Sars,

Love the site, love TWoP, and in need of help with a parenting issue.

Yes, I’ve read the columns about you and kids, but I’m asking your advice
anyway.

I am a mom, of a two-year-old little girl.Not to put too fine a point on it,
my little girl is beautiful.Really, really beautiful.People stop us in
the grocery store and make a point of telling me how beautiful she is.When
we switched pediatricians, the doctor called in all the nurses to look at
her.Just today, one of those scary ladies from a kiddy beauty pagent came
up to me at the mall and offered to “rep” my daughter.She gave me a card.
I threw it away.

I consider my daughter’s looks to be the universe’s joke on me, as growing
up, I was considered “the smart one” and had HUGE issues about my
appearance.

So what’s the problem you ask?Well the problem is, my daughter (we call
her DangerGirl) is starting to pay attention to the attention.It’s
nothing new, people have been commenting on her appearance ever since she
got over the whole newborn-prizefighter thing, but it’s just recently
DangerGirl’s started to notice the comments.

For example, while reading a picture book, I commented, “You’re so smart!”
to which DangerGirl replied back, “No, I’m pretty.”When I told her girls
could be smart and pretty, she said, “No, smart girls are ugly.”(I have no
idea where she got that one.)Now when someone tells her, “You’re pretty”
or “You look nice,” she says, “Thank you, I know.”

I honestly don’t know how to deal with this.I really don’t want to raise a
diva, or a daughter who thinks all of her worth is in her appearance.I’ve
read the parenting books, which give helpful advice on what to do if people
make disparaging remarks about your child’s appearance, but not what to do
if there are too many positive ones.I’d like to nip any potential
problems in the bud.

Even though Dad and I tell DangerGirl she’s smart and wonderful, it seems
like she’s internalizing the “oh, so beautiful = not smart” messages.I
can’t stop people from telling DangerGirl she’s beautiful, but how can I
keep her from thinking that’s ALL she is?

Any advice would be appreciated.Even advice telling me that I’m worried
over nothing.

Might as well change her name to “and she’s smart too!”

Dear Might,

I don’t know enough about child development to say for sure, but I do remember that two- and three-year-olds get ideas, won’t let them go, and then you really don’t hear about it again once they get a little older — so keep in mind that this could just be a phase.

But in the meantime, you should keep doing what you’re doing — reinforcing all the things about her that are good, not just her looks — and you should also try to put paid to snotty stuff like “I know” and “smart girls are ugly.”I know she’s two and they say whatever comes into their heads, but you should try to correct her when she says things like that — but without making a huge deal of it.

I think that’s probably the key — don’t make a federal case out of it either way, or she’s going to pick up on that.As she gets older, you’ll be able to point her to actual activities and interests that she can master and enjoy, things that don’t emphasize her looks, but for now…she’s two.Gentle correction of any inadvertent rudeness and gentle emphasis on the value of smarts and manners should do it.

Repeating the message that you love her for her, not her face, should keep her on an even keel later on, but for now, try not to worry too much.

Hi Sarah,

I’m such a big fan of both your sites (TN and TWoP) I
feel like I know you already. So when faced with the
absolute hell that is my current life, you seemed the
right person to turn to.

A teeny bit of background…in the past four months,
I had my appendix removed, lost my job, was kicked out
of my writing group, and have been in and out of the
hospital with unexplained abdominal pain and bladder
infections. And I’ve started getting stress migraines.
And what’s scary is none of the things I’ve mentioned
is the reason for my stress.

Last night, my entire family went to my sister’s
wedding. I didn’t go. Why? I wasn’t invited. You must
be thinking, wow, what a horrible person I must be to
not even be invited to my own sister’s wedding. The
thing is…I haven’t done anything. Don’t get me
wrong, I don’t claim to be perfect. Sisters fight,
kids can be brats, but nothing in my memory was even
close to some of the stories I’ve heard from other
siblings: knife fights, boyfriend stealing, et cetera.

This particular sister (there are two others) is, for
lack of a better word, a psychotic lying bitch (PLB).
I could give you any number of examples of times where
she made up huge, elaborate lies about me to our
mother to the point where she’d actually show up
unannounced at people’s homes just so she could use
things they “said” (they never did) as part of her
“proof.” And now she’s convinced herself and anyone
who will listen that I tormented her every day of her
life.

Thing is, I moved out five years ago. And three out of
the four years before that I was away at university.
And in that time I’ve spoken to her as little as
possible, because for many years she has hated me…for being born first, for not letting her walk over me
the way she’s walked over everyone else, for calling
her on the fact that she can say/do/think something
cruel or selfish or whatever, but no one else can
(love those hypocrites).

So, to be honest, I’m not really surprised I wasn’t
invited. Didn’t really want to go anyway. Her
husband’s an asshat of the worst kind, she’s a bitch,
how much fun could it really be? But what hurts more
than anything is the rest of my family.

From what I’ve heard, she’s told the entire world that
she chose not to invite me because I’m a horrible
person. And while apparently my other two sisters, my
parents, my grandmother and several other relatives
told her she was overreacting and that this was wrong,
nothing would change her mind.

I guess someone in there said if I wasn’t invited,
they wouldn’t go either, so she apparently threatened
my mother that she’d never see her grandchildren if
she didn’t attend. So they went. After spending the
past month telling me how much they didn’t want to go.

And that’s not to say anything of the “family dinner”
my mother held to welcome the asshat to the family, or
the shower my mother held that I wasn’t invited to,
all because PLB said she wouldn’t go if I was there.

Had I been my mother, I would have called her bluff
(this was a big “for show” wedding and there’s no way
she would have excluded my mother, how would it look
to her in-laws?) or at the very least taken me as her
date whether PLB liked it or not. But she did none of
those things.

I can’t really blame my other sisters. I’m a fair bit
older, so we don’t really know each other that well,
though I suspect it’s mostly because of PLB’s lies and
manipulations than the age difference. But my mother
claims she isn’t taking sides. But every lie she
believed without stopping to give me the benefit of
the doubt, every “family dinner” I was excluded from,
all says taking sides to me…

And this, finally, is my problem. My family chose
between sisters and I wasn’t their choice. Worse, they
chose the one who lies and steals and treats them like
garbage. So what must that say about me? I’ve been so
upset that I’ve literally been crying for the past two
weeks straight.

And I don’t know what to do next. I can’t seem to get
past this. I can’t seem to stop crying. I’m torn
between wanting to never see my family ever again and
aching because they think it’s acceptable to pretend I
don’t exist when it’s convenient. But I can’t go on
like this much longer…

What would you do?

The invisible sister

Dear Invisible,

Tell your family exactly what you said to me in your last three paragraphs.Tell them that repeatedly getting negged in favor of Twatty Arbuckle really makes your question your relationships with them.

But before you do that, you might think about what you want out of this situation.If you really don’t want them to choose sides, okay — but it sounds like you do, and like you want them to choose your side.Which is fine, and I would want the same thing, but when you ask people to take a side, you have to anticipate that they might not take yours.And if you don’t want them to take sides, that means that they’re going to spend time with PLB, so…which is it?

Remember: Neither strategy is wrong.But each one has pros and cons, and if you decide to cut PLB out of your life but aren’t going to require the rest of your family to do that, understand that they’re going to have to choose sometimes who to spend time with, and that it’s not always going to be you.

Your sister sounds like a hag, but that isn’t the point; the point is that, if you want to maintain a relationship with your family, you have to find a way to make peace with the fact that they’re going to maintain a relationship with her — or you have to draw a line and tell them to get behind it or you’re done.It sucks, but it is what it is.All you can really do is ask your family to respect and be sensitive to the fact that you and PLB hate each other — and to maybe not let that respect and sensitivity always tip in PLB’s favor the way it seems to now.

Dear Sars,

I broke up with a long-term (four years) boyfriend during my senior year of
college.Our relationship started when I was in high school.It wasn’t a
stereotypical angsty teen relationship; we just enjoyed each other’s
company.Nothing got hot or heavy, life went on, and we both went away to
college.Our long-distance relationship was fine, but my feelings toward
him started to eventually turn strictly to those of friendship.Yet, we
stayed together because I was young, it was easy, I really liked him (just
not in a relationship way), and despite my friends’ assurances that “I
should know,” I didn’t know what love felt like.

Fast forward to my senior year of college and our horrible breakup.We’d
talked a few months prior and decided that if the relationship wasn’t to go
anywhere (serious commitment-land) that we would rather discontinue it.
This was a mutual understanding…or so I thought.Of course I was wrong.
After the break he called incessantly, asking me why I broke up with him.I
didn’t have a good answer.I told him about the friendly feelings, that we
weren’t right, that we were headed down different paths, but he knew we
could get through it.I couldn’t just be mean and tell him I had no sexual
feelings toward him at all, so I hemmed and hawed and sputtered about
needing to find myself, and how, because I was going off to medical school I
couldn’t put the time in to make it work, who knows, maybe someday in the
future if the stars align, blah, blah, blah, let’s be friends!I guess I was
a bit too nice.I’m even still nice when he calls.I consider him a friend
and like to hear how he is doing.

So, here’s the deal.Oddly enough, at medical school, I’ve finally found
that person who has made me understand what love is and who makes me see
stars, all while being able to see a very stable, mutually wonderful future
together.We met at a bookstore and both love melancholy music, indie
films, juvenile jokes, and medicine. Oh, and each other.We’ve been
together about eight months. I’ve been broken up with my ex for over a year.
I’ve since neglected to mention my new man during our monthly phone chats.
The conversations are very superficial.I haven’t lied, he’s never asked,
and I’ve never told.Plus, I don’t see that it is any of his business.

The issue with all of this is that the ex and I share the same social group,
and since I’m soon going home for a few months, we’ll be thrown together
often. I have it on good authority that he’s not seeing anyone and hasn’t
dated since our split.I’m worried he misinterpreted the likelihood of the
stars aligning and a possible reconciliation, even though it has never come
up. Basically, I’m sick of watching my tongue, and I flat out refuse to lie.

Especially since the new boy and I are taking a trip to Europe, hitting
the beach, and basically doing innumerable things that might come up when he
asks what I’ll be doing in the next month or so.Should I out-and-out lie?
Should I evade the question, pleading the fifth, and offering no details
since it’s none of his business?Should I make it a point to tell him one
on one so he can move on?Or, lastly, should I let it come up naturally in
conversation (or through slippage of a friend’s tongue), which may very well
be in front of a large crowd of people?Of course there are options I’m
sure I’m overlooking as well.I do consider him a friend, albeit not a
close one.I want to show him respect, without involving him in my personal
business, or being insensitive (it’s so little to ask!).Any advice would
be appreciated.Thanks a bunch!

Love,
The Girl with the Crap-tacular Emotional IQ

Dear Girl,

You probably should have taken a complete break from him when you guys first split up; it sounds like you tried to downshift directly into friends, and since he didn’t initiate the break-up, he’s probably holding on to false hope as a result.

But it’s too late to redo that, so now you’ll have to tell him the truth and let the chips fall where they may.I imagine he’s not going to take the news well, but it’s past time for him to understand that it’s over, for good.So, I’d take him aside or call him before you head home and tell him, “Listen, I’m seeing someone; it’s serious; I didn’t want you to hear from someone else.”Keep the call or conversation short; don’t let him get into recriminations or nosy questions.Just give him the information so that he’s prepared, and go do something else.

If you want to keep the guy in your life long-term, you need to rip this Band-Aid off fast, now, so that he can get closure and you can both move forward with a non-relationship relationship.

Oh Wise Sars,

I have a question about reasonable expectations from a copy editor.

The Situation: I am writing a book, with a co-worker.It will be a book of interest only to those in our field, and should be informative if not entertaining.We’ve cleared the major hurdles: we have a publisher, we have a tentative date to turn in the inital manuscript, and we have a plan to get the manuscript done by that date.

The Problem: My grammar sucks.Blame gifted and talented classes in elementary school that focused on literature units over basic grammar instruction.I’ve been told that while my writing is “good” — accessible and easy to understand — my grammar is not. Evidentially, I have a deep love of the comma splice.And run-on sentences.And a few other things.

Adding to the grammar trauma is a request (well, demand) from the publisher that the book be put together using the Chicago Manual of Style, and I was born and raised on MLA.They’re similar, but just different enough that I have to run to the Chicago Manual every couple of days to check if I’m using the correct format for this, that or the other thing.

The Question: How much of this can I expect the copy editor to fix?I’m trying to catch the worst of my grammatical mistakes as I go, but trying to do that and write at the same time is messing with my flow.The publisher assured me that the manuscript would go through both a content and a copy editor, and that any major grammar mistakes would be caught and corrected, but it’s making me nervous just the same.Should I just write and worry about the grammar later?

Thanks,
Grammatically Challenged

Dear GC,

Yes, just write; don’t get bogged down in usage stuff in a first draft.If you really feel nervous about it, throw in an asterisk as you’re writing, and go back after you’ve done your daily pages to check wobbly constructions et al.But as you’re writing, concentrate on finishing, and do clean-up later.

I can tell you from extended contact with the “prose” of Patricia Cornwell that copy editors do not in fact always catch this shit, but most of the time, they’ll snag the most egregious stuff.Trust them to do their jobs.Or hire me.Heh.

Hey Sars,

I love reading TN and was totally thrilled to have discovered it. And now
has come the day when I finally ask you a question.

I went out to a casual lunch after class today with a friend who’s a bit
high-maintenance. Or just plain bitchy. It was a Vietnamese restaurant (I’m
Vietnamese) near campus that she had never been to before. I told her that
the food wasn’t that great, but it was passable and better than a lot of the
fast food served in the student unions.

We went, and because she doesn’t
like pork or seafood, our server recommended a noodle soup with chicken.
When we had finished eating, my friend said she didn’t like her soup and
told me to try it. She had barely touched it, and I tried a bite. It wasn’t
that great as far as Vietnamese food goes, but there was nothing actually
wrong with it. Just lousy cooking. My friend was dissatisfied, however, and
asked our server if she could be credited in any way. The server replied
that the restaurant would give her a 50 percent discount on the meal, leaving her
total to $2.50. I ended up paying for the meal due to my friend’s lack of
cash and the restaurant’s $8 minimum for credit cards.

When we left the
restaurant, my friend and I got into a minor disagreement over the way she
had handled her dislike of the meal. She said I didn’t like confrontation,
and I told her that her behavior and asking for credit was petty, to which
she replied showing value for her money wasn’t petty. (There are, of course,
very opinionated beliefs I hold on how much she really values money, but
that’s a whole other story.)

Sars, I was embarrassed by my friend’s behavior and truly believe she was
being petty. I think it’s a hazard of eating out that you can end up with a
meal you don’t like and the restaurant isn’t there to cater solely to a
single customer’s preferences. If you didn’t like a meal, then you can
choose not to eat there again. If this happens again, how should I treat it?
Is there anything more I could really have done? I wanted to apologize to
our server for my friend’s behavior, but is that my responsibility to
apologize for my friend’s bad manners?

Sincerely,
Girl with the Embarrassing Friend

Dear Get In Line,

There isn’t really anything you can do in a situation like that, except perhaps not to take your friend out to meals in the future.I mean, I agree that you really shouldn’t ask for a discount or free stuff unless the food is bad/cold/cooked incorrectly or the service is slow/rude; if the food just isn’t to your taste, that isn’t the restaurant’s problem.But her sense of entitlement isn’t really your problem either.You called her on it; that’s all you can really do.

I certainly wouldn’t apologize to the server; then you’re the embarrassing friend, kind of.In situations like that, which I’m thankfully rarely in, I just top up the tip and make a mental note not to bring that person back to that place again.

[10/12/04]

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