Dear Queenie,
My son and his family moved in with us (me and his father) when my son lost his job. My problem is the way my daughter-in-law spoils their 8-year-old daughter, my granddaughter.
The girl doesn’t even try to keep her room neat and clean and uses very bad language when I try to tell her to do better. When I or my son (her father) scold the little girl or try to show her how to do better, my daughter-in-law gets mad at us, but not at her for whatever she has done wrong.
Queenie, how do we get my daughter-in-law to be a better mother?—Fed-up grandmother
Dear Grandmother,
Your granddaughter will grow up without many friends, if any at all, and if she uses bad language she surely must get in trouble at school, but if she does better there she apparently does not carry the lesson home.
Professional parental counselling, if you can persuade her to go for it, might make more of an impression on your daughter-in-law than you or her husband have been able to do. Meanwhile, for the child’s sake keep trying.
