Something to Sneeze At
Visiting a cat lovers' house, plus a hard-drinking man and an inconvenient flower girl.
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Cat hair is everywhere in my parents' house, and I am extremely allergic to their cats. The last time my husband, three children, and I visited, my 4-year-old had an extreme allergic reaction. It was difficult to see him so swollen and miserable. I have politely asked my parents to have their house professionally cleaned, but my father refuses, because he does not trust strangers in the house. When my parents visit, I attempt to make them as comfortable as possible and am hurt that they do not do the same for their grandchildren. Any suggestions?
L.M. in Brookline, New Hampshire
Stay in a hotel the next time you visit them, and insist that you get together either in your hotel room or in restaurants or similar neutral (and hypoallergenic) ground. Or tell them flat-out that future visits need to be on your home turf. There's no point getting into a battle of wills about a cleaning service - especially because such a service might not do much good. The accumulated hair of a handful of cats is not something that can be eradicated in an afternoon by even the most experienced and thorough of cleaners. And people who are allergic to cats are allergic to the cat's saliva and dander, not the cat's hair, so even a cat in a sterile environment might trigger allergies in someone as sensitive as you or your son.
Set the new rules and stick to them firmly and without getting drawn into arguments. I'm sorry for the hurt that your parents have caused you by their cavalier attitude, but you don't have control over their actions. What you do have control over is the extent to which you are willing to protect and respect your son. If you keep forcing him into an environment that literally makes him sick, he'll feel even more abandoned and uncared-for than you do now.
When a group of my female friends and I have had get-togethers that include husbands and significant others, one husband consumes as much alcohol as the rest of the party put together. The first time, we divided the bill equally, which did not go over well with the light drinkers and nondrinkers. The next time, I suggested we all pay for our own orders, but the husband in question underestimated his share. Rather than confront a drunk, the rest all contributed additional money. In the future, would it be appropriate to suggest that the server set up a separate bar tab for that couple? How else would you handle it?
D.H. in Boylston
Having a separate bar tab for just one couple seems unnecessarily stigmatizing. "All of us together, separate checks for the boozehound and his codependent wife over there, please." Separate checks for each couple, however, is not a bad solution.
Depending on the personalities involved, you might want to speak to the drinker's wife in advance about this change in policy. You want to save her embarrassment, and you would have a better sense than I do of whether she'd be more self-conscious if you told her your intentions than if you just went ahead and did it.
We're planning a wedding and would like to ask a cousin's daughter to be the flower girl. We have many adult cousins who will be invited, but we won't be able to invite all of their children. Is it proper to have the flower girl at the ceremony but not at the reception? If not, is it OK to have her at the reception and not her siblings?
M.L. in Dover
Anyone who pretends to tell you what is "proper" at a wedding these days is making things up. There's too much diversity in our culture, and even within families, to make the kind of rigid rules we once did. And the traditional rituals and symbols of a wedding may not feel appropriate to the previously married, to couples who have lived together for years, to gay couples, to interfaith couples.
So rather than ask what's "proper," a better question is what is practical and kind. And I don't really see how your suggestions are either. Not inviting the flower girl to the reception is downright mean - oh, you're good enough to schlep some rose petals around, but not to eat with us? I don't think so. And you can't very well include her in the reception and not her siblings; think what family problems that could cause.
The most practical policy is to either have children at your wedding, or not. Having a few specially chosen "token" children will work about as well as tokenism always does.
If you want to exclude some family kids on the same basis that you'd exclude any other relative - because you don't know them or aren't close - that's one thing. But how can you be close to the flower girl and not her siblings? Did you just choose her because she's cute and photogenic, and not because she's someone you love and want to have as a participant in your celebration? If so, you're treating her like a prop, not a person.
My Word!
Dog lovers should be understanding of people who fear dogs. Smiling looks an awful lot like baring teeth, and the friendly, submissive plastered-down ears look an awful lot like the "I'm going to rip your throat out" plastered-down ears. Dogs can be hard to read, and a person who didn't grow up with them - or who grew up with some badly trained ones - has every reason to approach them with hesitation, or not at all.
Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.
