Shower the baby with love
Dear Amy: I know I’m oldfashioned, but I still think I’m right!
My son has been dating a young lady for about six months. They live together. She has a 3-year-old child and no relationship with that child’s father.
Now she and my son are expecting a child together.
I am not thrilled. He is 29 and she is 24.
They would like me to host a baby shower for them.
I’m sure I’ll love the baby, but I am not comfortable asking friends and family to celebrate this pregnancy.
I don’t want to alienate them, but I really don’t want to do this. I did offer to host a wedding for them. I think parents should be married.
Reluctant Grandma
Dear Reluctant: If you don’t want to host a shower for the baby, perhaps the child’s mother has someone in her life who will step up.
If you refuse to celebrate this pregnancy, and you won’t ask, expect or encourage others to celebrate this pregnancy, then — aside from the couple’s marital status — this baby is already starting life disadvantaged.
Baby showers are intended to create a circle of support for expectant parents, but they are really supposed to be about the baby.
Your old-fashioned standards are putting a burden on a baby that didn’t ask to come into this world and hasn’t been born yet.
Imagine the difference for a child who is born into an accepting and welcoming relationship with its grandmother, versus a grandmother who disapproves of and is disappointed by its existence because of the parents’ marital status.
It is understandable and natural not to be thrilled by an unexpected pregnancy to unmarried parents who haven’t been together for very long. But the time to start the process of learning to love this baby is now.
Dear Amy: I am a 37-yearold wife and mother of two children. I have had rheumatoid arthritis for eight years.
I have a handicap placard for my vehicle, which I try to use only on those days that my rheumatoid arthritis makes it difficult to walk a distance in the parking lot of the businesses I visit.
On several occasions, older people have seen my family and me getting out of the car and have made rude comments suggesting that none of us is handicapped and so I should not be parking in the space.
I even had one person ask me if I had a handicapped child in the back of my Suburban that would allow me to park in handicap parking!
How do I respond to these hurtful, frustrating comments in a kind way, or should I just leave it alone?
Doing My Best in Oregon
Dear Oregon: I am so sorry this happens to you and your family. Rheumatoid arthritis is a serious, progressive, painful autoimmune disorder that leads to extreme fatigue, joint inflammation and pain.
You should not have to explain this to anyone. You have the right to use your handicap placard any day you want — not only when you are feeling your worst.
When I hear stories like yours, I think: People are the worst! And yet you’ve asked for a “kind way” to respond to this rudeness, which restores my faith in humanity.
The way you signed your question (“Doing My Best”) suggests a great response to this sort of aggression, and it could be used in front of your kids: “I’m doing my very best today. Are you?”