My Twins’ Pre-K has Unconscionable Plans for the Thanksgiving Program. Uh, No Way.

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding, 

My twins are in public pre-k, we love that our community in Texas offers this and were so thrilled to enroll and support our public schools. Curriculum-wise, I haven’t had much of an issue, until now. There is a Thanksgiving program planned and our pre-k class was asked to dress as pilgrims. I know many of us dressed in far more problematic attire and participated in ridiculous school activities that were not at all representative of what actually occurred, but pilgrims were awful people and I don’t want my kids (twins) to be dressed like puritan jerks. I discussed this politely with their principal and from all vague responses that I can gather, my kids will be singled out from participating and either separated to be with another class or not participate at all. Another parent in our class suggested that I start a petition, but we are just one pre-k class. Am I overreacting or is this something I should keep fighting? I don’t want my kids to be singled out, but I also don’t want them being sold a lie.

—Thanksgiving Dilemma

Dear Dilemma,

It sounds like you don’t want to make a bigger deal out of it than you already have (which, by the way, was totally appropriate—how do these kinds of things still go on!). Here’s my radical suggestion: skip school that day and take your kids to do something wholesome. Go to the natural history museum or the aquarium, or the local historical society. Or the trampoline park! They will forget that there even was a school event, and you can just avoid the whole thing—this time at least! Your kids’ absence might communicate a point to the teacher, too.

Dear Care and Feeding, 

My spouse is depressed, and I don’t know how I can help them. We’ve had a rough few years: a family member of mine had a life-changing injury and I’m now one of their caretakers, and we went through a long stretch of infertility. These two circumstances really upended our life, and my own mental health problems took a real toll on me and our relationship. We’ve since had a baby, and I’ve been able to mostly pull myself out of the fog of my own depression—only to find out how much my spouse is suffering.

After months of fighting they finally opened up to me about all of what they’ve been going through. They feel like they are in a dead end job (they work in a space similar to that of actors or artists, where if you don’t ever get a big break you’re relegated to low paying jobs, or jobs completely outside of your desired field just to pay the bills). Their body is falling apart and they can’t work out like they used to (we’re in our 40s). And, they aren’t getting enough intimacy from me.

The problem is the way their depression manifests is through anger and outbursts about things a healthy and stable person would be easily able to brush off. To be with them at home is to be in a minefield—which doesn’t lend itself to me wanting to be intimate with them.

Watching my spouse go from the happy, carefree, kind person I fell in love with to this feels impossible, especially when so much of what’s affecting them is out of my control. I try to talk to them about trying therapy or medication and they’ve refused. I ask what I can do to make things easier for them; they give me vague instructions—and then get mad at me when I don’t follow them correctly. I keep taking on more and more of our household and life duties, only to find myself stretched so completely thin that I can barely keep up at my own full-time job. I’m honestly at my wits end on what I can do, if they refuse to help themselves.

—Barely Holding it All Together

Dear Barely Holding it All Together,

I am so sorry that your partner is struggling so much, and that your home—which should be a sanctuary—is a minefield, as you describe it. It’s so stressful. I have one potentially-simple suggestion to make things a little easier, and then one that’s not simple at all.

Ok, the simple one first: You mention taking on household duties to ease their burden. Is there anything you can outsource, like sending out your laundry or paying someone to cook or clean for you? This wouldn’t have to be forever, and it may ease your current burden and give you a little more bandwidth for work and your baby.

But you’ve got a bigger issue than this. Your spouse is refusing real help from professionals, and taking out their frustration on you. They are blaming external factors—lack of exercise, an unsatisfying career, not enough intimacy with you—for things that they could exert some control over. This isn’t going to get better on its own. And I hate to say it, but accommodating their behavior is only going to make things worse. It is so painful to watch someone you love suffer, but sympathizing and taking on their responsibilities is only going to give them more room to wallow.

You said it yourself: they are refusing to help themselves. You need to give them an ultimatum: pull it together, get some professional help, and make an effort to get on a better track. Or you are going (with the baby) to stay with someone else (mom/friend/sibling/cousin) for a little while. If going elsewhere isn’t an option for you, you can still pull back and focus on taking care of yourself and your needs, rather than continuing to ask them what they need from you. And if they get mad at you for not doing things “correctly”, tell them that you’re not going to be berated like that—end of conversation.

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Dear Care and Feeding, 

My niece was 2 the first time she called me fat. She said I was “too fluffy” to play with her in the corner of the room. She said “only skinny people like Mommy” could play with her (My BMI puts me firmly in the “obese” range). She’s seven now, and doesn’t finish her lunch—sometimes she doesn’t eat it at all. She says she “wants to be small” and “likes being small.” She never finishes a meal, whether it’s healthy stuff or fun-to-eat kid stuff.

My mom talks about weight all the time. My sister talks about weight all the time. She has two friends who have had gastric bypass and chocks up the changes in their weight to “finally having some control over what they eat.” “You eat less, because you’re finally forced to, and you lose weight. It’s easy,” is how she describes the surgery within earshot of the kids.

I’m concerned that my niece has an eating disorder—but I’m not sure how we as a family can fix it. Or if she can even absorb what my sister is saying about weight. Is there anything I can do about it all?

—The Fat Aunt

Dear Fat Aunt,

It is so hard to undo handed-down family judgment around weight and food, and it takes a ton of effort to break the kind of cycle you describe. It sounds like you have for yourself, and that’s great. The more you can model healthy attitudes about food and bodies, the better.

As for your niece: I am not an expert, but not finishing meals, or even skipping one here and there, isn’t out of the ordinary for kids. But if you see other concerning signs—refusal to eat, losing weight, anxiety around food, irritability—it’s time to intervene and talk to your sister. Keep the conversation as focused on the concerning facts as possible; the goal is to get your sister to bring up her daughter’s behavior with a doctor who can evaluate things, not to change her ingrained view of weight. Hopefully, as your niece gets older and is exposed to different bodies and attitudes about bodies and health, she can see that the way her mom talks about weight is no good for anyone.

But unfortunately, I don’t think there is much you can do about how your mom and sister talk about weight around your niece, or about her eating habits. What you can do is be yourself, be neutral about meals together, and model healthy attitudes about food and bodies. In the long run, just doing that might be extremely helpful for your niece.

—Hillary

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My 25-year-old daughter wants to spend Christmas with her dad (my ex-husband), and I am furious. Four years ago, her dad blindsided me by announcing that he was divorcing me because he “was not happy and he thought he could become happy” (with his secret affair partner of a couple of years, as I soon found out). Our daughter was living at home at the time, having left college due to anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Asked what he thought that timing would do to our daughter, he replied “Oh I haven’t thought about her at all,” and then he left. I still pay our daughter’s rent and living expenses, to help reduce the risk of her breaking down again. But now that she’s spending the holidays with my ex, I am thinking about withdrawing my financial support.