Smart home turning this husband into Big Brother

DEAR AMY >> In this age of “smart homes,” where everything can be synched up by an app with notifications, are we wrong to feel a loss of privacy?

I work from home, so I am mainly at home during the day.

My husband gets alerts every time the front door is opened. If a package is delivered, he receives an image of the package. He can track the electricity usage from our solar production. He can turn off the lights and open the skylight from his phone.

Today he texted me that I shouldn’t be running the dryer during certain peak hours. He then shut it off remotely!

I have nothing to hide, but am increasingly annoyed that my own actions are being tracked.

He’s micromanaging me from afar!

How should I handle this?

— Living in the Future DEAR LIVING >> I think you should send yourself a big bouquet of flowers and have it delivered during your husband’s peak “watching hours,” which I guess is all day long.

On the card, write: “Kindly stop watching me, dear. I don’t like it.”

I wish people were more aware of the potential negative impact these devices and systems can have on our personal lives and relationships.

For instance, your husband, who cannot resist the temptation to control you and your house, likely has more privacy in a crowded office than you have at home.

Once you surrender your privacy, and your freedom to make choices, including mistakes, without interference, what do you have left? An ongoing relationship with Big Brother.

If you cannot persuade your husband to respect your privacy and detach from you during the day, then you should find a coworking space, a coffee shop, or a garden shed to work out of to escape his surveillance.

DEAR AMY >> I’m a 30-yearold woman who lives with my boyfriend. I’ve had several weddings in the past few years for friends and family, and I’m happy for all of them.

HOWEVER, I am sick of attending bridal showers when the couple has lived together for years and is financially stable. It feels gift grabby. Showers originated for couples moving out of their parents’ homes and living with each other for the first time — people “just starting out” with empty homes.

Showers also harken to traditional gender roles — I feel silly buying cooking tools for “Lindsey’s shower” when I know it’s her fiance who does the cooking.

Am I being a curmudgeon? Many of these couples have lived together for years in furnished homes, and items will be used by both the man and woman, yet expect only their female friends (not males) to provide new domestic items. It also is a gross reminder of consumer culture wherein people collect mounds of junk they don’t need.

My mother said that even if I don’t attend, I’d still have to send a gift just because I was invited!

Who is right?

— Fed Up

DEAR FED UP >> If an invitation alone obligated a person to provide a gift, then we’d all receive a lot more disingenuous invitations.

If you don’t attend a shower, you are not obligated to send a gift (although some people choose to send gifts, regardless).

I agree with you about consumer culture and gender roles. However, when you give a gift at a shower, it is intended as a gift for both parties (and not all showers are cisgendered affairs). I also don’t think it is up to you to decide whether a couple “needs” dish towels or a blender. Attend with an open mind, or don’t attend.

Some marrying couples are getting creative about showers; for couples who are already well-equipped with traditional showertype gifts, I love the idea of a “charity shower,” where guests are encouraged to bring food, toiletries, school backpacks to fill, or cash, for a charity of the couple’s choosing.

DEAR AMY >> I’m a former foster child. As an adult, I moved 1,500 miles away from my toxic family.

I’ve been friendly with my maternal aunt, who I lived with short term while a teenager.

I’m now early 40s. She’s been asking for 10 years for me to travel to a vacation destination in the Midwest (a four-hour drive for her) to acquaint our families (my child, her grandchildren) with one another.

I made the leap and bought airline tickets in January for a five-day visit with my aunt, her daughter and grandchildren.

She offered to pay for a hotel for us, which is beyond kind.

Now we are close to the visit date and so I checked in with her. She told me that due to busy

schedules she can only spare a day and a half to visit, and no mention of hotel payment.

I emailed her that I understand busy schedules, but I feel that I’m not important and this was a big deal to make this trip, BUT I’ll make the best of it and get an inexpensive motel (I can’t afford the hotel she’s staying at). Now there is no response (cold shoulder is used to control situations on this side of my family).

What would you do? Call her? Let it go and just do a vacation with my family? I’m feeling like I should have known better.

— Burned Again

DEAR BURNED AGAIN: YES,

YOU SHOULD CALL HER. YOU’VE ALREADY GOT IN YOUR DIG >> “I feel that I’m not important, BUT I’ll make the best of it.”

Those aren’t the words of someone who is actually ready to make the best of it. And I don’t blame you a bit.

I think you should take a breath and decide whether you want to make this trip at all. This is one of those times when you may be better off cutting your losses — losing the cost of the airline tickets, versus spending even more — financially and emotionally — to make this trip.

Once you make your choice, own it. If you go, definitely make the best of it. It’s possible that a personal reconnection might be good for you. You’re an adult now, and putting some of these pieces into place as a mature person might invite growth. If you get burned — again — you will have your own immediate family to surround and support you.

DEAR AMY >> I did some volunteer work at an eldercare facility. I was sad to see how many people’s families paid for their care, but didn’t come to visit.

But after a while I learned that many of these people who were so nice to me at the eldercare facility had been terrible parents.

They had alienated their children for years and now when they needed their families, they had no relationship to draw upon.

I’m no longer so quick to criticize.

— Been There

DEAR BEEN THERE >> A friend of mine does important research on family estrangement. He told me that quite often elderly parents will report that an estrangement happened “for no reason.” When he digs deeper into an interview, he frequently unearths a very good reason — along with a lot of denial.

Generally, in relationships, we all reap what we sow.

I assume that nursing home staff have a lot of insight into family dynamics and its impact on the care and attention elders receive from their children. But it is challenging, and perhaps unfair, to judge people based on a narrow knowledge of them close to the end of their lives.