Dear Snarky,
I think I need to get my nephew out of my daughter’s third grade class. The problem isn’t my sweet nephew. It’s his mother – my sister-in-law. She’s the most competitive person I have ever met. My nephew was in private school until my sister-in-law decided it wasn’t good enough so lo and behold now he’s in public school and in my daughter’s class.
This means for the entire school year all I will hear about and see on social media is how much better her son is than my daughter. Also, my sister-in-law will attempt to totally take over the class by basically camping out at the school.
I’m getting anxiety just thinking about it. Do you think I’m overreacting or would you change classes?
Signed, Worried
Dear Worried,
I think there’s a lot more going on here than you’re telling me because I see this as an adult problem being projected onto the children. Since you called your nephew sweet and you don’t mention any conflict between the cousins than I think both would do just fine together in the same class and that it would even be comforting for your nephew – new to the school – to have his cousin there to help him learn the ropes.
Yes, your sister-in-law sounds like a piece of work, but do you want to spend the rest of your child’s entire school career dodging this woman? The loser won’t be you it will be your daughter as you yank her out of this and that so you don’t have to deal with your sister-in-law. Why do you want to give this relative that much control over your life? You need to find a better coping mechanism than playing musical chairs with your child.
You can, in fact, choose to not to engage in your sister-in-law’s competitive games and when she goes off the rails just do what my mother always did when a family member tried to stir up drama and say, “well bless her heart” and move on.
Snarky in the Suburbs 