Category: Family Drama

A Dear Snarky Holiday Buffet

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So many Christmas conundrums. So little time. In an attempt to help spread some holiday happiness I bring you a trio of letters. Let’s hope my answers deliver a soupçon of seasonal sanity to your family gatherings.

Screen Shot 2018-12-17 at 10.12.49 AMDear Snarky,

My mother-in-law spoils my children and goes overboard with presents. I’ve told her to stop but she won’t listen to me. I don’t think I can handle another Christmas where she’s trying to one up my husband and I in the gift department.

 Signed, Present Overkill

Dear Overkill,

Calm yourself and count your blessings. It’s a grandmother’s prerogative and great joy to spoil her grandchildren. If your kids are drowning in presents, I suggest discreetly donating some of the goodies to charity after the first of the year. P.S. Quit looking so hard for something to get your nose out of joint about. There are parents out there that would be THRILLED for their kids’ grandparents to so much as send a card.

Dear Snarky,

My weirdo and single sister actually expects us to buy a gift for her dog. She says her dog is like her child and since she buys presents for my four kids all the time, we can get her dog something.

Signed, No Way

Dear No Way,

Umm, no way, I say, yes way. Drag yourself off of your high horse and go get your sister’s dog a $10 chew toy and get over yourself. Also, being a pet lover and a single doesn’t make you a weirdo. It probably makes you very happy.

Dear Snarky,

My in-laws make the whole family go to Midnight Mass and I think it ruins Christmas morning for my kids (ages 8 and 10) because they’re so tired the next day. How do I get this tradition to stop?

 Signed, Not a Fan 

Dear Not a Fan,

Grab some caffeine and accept this hard truth. Midnight Mass isn’t going anywhere, and you know where you’re going – uh huh, that’s right to Midnight Mass. So, suck it up, have your kids take a nap and deal with traditions that are older than you are.

*I hope your holidays are drama free BUT if they’re not you know where to send your letter. snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com 😉

Dear Snarky My Sister Doesn’t Give a Shit

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Dear Snarky,

I’ve got a summer family feud brewing. My sister is doing some ridiculous thing called “free training” her bScreen Shot 2018-06-15 at 1.21.07 PMaby. This is when your baby never wears a diaper and just does his business anywhere. It’s supposed to be a gentler form of potty training. To each his own, but my problem is when my sister’s family stayed at my house over Memorial Day weekend and my “free training” nephew used not only my entire home as his bathroom, but he also pooped in the pool resulting in us having to do a shock treatment and making the pool unusable for most of the long weekend.

All of this made me dis-invite my sister and her family for July 4th. My sister is now furious and is accusing me of not respecting her parenting style.

I need to shut this down now. Any advice?

Signed, What’s Wrong with a Diaper?

Dear Diaper,

The only way to shut this down is to give in to your sister and I strongly suggest you don’t do that. Because here’s the deal – just because someone has a preferred parenting style doesn’t mean they can subject the rest of the world to it.

It is totally your sister’s own business if she doesn’t want to put a diaper on her son and let him view his home and yard as one great big toilet. It’s whole other box of Pampers if she feels it’s okay for her off spring to soil property outside of their home. Beyond the disgusting factor, which is off the charts high, it’s also a public health issue.

The fact that your sister thought it was okay to let her child defecate all over your home makes me think she’s about 10 kinds of crazy. Do not cave on this issue. Just tell her that you respect your home more than her parenting style.

If you have a question for Dear Snarky – 21st Century Parenting Advice With an Attitude – please email snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com

Dear Snarky – I Posted A Mug Shot of My Sister-in-Law on Facebook

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Dear Snarkydear_snarky_logo-1

I might have caused a forever-family rift and I need your help. We did a huge family spring break trip to the beach and because we were just with family some of the moms, including myself, wore swimsuits that we would never wear back home.  We looked horrible and super fat, but didn’t care because we were with people who shouldn’t judge us about how we look.

Well, a week after the vacation my super skinny sister-in-law, posted our fat ass bikini pics on her Facebook page! We were all furious. So, a couple of days later I posted a mug shot, from probably 5 years ago, on my page of my sister-in-law when she was arrested for a drunk and disorderly with the tag “throwbackthursday.”

Now, everyone, except the other moms in the bikini pic, hates me and my father told me that because of me all of our “family vacations” are in jeopardy. I already apologized and took the picture down. Is there really anything else I can do? Oh and my sister-in-law still has that bikini picture up on Facebook.

Signed, Sort of Sorry 

Dear Sorry,

I’m not going to say your sister-in-law didn’t deserve a little payback but the mug shot was probably going to far. I think a social media sharing of an arrest trumps a stomach flab status update any way you look at. So, my suggestion is why don’t you and maybe your entire family take a break from kinfolk vacations for a long while. Let feelings simmer down and allow sometime for everyone to get over it or until a messy divorce takes center stage.

I would also suggest no more family beach vacations and next spring break opt for a ski trip where everyone is wearing puffy clothes. Plus, always and I mean always, beware of your sister-in-law. Trust me eventually she’s going to exact revenge.

*If you have a question for Dear Snarky 21st Century Advice with an Attitude please email me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or private message me on my Snarky Facebook page.

Dear Snarky – My Sister-In-Law’s Family Ruined Christmas

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f784f548f08fa691c849dbf4f8b634c1Dear Snarky,

Thank God, I’m finally home after spending Christmas at my sister-in-law’s house. It was a disaster. I’ve never met such a cliquey group of people before. Her entire family separated themselves from the rest of the guests the entire day. If everyone was in the family room they would be in living room. If you tried to mingle with them you would pretty much get ignored. It was unbelievably uncomfortable.

I told my husband I’m never subjecting myself to another Christmas day like that again and while he agreed with me that his brother’s wife relatives are F’ing nuts he told me we just had to deal with it because it’s family.

Umm, it’s not my family and his sister-in-law’s relatives are not his family so I think next year and the year after that etc we can just take a pass on Christmas with this bunch of cold fish.

What do you think Snarky I’m a right?

Signed,

Still Pissed

Dear Pissed,

The big old extended family get together is one of those things that sounds good in theory, (like buying your pants too small to encourage you to lose weight) but in reality it can be a hot mess (i.e. you now have no pants to wear). Sure it’s supposed to be all Hallmark Channel lovey dovey, but it never seems to work out that way.

And in your case you really were spending time with almost strangers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if the strangers are open to becoming friends, but it seems your sister-in-law’s family wanted nothing to do with the co-mingling of kin.

That was a long way of me saying that I agree with 100%. Having to experience an awkward Christmas every year is no fun and who made your sister-in-law the Queen of the holidays? Another good questions is why do you have to have Christmas at her house every year? Wouldn’t it be more fair and, dare I say, more fun if it rotated?

I would suggest all this now while the memory of the crappy Christmas is still fresh in everyone’s mind and get some sort of action plan for next year and beyond in place.

Also, because families can have, shall we say, varied interpretations of the facts I would do this all via email so you have a “hard” copy of the discussion. This will serve as evidence so no one next December can pull a “What are you talking about I didn’t agree to this?” stunt. If and when this happens all you will need to do is share the time stamped and dated emails to shut them down.

*If you have questions for Dear Snarky please email me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or click on the Snarky Facebook icon at the top right hand corner of this page and send me a private message on Facebook.

P.S. You’re going to have to relike Snarky on Facebook since my site got hacked.