Video chats with sister being dominated by toddler niece

Dear Miss Manners: My sister and I are very close, and we chat about every other week. About a year ago, she moved across the country, so now we don’t have the chance to see each other in person.

She is married and is her daughter’s primary caregiver, so she has her hands full. When I initiate a phone call, it usually goes to voicemail. Whenever my sister calls me (or calls me back), she always makes it a video call, and she always has the phone’s camera fixed on my 2-yearold niece.

I am happy to see my niece and interact with her, but I find it impossible to have any kind of meaningful conversation with my sister in this format. I tend to keep these video conversations brief.

Months ago, my sister complained that I don’t really talk to her anymore, so I explained that it is difficult when every time we talk, the camera is pointed at my niece. She replied, “Well, (niece) just wants to see you!”

I know she does this same video call thing with my mom, who absolutely loves it. How can I tell my sister that this is a real problem for me? I know she is sensitive about this topic and I feel like this is a potential minefield!

Gentle reader: It may be worse than sensitivity. You may be threatening a few precious moments of your sister’s sanity.

While your niece is on the phone with you, her mother may be getting a quick chance to wash a dish or dash off an email. This might be why she is reluctant to change the system.

Miss Manners suggests that you address both problems — delicately. Ask for separate calls, making certain to start each week with the niece. Then tell your sister that, having spent valuable one-on-one time with the little one, you would now love to have a grown-up chat just with her.

Acknowledging both needs (even if indirectly) and agreeing to do your part will go a long way toward getting your own time together.

Dear Miss Manners:

Through an intense elimination diet and intermittent fasting, my aunt has finally achieved a healthy weight after many years of unsuccessful dieting. We are all happy for her, but her fraught relationship with food is ruining the holidays and birthdays my family and I spend with her.

When she hosts and cooks for us, she serves desserts in big portions. When I cook for her, I also serve dessert, while trying to accommodate her dietary restrictions and the expectations of my family. In both cases, at dessert time, she almost always talks about how she never eats sugar anymore, how she does not intend to eat any now, and then finally how she cannot help herself from eating some.

Afterward, she continually talks about how badly the sugar has affected her and how much weight she gained from it.

When she hosts, she sends us home with all the leftover dessert, and I feel obliged to take it even though it is often more than even my big family can eat. And when I host, I feel like I am forcing her to eat something she thinks is bad for her.

I love her and want her to share in these celebrations with my family but, having a little postpartum weight to lose myself, I do not appreciate being reminded of calories right before enjoying some celebratory indulgence.

Is there any way to shield myself and my family from her weird food anxieties? A big part of her identity is having the “correct” views on food and wellness, so I fear anything I say to her about this will be taken poorly.

Gentle reader: What would you say to her?

That her food anxiety is communicable, a bore or both? Miss Manners agrees that, even if this were not rude, it would not work. Better to change the subject — as often as necessary.

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I have four children, each born two years apart and in the same month of the year, leading to a variety of observations and comments from many. Several people have actually gone as far as to ask me how this precise spacing was achieved, and I’m never sure how to reply. Should I give them details?

Gentle reader: Good gracious, no. Please don’t even give Miss Manners the details.

To your nosy questioners, you should respond, “In the usual way. If you don’t know, please ask someone you know better to explain it to you.”