d hope. I’m an experienced babysitter/nanny and the beloved, very involved auntie to all my friends’ kids—so I know that a Google Maps 10-minute walk means 20 to 30 for a kid. But a Google Maps 15-minute walk takes us nearly an hour (even though I know all the tricks for making walking fast a game and more fun). The tactics I know from experience do work occasionally, but more often, Sadie insists that she needs to be carried, or she invents a new game that involves stopping as frequently as possible and then moving as if through molasses. We live in the city, so walking is a fact of life. We do take public transit, but just the short walk to the station can balloon into an ordeal. I’ve tried having her on a scooter, which has helped once or twice, but more often, even when she’s on the scooter, she’ll still insist on being carried and will scoot off in the opposite direction if I say no.

This isn’t just a problem with me. Her grandparents each help with school pickup once a week and cite the same issues getting her home or to her piano lesson on time. Once, on my way to my partner’s place after work, I caught 75-year-old Grandma carrying Sadie because she had decided not to budge from her spot for half an hour. Sadie is too heavy to be carried by an elderly woman! It’s hard for me to carry her! For the last two years, her refusal to walk cooperatively has even been called out in Sadie’s report cards; at parent-teacher conferences, they have asked her dad to work on this. We have taken her to the doctor, and there’s no medical issue.

My partner is a great dad. His love for his daughter is part of the reason I fell in love with him. But he doesn’t experience Sadie’s difficulty cooperatively walking nearly as often as the rest of us do: He takes her nearly everywhere on an e-bike, and when they do have to walk and she won’t walk fast enough, he carries her (he’s a super strong CrossFit type, so it doesn’t wear on him as it does on the rest of us). When I told him, recently, that this was a problem we all needed to work on together, and suggested he not carry her anymore so she understands that she has to walk on her own and at a reasonable pace, he didn’t respond well. I think he interpreted it as my criticizing his parenting and telling him to never hold his daughter again. That’s not at all what I meant! He’s not normally a defensive person, so I think something about the way I posed the suggestion struck a nerve. In the context of the conversation, I thought it was clear I didn’t mean it as, “Never pick her up again!” I meant don’t pick her up for routine, short, everyday walks and errands.

I want to make sure my suggestion wasn’t out of bounds. If it was reasonable, I’d appreciate your help finding some wording that’s less likely to trigger him. I truly only want to help, but I’ve had to decline requests to get Sadie from point A to B because while I could spare the half hour in my schedule that this should take, I can’t spare the hour or more I know it will end up taking. What now?

—Not the Wicked Stepmother

Dear Not,

I know you meant well, and I don’t think you’re a wicked (future) stepmother-figure. But I do feel pretty sure that your boyfriend interpreted your suggestion as a criticism of his parenting because it was. Your appreciation for how much he loves Sadie—even if you’ve told him this repeatedly—doesn’t negate the criticism. You made it clear that you believe it’s wrong for him to carry his daughter. And you may be right: Carrying a 6-year-old on everyday walks and errands might be a bad idea, especially if you expect others to shepherd her on such trips and they are unable to follow your lead.

But no parent is happy to be told how to treat their children. While I’m not as certain as you are that he interpreted your suggestion to mean, “Don’t ever carry her”—if, as you say, you provided context that made it clear what your intention was—I’m guessing that in addition to feeling defensive about his parenting choices, he also felt that you were asking him to prioritize your discomfort over his child’s. I know you didn’t mean to do that! But if he knows, as I imagine he does, how irritating you find Sadie’s refusal to walk “cooperatively” and thus arrive at places within what you feel is the right amount of time, he might have bristled at what might have seemed a request to fix his child’s behavior for your sake.

This leads me to a few questions your letter raised for me. For one, is Sadie’s mother in the picture? I’m guessing not, as there’s no mention of an ex or co-parent, custody arrangements, or anything else that implies another parent is around. Is he a widower? Is Sadie’s mother alive and, either by choice or court order (or any other means), not involved in her life? Is [whatever the situation is re: her mother] a recent development? Is her insistence on being carried a recent development? Did she ever transition before age 4 (when her teachers began to comment on it) from being carried/sitting in a stroller to walking— or has she never been willing to walk? Or had no one ever expected or asked her to when she was first able to? And finally: Though the doctor declared there was no medical issue, isn’t it possible there is something concerning going on that is not physical? (If Sadie hasn’t been evaluated by a pediatric psychiatrist or psychologist—and I am 100 percent certain that you should not be the one to suggest this to her dad—it would probably be a good idea. Is there someone else in his life who could bring this up? Is it possible that one of his parents, a sibling, or best friend, could?)

For now, if you can’t spare the hour or more it would take to get Sadie from point A to point B, don’t do it. If there are places you feel you have no choice but to take her to (if you’re going to be acting as her stepmother, there will surely continue to be such places and occasions), my only advice is that you plan for at least twice as long as you think is reasonable to plan for, and to work on your patience (which, if you’ve been a nanny to children older than 6, you already know you’ll need plenty of in the many years to come, raising a child to adulthood). The stepmother-dance is hard: I wouldn’t embark on it with Sadie’s father by offering him suggestions about how to care for her. (And I would leave it to the grandparents to advocate for themselves. That’s not your job.)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My sister-in-law, “Elizabeth,” has a son, “Alex,” who is the same age as mine (3), and they attend the same daycare. Elizabeth’s work hours changed a month and a half ago, making it impossible for her to drive him there in the mornings. My brother-in-law leaves even earlier to commute, so he cannot take Alex there, either. I have been picking up Alex on the way to taking my son there since her schedule change to help them out, and it just isn’t working.

Alex does not like going to daycare and has a meltdown each morning that results in us being anywhere from 15 minutes (on a good day) to a half hour late. In turn, I’m late for my job. When I spoke to my husband about telling Elizabeth that either Alex needs to be ready to go when I arrive or she will have to make other arrangements, he said I was making too big a deal of this. My boss knows the situation and has been very understanding, but my arriving late throws off my entire team, and their patience is running dry. Given that I’m not getting any backing from my husband, can I simply stop picking up my nephew, or do I need to inform Elizabeth first?

—Chauffeur No Longer

Dear No,

Backing or no backing from your lunkhead husband, of course, you need to tell Elizabeth you can’t pick up her son anymore if you’re not going to pick him up anymore. You don’t just quit doing it and leave her high and dry without a warning.

I think your plan to tell Elizabeth that Alex needs to be ready to go when you get there from now on is a perfectly reasonable next step. Given that you’ve been made late, it seems, every single day since you started picking him up, I don’t think it would be unreasonable to say that you will (regretfully) have to stop helping out in this way if picking him up makes you late even one more time. If it happens again, then—sad to say—getting their child to daycare is Elizabeth and her husband’s problem to figure out. (But you might tell your husband, sweetly, that he’s welcome to be the one to solve it for them.)

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Dear Care and Feeding,

When my sister “Bianca” gets annoyed with her 4-year-old, “Ada,” she will jokingly tell her to “fuck off.” Which my niece is starting to repeat when she gets irritated (she said it to a little boy who was bugging her when I took her to the park the other day). In addition to this obviously not being a phrase a kid that age should be learning, I’m also worried that Bianca saying this to her will damage Ada’s self-esteem. My sister assures me that my niece knows she “doesn’t mean it.” Is there anything I can do here?

—Concerned Aunt

Dear Concerned Aunt,

No. With one exception: If Ada says “fuck off” to you, and you don’t like it (which I gather you would not), you may respond, “I don’t like to be told to fuck off. Please don’t do it again.” This is the only scenario in which Ada’s use of a curse word—or Bianca’s, for that matter—is any of your business. I do give you permission, however—if your niece says “fuck off” to another child when she is in your charge, and it embarrasses you—to shrug and say, “Her mom taught her that.”

—Michelle

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