Grandparents resent entitled child’s drama

Dear Amy: My husband and I have two granddaughters whom we cherish.

I am growing increasingly concerned with the behavior of their parents toward the youngest one.

“Camille” has always been the “drama queen.”

If she didn’t get her way, she pitched a fit, and her parents acquiesced.

As she got older, they catered to most every whim and almost always deferred to her.

Camille has refused to get the COVID-19 vaccination and her parents will not insist on it.

She is a young adult, and I think her parents can and should educate her on the necessity of getting the vaccination and demand that, as long as she is living with them and they are paying her way in life, she must comply for her safety and the safety of those around her.

Our other granddaughter is given “a back seat” to her sister.

Any suggestions as to what should be done?

— Concerned Granny

Dear Granny: The best part of being a grandparent is also occasionally the most frustrating part: You are not the parent!

Yippee! You don’t have to deal with the daily stuff and nonsense of everyday parenting.

You have every right to share your own valuable perspective on parenting with your own children, but you can’t make them follow your own commonsense advice.

Now that these two grandchildren are older, it is appropriate for you to treat them individually, to forge more adultlike relationships with them, and to react with proportional consequences regarding their behavior — without resorting to “drama.”

So, if “Camille” refuses to be vaccinated, you can explain to her why this is necessary and how her vaccination status could have a direct impact on you.

If she continues to refuse the vaccine, you likely are not going to want to spend time in proximity to her.

That’s the logical consequence of her choice.

Dear Amy: I am writing in response to “Not Me, Too” whose male friend groped a woman she knew.

I relate to the groping victim in this story.

When my fiance and I first began dating, his best friend groped me soon after we met.

I mentioned it to my boyfriend, and he brushed it off, saying that his friend is “physically affectionate with everyone.”

Well, when the #MeToo movement rolled around the following year, it all came back to me, as well as some whispers of the friend being “overly affectionate” with other women in our group. Even though I had become friends with my boyfriend’s friend by this time, it still upset me.

I told my boyfriend that he needed to talk to his friend. He did. He took him out for drinks and explained that his actions had hurt people, and if he continued, we wouldn’t be able to socialize with him anymore.

It was a tough conversation, but in the end, his friend thanked my boyfriend for confronting him. He said he wasn’t aware of just how hurtful his actions had been.

He apologized to me, as well as a few other women. He went to therapy. He changed.

We still count him as one of our closest friends.

— A #MeToo Success Story

Dear Success Story: It is almost impossible to believe that anyone might not understand how gross and offensive groping another person is, but I’m glad that your friend was forced toward awareness.

Dear Amy: I’m writing about the woman that claims her boyfriend’s friend grabbed her behind 10 or 20 years ago and a few times since, and felt it necessary to brand this guy a sexual predator on Facebook by tagging it #MeToo.

I ran this by my wife of 35 years, and we were both curious why the woman didn’t respond each time with a loud “Quit grabbing my behind!” and, as I have taught my daughter, if needs be, poked him in the eye with her fingernails?

Embarrassing him and sending him to the optometrist would have most likely stopped any future unwanted groping.

— Just Sayin’

Dear Just Sayin’: Not all people are able to respond to assault by countering the assault.

Your very glib response is part of the problem, in my opinion.