Q. Bad parenting: My sister and her husband have three daughters and one son, “Andy,” who is 6. Andy is the youngest and is bullied relentlessly by his sisters. I’d say this is pretty typical behavior, except that Andy’s parents join in once he starts crying! Once Andy starts crying, his parents and his sisters all start calling him “Andrea” and talking about him like he’s a girl. Not only do I think misgendering a child as a punishment for being bullied is incredibly cruel, but it’s not even an effective punishment. Once they start doing it, Andy’s behavior degenerates even further and he goes into a rage. I’ve told my sister I object to this, and she says Andy needs to “man up,” and when I have my own kids, I can raise them how I want. I think at this rate my nephew is going to grow up to be a serial killer. Help.

         Q. Ex-stepdaughter’s relationship: I share custody of my 11-year-old daughter with my ex. My problem is with my 14-year-old ex-stepdaughter. She is “dating” a 22-year-old man. This is clear statutory rape in our state. My ex encourages the relationship and brags about it. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want him spending the night; I don’t want him around either of the girls. My stepdaughter doesn’t want to listen to me anymore (I raised her from age 8), and my ex doesn’t think I get to “mouth off” about her mothering skills. She thinks birth control is for “sluts,” but having a grown man sleep in her teenage daughter’s bed is perfectly innocent. I am worried my stepdaughter is going to wreck her life.        

         Moreover, I’m worried about my own daughter. The boyfriend brings friends over who have made sexual comments about her. She dislikes it, and I am ready to go to back to court. I work a lot and make little money. I have enough evidence (texts and emails) where I could bury my ex, but it would leave my stepdaughter alone. I love her, and she called me Dad until a year ago. How do I save both of them?    

Dear Ex-Step,

Are you high?  Call the cops.  You don’t need permission to call the cops. 

Hell, I’ll call ‘em, where you live?

         Q. The second shift in 2019? When I’m 23? My boyfriend and I live together and we’re incredibly happy. We’re in our early 20s and live in New York with two full-time jobs and side hustles. We’re both equally ambitious and serious about our future, both professionally and as a couple.        

         I typically beat him home from work, and while I admit I tend to be the neater roommate and more inclined in the kitchen, we have fallen in the habit of me taking over the cleaning and cooking. My boyfriend vocalizes that he’s appreciative of everything I do but groans and drags his feet when I ask him to help out too. We’ve had the conversation multiple times, both light-heartedly and seriously. It does take a toll on me. I enjoy both activities of cooking and cleaning (being a neat freak and vegan home chef will do that to you), but I can’t help but think this might be a red flag down the road. If I’m 23 and already dutifully showing up for the second shift as we build our life together, what will happen when we’re 43 (hopefully with kids) and still in this pattern?    

Dear House Bitch,

Red flag?  Okay, this is me waving you off the runway with giant fucking red flags! 

Look, division of the labor in the home should always be equal between two working partners.  If you were unemployed, then I would say that cooking and cleaning should be your job since we all gotta work. 

As a vegan chef and someone who likes to clean how I like to clean, I feel you, I completely do.  But Mr. Bitch is always asking if he can help and never complains. 

It sounds like someone didn’t raise your boyfriend right.

This sounds like the man who calls watching his own kids “babysitting.” 

If you stay with this man, you’ll end up the house bitch. You’ll work all day, come home, take care of everything, and he’ll be watching the football game, and then playing video games when it comes time to bath the kids and put them to bed.  You’ll ask for help, he’ll sigh and make a big show out of how much he hates it - teaching that behavior to your kids btw - and then eventually he’ll move into the classic, “But I worked all day, I just want to watch the game!” excuse.  You’ll yell back that you worked all day too and you’re still working and that it’s not hard.

And then you’ll either put up with it and his dismissal of you as a person and a woman, you’ll separate and he’ll be shit on his own with the kids and you’ll still have all the work, or he’ll start seeing another woman complaining that “you don’t treat him like a real man,” and you’ll break up where you get stuck with the kids and the bills while he fucks off with another woman whose life he’ll ruin as soon as she figures out his game.

Any man worth his salt knows two things -

1.  Women still do the majority of all work in the home and it’s bullshit.

2.  He better fucking ask to help and do so cheerfully so long as he’s only being asked to do his equal half.  You cook, he cleans, and we can both complain about chores, but not to blame the other. 

You think I like to mop and Mr. Bitch likes to vacuum?  Hell no.  But we do it, then sit down together and go, “Fucking adulting, right?”  And that’s it.  Be blah about your home work together, not in opposition to each other.

Leave him, he wasn’t raised right and it’s likely if he does change, it’ll only be temporary.  Certainly make sure you don’t breed with him. 

It’s hard (but not impossible) to be in a bad mood when someone is singing about the sun coming out. And who better to do that than The Beatles? Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doHere comes the sunAnd I say, “It’s all right” Similarly… The sun is up, the sky is blueIt’s beautiful and so are you Those are lyrics from Here Comes the Sun and Dear Prudence… in case you didn’t recognize them. Daily…